Andy Haldane writes that Conservative economic plans would be best for growth ahead of Healey budget
Badenoch says Britain needs tax cuts.
We need to get out of the way of job creators who make our country richer. We need to encourage risk taking, wealth creation, enterprise.
Britain’s tax burden has never been higher. You are taxed on the heating in your home. You’re taxed at the petrol pump filling up your car. You’re taxed when you insure that car. You’re taxed if you take the family away on holiday. You’re taxed if you stay in the UK thanks to Andy Burnham’s tourist tax. You’re taxed to buy a home, taxed to live in a home, taxed to pass on your home. This is clearly not working. Britain does not feel better off.
Andy Burnham wrote in The Times yesterday about the moral outrage of the current benefit system. But as far as I could work out, his answer is to spend even more on benefits.
Social Security is racing towards insolvency because the program pays out more in benefits to retirees than it collects in taxes from working Americans.
Handing out even more generous benefits will make that situation worse. Yet that is exactly what the trustees who run Social Security are planning to do: Retirees will get a 3.6 percent cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) next year. That increase is 0.8 percentage points higher than last year's, and it is 0.9 percentage points higher than what Social Security was expecting to pay.
The Social Security trustees are doing what the law requires during a time of high inflation. That's why Congress ought to intervene here.
It should cancel the COLA.
No, this isn't a demand that lawmakers stick it to America's retirees. It's an appeal for some fiscal common sense. There are three good reasons to cancel this year's COLA.
First: Handing out higher benefits to wealthy retirees simply doesn't make sense when Social Security is trending towards insolvency.
As the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget notes, the announced COLA would be a $900 increase in benefits for the average retired household—but some retirees could receive as much as $3,600 more.
Paying generous benefits to wealthy households is the main reason Social Security is facing insolvency in the first place. A program originally intended to keep seniors from falling into poverty has become a huge wealth-transfer scheme that overwhelmingly benefits those who don't need the handouts. The COLA doubles down on this flaw.
Second: What about the workers who are paying for those lavish benefits? Wages have risen by 3 percent, on average, over the past year. Those pay increases have already been outpaced by inflation, which is up 3.7 percent in the past 12 months.
You'll often hear retirees talk about how they are living on a "fixed income," but the math simply doesn't bear this out. Social Security beneficiaries will get a COLA that is larger than the average pay increase for the workers who are funding the COLA. Retirees are protected from the impact of inflation while younger Americans must deal with inflation and finance that protection for the elderly. That's crazy.
Third: Cutting the COLA could kick-start a conversation about how to solve Social Security's looming insolvency. The Social Security trustees estimate that an across-the-board cut of about 22 percent will be necessary in 2032. Eliminating COLAs won't meaningfully change that arithmetic, but it would change the conversation—which has for too long been dominated by politicians promising seniors that nothing needs to change. That's wrong—and the sooner that becomes apparent, the better off the political system will be.
If eliminating the COLA is too radical a change, Congress should instead change how the trustees calculate the annual increase.
Currently, the COLA is based on one particular measure of inflation: the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, otherwise known as CPI-W. This is a relatively narrow index that reflects the spending habits of only about one-third of all Americans, as Romina Boccia points out in her newletter, The Debt Dispatch.
Instead, Boccia suggests using the Chained Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, or C-CPI-U, which covers about 93 percent of all Americans and is generally regarded as a better measure of the rising cost of living. Other parts of the federal government already use C-CPI-U to update such things as tax brackets.
If Congress simply changed how Social Security's COLA was calculated, it could close 12 percent of the program's long-term shortfall. And while some retirees would see smaller COLAs as a result, the result would more closely match those increases to inflation.
Social Security's COLA reflects many of the fundamental flaws with America's old-age entitlement program. Like Social Security as a whole, it is too generous to the rich, too costly to the taxpayers, and too unfair to younger, poorer workers.
Exclusive: Former health secretary says upfront investment in support is needed ‘if we are going to end the Neet crisis’
Ministers should cut welfare spending to fund more employment support if it wants to end the youth Neet crisis, the author of a government-led review has said.
Alan Milburn, the Tony Blair-era health secretary, told the Guardian he believed ministers should reduce benefits payments to help pay for more employment support, opening a potentially contentious debate within the Labour party over welfare cuts.
With Social Security barreling toward insolvency, the government is increasing benefits in January.
