Very significant differences in income and employment between ethnicities remain, finds an August 2017 briefing (pdf) by the Resolution Foundation.
And minority ethnic families earn up to £8,900 less than white Britons.
Key findings include:
- Improving employment rates among the Black, Pakistani and Bangladeshi population are one example of a success story – and one that could be built on in future as part of a full employment strategy
- Many of the trends touched on only briefly are deserving of further work, not least the income performance of recent white immigrants and the compositional effects this has had
- This retrospective work (with 2015-16 being the latest household income data) has also not explored what impact the £14 billion of working-age welfare cuts currently being rolled out might have on ethnic income differences – nor indeed the importance of past benefit increases to income growth. Given that the impact of the current package of cuts on low to middle income families is expected to be significantly negative, and that some ethnic groups are disproportionately low income, young and with children, this should be cause for concern
- Ethnic minorities are a large part of the UK population. Their share of the working-age population especially is also expected to grow. It is important – for them and for the country as a whole – that their incomes and rates of employment perform well.
Download the full report (pdf) or read more on the Resolution Foundation website.
