Latest Publications

They were poorly prepared for this, having run down savings and taken on increasing amounts of debt during the 2000s. It is estimated that the high levels of household indebtedness...

This report draws on new data analysis, interviews and focus groups, and a nationally representative poll to provide an in-depth understanding of low income consumers' experiences of value in different markets. It sets out four key areas to be addressed by policymakers to ensure markets are better tailored to the needs and demands of low income consumers.

We analyse why, when and how households choose to save, the factors that prompt them to begin investing and the type of advice they seek.

This new, extended the follow-up to Riders on the Storm, goes back further in four year steps to capture how middle income households were doing in 2003 and 1999.

In the years since the financial crisis, working age households have seen wage stagnation and rises in the cost of living, prompting widespread focus on the so-called "squeezed middle". This report looks at the reality of middle income households coming out of the downturn - using the British Household Panel Survey and Understanding Society to track specific households over time.

In a major new study looking at the extent of intergenerational support in low-income families, the Social Market Foundation calls on Government to do more to facilitate such family-based welfare....

This report of an SMF scenario-planning exercise elucidates the evolving policy challenges. The report highlights important emerging tensions that policy-makers will need to address – now and in the coming decades – to re-build households' financial resilience and ensure that individuals save adequately for later life.

With ideas from a No Lose Lottery to a Savings Smartcard, this report calls for creativity from policy makers, banks and businesses, to develop savings policy for people who don't much like to save.

This report examines the evidence that current pension rules, associated with the UK 'annuities deal', deter pension saving. The report also explores in detail the practical considerations and problems that would be confronted by the multiple 'early access' models of pension saving that have been proposed.