On Wednesday, the Social Security Administration (SSA) announced that retirees will receive a 3.6 percent increase in Social Security benefits next year. The raise, which was unveiled shortly after the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported consumer prices rose 3.7 percent year over year in September, will amount to an increase of $75 per month for the average beneficiary. It also represents a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) that will be 0.8 percentage points higher than last year's, which was 2.8 percent, and 0.9 percentage points higher than what was projected by the Social Security Trustees, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
"Social Security will implement this cost-of-living adjustment for 76 million Americans, giving them greater financial stability," said SSA Commissioner Frank J. Bisignano in a press release. "Under President Donald J. Trump, Social Security is delivering better, faster, higher-quality service for the American people."
But the announcement comes as Social Security faces a looming funding cliff.
The program has been spending considerably more than it receives for years, thanks in large part to the U.S. demographic problem: Birth rates have collapsed, life expectancy has risen, and there are fewer working-age people paying taxes to fund retirees. In 2025, the program collected $1.45 trillion in revenue and spent $1.61 trillion, leaving a $160 billion shortfall. Trust fund reserves covered the gap, but they are rapidly dwindling. In June, Social Security's Trustees projected that, without legislative changes, incoming revenue would cover only 78 percent of scheduled retirement and survivor benefits by late 2032—a 22 percent shortfall. Combined retirement and disability funds are expected to run out by 2034. There are a handful of fixes, including raising the retirement age, reducing benefits, raising the cap on earnings, means-testing the program, privatizing it, or getting rid of it altogether.
While many lawmakers have acknowledged reality, Congress remains divided on how to address the issue. In August, Sen. Ron Wyden (D–Ore.) blocked a proposal from Sen. Bill Cassidy (R–La.) to establish a congressional process to consider reforms, arguing that it would slash retiree benefits and help billionaires "avoid paying their fair share."
"People are objecting to doing their job," Cassidy complained in September. "Congress needs to fix Social Security this year."
What makes Wednesday's increase even more unjustified is the fact that older Americans are already among the wealthiest age groups in the country. According to the Federal Reserve's latest Survey of Consumer Finances released last week, households headed by someone aged 75 or older had a median net worth of $504,900 in 2025, compared with just $33,000 for households headed by someone under 35. Despite their relative wealth compared to working-age people, retirees are getting a COLA increase that is greater than the average worker, whose wages have risen by 3 percent in the last year.
For the very wealthiest beneficiaries, the 2027 COLA will constitute an enormous increase. According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the highest-earning couples who retired this year will receive a combined increase of $3,600, meaning that their combined benefits would exceed $100,000 next year. However, without congressional action, Social Security recipients could expect a 22 percent cut that, in 2032, would wipe out the previous nine years' COLAs all at once.
Despite years of warnings about Social Security's deteriorating finances, Congress has yet to enact reforms to avert the looming shortfall. For now, beneficiaries can look forward to larger checks in January, even as the program moves closer to the day when it can no longer pay the benefits it has promised.
More seven year-olds are on disability benefits than 50 year-olds amid a surge in payouts for childhood ADHD and other mental health conditions, official figures show.
More than five million people have lost their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits since President Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill passed last year. The bill cut SNAP funding, expanded work requirements and recently pushed more program costs to states. As Stephanie Sy reports, that's meant many more people are turning to food banks for support.
A new study shows that in‑cash child benefits play a vital role in reducing child poverty in the EU. On average, these benefits lower the risk of poverty among children by 10.6 percentage points.
The impact of in‑cash child benefits varies across EU countries. Austria sees the strongest effect, with child poverty reduced by 16.6 percentage points. Spain shows the smallest reduction, at 4.6 percentage points. These differences suggest there is room for EU countries to learn from each other and achieve higher social standards.
Key findings
Child benefits can do more to reduce poverty: large differences between EU countries show room to make cash benefits more effective and help reach the 2030 poverty reduction target.
Better targeting and wider access could make a difference: in around one third of EU countries, disadvantaged families receive less financial support than better-off families.
Benefits in kind also support families: by making essential goods and services more affordable, they can reduce the financial pressure on families.
More children in early childhood education and care (ECEC) could support parents in work: increasing participation could raise maternal employment by up to 5 percentage points, making it easier to combine work and care.
Investing in children pays off in the long term: analysis shows benefits for education, employment and health. Overall, for every €1 invested in quality benefits in kind for children, the estimated return is €5.26.
Progress towards the 2030 child poverty target
The EU has committed to reducing the number of children in poverty by at least 5 million by 2030. Progress towards this target has stalled, so efforts need to be stepped up and policies improved.
Government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis triggered an outrage when he proposed that the “unemployment benefits” should last just two months in order to force jobless to take up a work. According to Greek legislation, the unemployment benefit of 526 euros per month increased by 10% for each child runs for maximum 12 months provided that the […]
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