women in london

New Fawcett Report Published: “Single Mothers: Singled Out: the impact of 2010-15 tax and benefit changes on women and men.” (1)

A year on from the coalition government’s first budget, groundbreaking new research from the Fawcett Society and the Institute for Fiscal Studies on the impact of tax and benefit changes on men and women has found:
* The government could assess the different impact of its tax and benefit policies on women and men using data currently available. This runs counter to its claim that any meaningful assessment is impossible. (2)
* Such an assessment, considering all tax and benefit reforms to be introduced between 2010 – 2015, shows that single women will lose more as a proportion of their income than other households as a result of the cuts. (3)
* Single mothers can expect to lose 8.5 per cent of their net annual income by 2015 -more than a month’s income each year.(4)

Anna Bird, Acting Chief Executive of the Fawcett Society said:

“During our court case, the government insisted that assessing how cuts impact differently on women and men in any meaningful way wasn’t possible; this research shows it can be done. (5)

“This puts paid to the idea that the government can’t anticipate or predict the impact of its fiscal policies on different demographic groups. Had the Treasury been doing this research in the first place, single mothers might now not be facing a situation where they can’t afford childcare and so can’t work, and where some of the poorest women in our society are right now getting poorer.

“We’ve looked at each of the tax and welfare changes in turn, considered how different households will be affected by them, and calculated what the impact will be on different groups’ incomes.

“The results are clear: women are bearing the brunt of cuts. Single women, on average, are set to lose a greater proportion of their income than other households, such as single men or couple households.

“In part this is because women are typically poorer than men, but it is also because women make up the vast majority of lone parents – and it this group that are set to lose most under the reforms. Lone mothers can expect to lose the equivalent of one month’s income a year by the time all the cuts are implemented.

“Some of the least well off in our society are being forced to act as shock absorbers for the cuts, with women – in particular single mothers – faring worse.

“A year on from the Coalition Government’s first budget, we call on the Chancellor to adopt this analysis in future budgets to allow for fairer and more transparent decision-making. The government should also review welfare, employment and childcare policy, so that lone mothers do not shoulder more than their fair share of cuts.”

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Notes:

(1) A full copy of the report ‘Single Mothers: Singled Out – the impact of 2010-15 tax and benefit changes on women and men’ is available from can be downloaded from http://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/documents/Single%20MothersSingled%20Out%20The%20impact%20of%202010-15%20tax%20and%20benefit%20changes%20on%20women%20and%20men.pdf. It draws upon analysis commissioned by the Fawcett Society from the Institute for Fiscal Studies. The IFS paper ‘The impact of tax and benefit reforms by sex: some simple analysis’ by James Browne is also available from Charlie Woodworth and is available to download from the IFS website at http://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/5610
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(2) The Treasury argued in its defence in court that it is “not possible it is not possible accurately to assess the extent to which Budget measures affect women and men”. This research has shown that, with the datasets and models available to the Treasury, it is possible to produce analysis of the impact of changes in taxes and benefits on different types of households. (e.g. ‘single no children’, ‘lone parents’, ‘couple with children’, ‘single pensioner’) and from this to undertake an assessment of the impact of the budget on women and men. )
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(3) By 2015, single women will lose an average of just under five per cent of their annual income as result of changes to the tax and welfare system.
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(4) Lone mothers can expect to lose 8.5 per cent of their annual income by 2015 because of changes to the tax and welfare system, which represents:
- a month’s take home income each year;
- more than lone fathers will lose, as a proportion of net income;
- three times the percentage amount the average childless couple can expect to lose.
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(5) In August last year, the Fawcett Society filed for a Judicial Review of the government’s June 2010 emergency budget, on the grounds that the Chancellor had not adequately taken account of the need to consider the impact of his decisions on gender equality. In court, the Treasury acknowledged that of the 101 measures in the Emergency budget, just one measure had been subject to an impact assessment. The Treasury acknowledged on two counts that it had failed in its duties and ‘expressed regret for the omission’. The judge ruled that:
* the Treasury’s fiscal policy is subject to equality law
* the Treasury’s compliance with the law in drawing up the 2010 budget and comprehensive spending review should be further investigated through the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s section 31 assessment exercise: http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/news/2010/november/commission-to-assess-the-spending-reviews-compliance-with-equality-law/