You can’t silence the data when it’s so deafening: The poor have borne the cost of tax and welfare reforms.
This article was published in Left Foot Forward.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has published today the distributional results for the effects of tax and welfare reforms since 2010. The report presents the disaggregated impact of the changes made to Income Tax, NICs, VAT, social security benefits, tax credits, Universal Credit, and National Minimum and Living Wages.
The data is both illuminating and excruciating.
Let’s start with the good news (Figure 1). The top 10% paid a little bit extra through indirect taxes (VAT and others), and the introduction of the National Living Wage had a positive impact across the board, but more so for the bottom half of society.
And now the rest. The largest cash gains from Income Tax and NICs went to the wealthiest, particularly the top 30%. The poorest adults did not get much out of it either because…
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