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date: 16 August 2010

embargo: 00.01hrs Tuesday 17 August 2010

The social mobility challenge for Milburn's in-tray

A new report on social mobility published by the TUC today (Tuesday) reveals Alan Milburn has much to do in his new role as social mobility tsar for the coalition Government.

Social Mobility - the TUC's most recent in a series of bi-monthly economic reports - finds that in Britain 50 per cent of a child's future earning potential is determined at birth, compared to less than 20 per cent in Canada, Australia, Denmark, Norway and Finland. The UK has the worst record on this front of any of the countries the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has data for, also lagging behind the US, Italy, France and Germany.

There is a strong case that education plays an important part in transferring advantage and disadvantage from one generation to the next, says the report, which also finds that the UK has a large wage premium to growing up in a better educated family and a similar wage penalty associated with growing up in a less-educated family.

However, while education is a key factor, the evidence shows that real improvements in social mobility will not be possible without making Britain a more equal society - as the Liberal Democrat's independent Commission on Social Mobility also recently concluded.

The TUC believes the UK's high level of income inequality means that its performance in social mobility is poor compared with other countries.

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: 'The Government is right to identify that social disadvantage in the UK is a problem which is holding people back.

'The evidence shows that social mobility is greatest in societies with low levels of income inequality. For everyone to have an equal chance of success there needs to be a much smaller gap between rich and poor in the first place.

'Inequality rose sharply under the last Conservative government, but since 1997 its rise has slowed. Without the minimum wage and tax credits inequality would have grown even more under Labour, because the incomes of the rich and super-rich continue to outpace those of the rest of us.

'But cuts in public services and social security are almost certainly going to produce reduced levels of social mobility and increased inequality.

'A real programme to reduce inequality and enable social mobility would need higher taxes and fewer tax loopholes for the super-rich and a more highly skilled workforce, stronger unions and higher benefits.'

NOTES TO EDITORS:

- Social Mobility is available at http://www.tuc.org.uk/economy/tuc-18366-f0.pdf

- The Liberal Democrat's independent Commission on Social Mobility concluded that: 'However, our analysis of the evidence we have received has led us to conclude that, for the purposes of future government policy, it is equality of opportunity rather than social mobility itself that should be the prime consideration.' The report is available at http://www.tuc.org.uk/extras/Social_Mobility_Report_Final.pdf

- The TUC's series of economic and labour market reports can be downloaded at: http://www.tuc.org.uk/economy/index.cfm?mins=594

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Contacts:

Media enquiries:
Elly Gibson T: 020 7467 1337 M: 07900 910624 E: egibson@tuc.org.uk

Press release (700 words) issued 17 Aug 2010