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SubscriptionsColumn / Investigation: The Inequality Economy
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It’s Not Just the Two-Child Limit: Another Controversial Welfare Policy Hitting Hundreds of Thousands of Families
Amid a Labour rebellion over the two-child welfare cap, new figures reveal the number of families still hit by the Coalition Government-era housing policy
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‘In the Sixth-Richest Country in the World, How Can You Build a Welfare State on Food Banks?’ The Stats that Reveal Just how Widespread Food Poverty Is In the UK
Combined Trussell Trust and Independent Food Aid Network data lays bare the breadth of food banks in the UK – themselves symptoms of a far deeper food poverty crisis
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‘Keir Starmer’s Defence of the Two Child Benefit Cap is Indefensible’
The Labour leader’s refusal to commit to scrapping George Osborne’s austerity-era policy risks committing hundreds of thousands more children into poverty
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‘A Relentless Assault’: the Staggering Rise in Child Poverty in the UK
Gordon Brown responds to a shocking UNICEF report that UK child poverty has worsened drastically more than 38 other OECD nations
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‘With his Poll Ratings Sinking, Sunak Goes For One More Attempt at Scapegoating the Vulnerable: The “Skivers” Revisited’
The Prime Minister’s announcements on sickness and disability benefits were not just another assault on an already punitive welfare system – they were nuclear-level gaslighting, writes Mary O’Hara
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The Heartbreaking Stories of Life in Britain for Victims of No-Fault Evictions – Five Years After They Were Meant to be Outlawed
Despite the Conservatives pledging to get rid of no-fault evictions in 2019 landlords are using it in record numbers with a 28% increase in 2023
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‘Trapped’: Tenants Consider ‘Rent Strikes’ in Response to Sky-Rocketing Service Fees
The first quarter of 2024 has seen a fourfold increase in tenants investigating how to notify landlords of their intention to strike
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Councils Could be Paying £530 Million a Year to House Vulnerable Children in Unsafe Homes
Former Children’s Commissioner Anne Longfield branded the figures from an investigation by Byline Times as ‘extraordinary’ and said that the system was ‘completely dysfunctional’
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‘The Country has Noticed the Conservatives’ Lack of Levelling Up’
Since Boris Johnson’s 2019 pledge, the public has received more of the same – austerity and higher taxes from the Government and, in many cases, cash-strapped local councils
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Jeremy Hunt’s Tax Cuts are Paid for by Slashing Public Services – So Why is Labour So Silent About It?
The Government’s ‘slash and crash’ Budget was left largely unscathed by Keir Starmer’s party. Why?
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From The Cradle to The Grave: The Abandonment of Our Social Contract
Children are dying younger and growing up shorter, while the elderly’s last years are more painful and desperate than they once were. We have normalised the life of our society falling apart, writes Danny Dorling
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People in North of England ‘Live Shorter, Sicker, Poorer Lives Simply Because of Where They Were Born’
A new report has found it will take 55 years for those living in the north-east to have the same healthy life expectancy now enjoyed in London and the south-east of England
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‘Prince William Is Part of the Problem’: Plan for 24 New Homes for Homeless Dubbed ‘Drop in the Ocean’ in Cornwall Amid Mounting Crisis
Activists in Cornwall say the scheme – while welcome – will barely touch the sides as 23,000 languish on a council waiting list
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‘The Feudal Leasehold System That Threatens a Repeat of the Grenfell Disaster’
A blaze in a West London block of flats last week reveals how the leasehold system is still putting lives at risk, writes Labour MP Barry Gardiner
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Labour’s ‘Intensely Relaxed’ Approach to Bankers’ Bonuses Tells Us a Lot About a Starmer Government
The party’s U-turn on the bankers’ bonus cap comes just months after the party campaigned against scrapping it
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Pressure for a Windfall Tax on Banks Grows As ‘Big Four’ Net Huge Profits
Four of the biggest banks in the UK amassed £41 billion in pre-tax profits in the first nine months of the year alone.
