An open memo to the next government

By Sophia Parker

Today, the Resolution Foundation launches our open memo to the next government. In it, we propose five key priorities which we believe will improve outcomes for the UK’s 9.4 million working-age ‘low earners’ – those people living on an average household income of £15,800 while remaining broadly independent of state support.

These are families who may not be the poorest in society, and they are not in crisis. Nevertheless their economic independence is fragile and they are living at the very edge of their means. For example, at the end of 2009, half a million low earner households said they were having difficulty keeping up with bills and credit commitments because of a fall in their income associated with reduced working hours.

This is a core constituency for the Labour Party, with its history rooted in championing the causes of working people. The largest increase in Labour support between 1992 and 1997 was among households on an income of between £11,500 and £20,000, and our latest Low Earners Audit shows that thanks to the policies of three Labour governments, this group became net gainers from the tax and benefits system for the first time in a generation.

Despite the material impact on low earning households of policies like the National Minimum Wage and the introduction of tax credits, this is also the group that turned away from Labour in recent years. At the turn of this year, support from low earners for the Labour Party was 17% lower than it was at a comparable moment in the electoral cycle in 2005.

However, last week our latest low earner polling data for March arrived. There have been some very interesting developments over the last four weeks, and the most notable change is a significant upswing in support for Labour within the low earner group. Support for Labour has increased by 11 percentage points since February, to 37%.

While this is good news for Labour, it is also the case that support for the Conservative Party by low earners remains steady at around 40%. The Labour upswing can be explained instead by low earners turning away from the Liberal Democrats and minority parties, and an increase in the number of low earners intending to vote at all.

Explanations aside, we believe that the key insight from all of this data is that the low earner vote – which comprises a third of the electorate – is still up for grabs. Their votes may be coalescing around Labour and the Conservatives, but the fluctuations in their voting preferences are notably higher than any other group. The question now is whether Labour can re-capture this core but overlooked constituency in time for the General Election.

You can read the open memo to the next government here. Read more about our polling here. The latest Low Earners Audit can be downloaded here.