Why Has in‐Work Poverty Risen in Britain?
研究了1994-95至2019-20年间英国在职家庭贫困率从13.4%升至18.4%的驱动因素，发现住房成本上升和养老金收入增长是主因，而税收抵免改革仅轻微缓解了贫困上升。
ABSTRACT Is work a reliable route out of poverty, and what does that depend upon? In Britain, the headline relative poverty rate for those in working households steadily rose from 13.4% in 1994–95 to 18.4% in 2019–20. We study the drivers of this increase. Significant rises in earnings inequality observed over the period were a modest contributor, accounting for 1.3 percentage points (pp). Higher earnings growth for poorer families did not reduce working poverty more substantially, in part due to the higher effective marginal tax rates that low‐income families faced. A more important factor (1.8 pp) was rising housing costs for poorer working families compared with middle‐ or high‐income families, driven both by rents rising relative to mortgages, and by a shift away from homeownership for poorer working families. Growth in pensioner incomes, which raised median income and therefore the relative poverty line, also increased the in‐work poverty rate (1.7 pp). Reforms to the tax and transfer system—particularly the introduction of ‘tax credits’—served to slightly mitigate (0.6 pp) the rise in in‐work poverty. These results show that the effectiveness of employment for reducing poverty is dependent upon a broad range of other factors—many of which themselves can be shaped by other policy levers.