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‘From BP to Banks: There’s Lots of Money Around – It’s Just Not In Workers’ Pockets’
Despite Government calls for pay restraint, new figures show some people are doing very well out of the cost of living crisis, writes Josiah Mortimer
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Energy Bills Set to Rise Next Year After Colossal Collapse of So Many Companies, MPs Report
Taxpayers have been left with a £2.7 billion bill, according to the Public Accounts Committee
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‘Ed Balls and George Osborne’s New Podcast is Essential Listening – But Not for the Reasons They Think’
The two former chancellors reveal how ‘the grown-ups in the room’ collude in their outlook
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‘A Poor Country with a Few Rich People in it’: Renowned Inequalities Expert Speaks Out as Bereaved Families Give their Accounts of ‘The Unequal Pandemic’
A new short film reveals the heart-wrenching stories of those who lost their loved ones to COVID – and exposes the politics of poverty behind the crisis
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‘Austerity is a False Economy that has Brought the Nation’s Roof Crumbling Down’
The collapsing school buildings scandal has exposed how the Government failed to ‘fix the roof while the sun was shining’
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How Cultural Workers are Striking Back Against Poverty Pay
A new wave of unionisation in the cultural sector is pushing back against a decade of austerity in the sector
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Blood, Faeces, Rubbish, Mice: The Student Accommodation Crisis Laid Bare
Student housing has never been known for its quality but, in recent years, the system has been pushed to breaking point
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The White Ear of Ofsted and the ‘Sonic Surveillance’ of Education
The focus on ‘language’ policing by the arbiters of educational standards exacerbates class and racial inequalities argues a new report
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One Million Teenagers Fail to Claim Child Trust Fund Money – After HMRC Steps Away from Notifying them of the Cash
A report by the Commons’ Public Accounts Committee says more should be done to help young adults trace their funds
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Ukrainian Refugees Exploited: ‘In Britain, We Have No Rights – We Are Nothing At All’
Byline Times speaks to Ukrainian women taken advantage of in the UK’s cleaning and hospitality sectors
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The Failing ‘Forty New Hospitals’ Programme is a Perfect Illustration of Our Broken Politics
An official report reveals why the Conservative Party is unfit to be in charge of the NHS
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With their Bosses Earning Twice that of Other Charities, Have Housing Associations ‘Lost their Social Purpose?’
The UK’s 13 biggest housing associations paid their executives over £22m with bosses earning almost double the average for the UK’s biggest charities
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Homeless Charity CEO Accused of Foul-Mouthed Tirade at Union as Pay Dispute Turns Toxic
Staff of St Mungo’s charity have begun an indefinite strike over pay, following allegations of a ‘25 minute shouting match’ at union reps by CEO Emma Haddad
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‘You Can’t Live’: Apprentices are Paid Just £5.28 an Hour – and They’re Demanding a Raise
Mary Davenport (centre right), a former apprentice forced to drop out due to financial struggles, is speaking up about rock-bottom pay
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London Property Agent Accused of Breaking the Law by Charging Deposit Just to Make an Offer
Renters in the capital are encountering controversial practices as the housing crisis worsens, writes our Chief Reporter
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‘The Dominant Political Culture Refuses to See Adequate Housing as a Fundamental Human Right’
Politicians, landlords and the media have celebrated the financialisation of domestic property. But as the housing crisis deepens, what happened to the basic human right?
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France and Britain Need ‘Macronomics’
Despite the controversy, the French President’s economic proposals are far from the ‘Anglo Saxon’ model. Barnaby Towns argues that, when it comes to addressing inequality, the UK could learn from them
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Social Housing Providers’ Billions in Surpluses as Record Number of Tenants Report Poor Conditions
The G15 housing associations have been the subject of constant scandals in the past two years over the poor quality of their homes
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Charity Staff on the Breadline: Non-Profit Employees Facing Real Terms Pay Cuts
Analysis for Byline Times reveals charity sector employees are themselves being pushed into poverty pay, Nic Murray reports. But staff are fighting back
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Gambling White Paper: a Feeble Response to a Social Scourge
Robin Burgess, the first CEO of the Responsibility in Gambling Trust, argues that both Labour and Conservative parties have focused on a few damaged ‘addicts’ and not the wider structural harm
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An End to Cruel No Fault Evictions?
As legislation is introduced to end Section 21 evictions, Lauren Crosby Medlicott talks to tenants who live in constant fear of homelessness Back in 2019, the government promised to ban Section 21 no-fault evictions, a move that would guarantee a landlord would no longer be able to evict a tenant from their tenancy without a…
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Life Afloat: Meet the People Living Off-Grid as the Cost of Living Soars
Charlie Duffield speaks to citizens exploring alternative ways of living as the linked crises of housing and the economy become a way of life
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Protesting for Homeless Help from the Council: The ‘Crisis’ in Local Housing Services
Andrew Kersley speaks to a man awaiting the bailiffs as campaigners warn that cuts to housing services are leaving vulnerable people desperately unsupported
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Junior Doctors Striking Against an NHS ‘On Fire’: ‘Signing Up to a Life of Pain and Misery’
Effie Webb talks to past and prospective junior doctors who describe a crumbling healthcare system and the demise of what was once a prestigious career
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Poor Health: Why are the British Dying Earlier than Expected?
The UK has fallen to 29th in the global rankings of life expectancy. Matthew Gwyther looks at the economic and social reasons why the country has become the ‘sick man of Europe’ again
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All the Bad News Buried in Jeremy Hunt’s Budget
Buried in the Chancellor’s Statement is news the UK will suffer a sustained period of low growth, high taxes and a record-breaking fall in living standards, reports Adam Bienkov
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How the EU Broke Up with the City of London – but Not with UK Tax Havens
Six years after the Brexit referendum, the amount of money lodged in British tax havens has reached mind-blowing levels. Florence Autret explains why
