COVID-19 and Inequalities.

This paper brings together evidence from various data sources and the most recent studies to describe what we know so far about the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on inequalities across several key domains of life, including employment and ability to earn, family life and health. We show how these new fissures interact with existing inequalities along various key dimensions, including socio-economic status, education, age, gender, ethnicity and geography. We find that the deep underlying inequalities and policy challenges that we already had are crucial in understanding the complex impacts of the pandemic itself and our response to it, and that the crisis does in itself have the potential to exacerbate some of these pre-existing inequalities fairly directly. Moreover, it seems likely that the current crisis will leave legacies that will impact inequalities in the long term. These possibilities are not all disequalising, but many are.

Could COVID-19 Infect the Consumer Prices Index?

The spread of COVID-19 has led to sweeping changes in the way households work, spend their time and shop, resulting in different shopping patterns and rapid price changes in some goods. How will changes such as these be reflected in headline inflation measures such as the Consumer Prices Index (CPI)? This paper discusses problems in interpreting the CPI as a measure of how the cost of living is changing during the lockdown.

Inequality, Redistribution and Wage Progression

Changes in the structure of work and families over the last four decades have increased many labour market inequalities. Growing earnings inequality, adverse labour market ‘shocks’ for the low‐educated, and geographically concentrated pockets of deprivation are among the most evident of these in Britain. The decade since the financial crisis has brought these inequalities into sharper focus, and the Covid‐19 pandemic has further exacerbated labour market inequality. The object of this paper is to highlight the key role played by poor wage progression for lower‐ and middle‐educated workers in understanding inequality in the labour market and for designing effective policy responses. It is unlikely that we can address all the concerns about low wages, wage progression and earnings inequality through the tax and welfare system alone. The challenge is how best to balance tax and welfare benefit policy with other policies, such as human capital policies, the minimum wage and labour market regulation. The results point to a mix of policies that aim to enhance wage progression for the lower‐educated within a welfare system that supports low‐earning families and provides a minimum wage floor for hourly wages.