Publications

Climbing the ladder:

how can Britain become more socially mobile?

Author:	Jennifer Moses
Date of Publication:	June 2006
ISBN:	1 902622 57 X

Despite the billions of pounds spent to reduce poverty and expand life chances, Britain is, in many respects, more unequal and less socially mobile than when Labour came to power. 

In the first, ‘Climbing the ladder: how can Britain become more socially mobile?’ Jennifer Moses argues that redistribution through the tax and benefits system will not, on its own, deliver lasting results. 

Commenting, Ms Moses said:

“The fact that the government’s sustained assault on child poverty has had no real impact on social mobility rates only goes to underline the limitations of tax and benefits reform in the wider effort to equalise opportunities and expand life chances.  In the long term, the way to prevent poor children from becoming poor adults is to equip them with the skills they will need to make their own way up the income distribution scale.  This effort needs to begin at nursery school, and be sustained throughout the primary, secondary and tertiary education sectors.  Income transfers are an important, but insufficient, part of the piece.  The old adage that ‘a hand up is better than a hand out’ is no less true today as it was when Tony Blair first seized upon it in 1997.”

A PDF of the pamphlet is available here.