We’ve pulled together another 10 key stories from the last week into a Flipboard magazine. Let us know what you think – and if there are sources or stories we should be including.
Tag Archives: featured
4 unmissable graphs of the UK’s housing bubble
From the construction and housing booms to price changes and renting versus buying, Tom Davies presents 4 charts to explain what’s happened to housing.
1 Bursting point? Another housing bubble
- How unaffordable can it get? House prices in the UK continue to increase.
Median earnings only increased by 57% from 1996 to 2012, but house prices have gone up by 157%.
Though low interest rates have kept mortgage costs relatively affordable, house prices are now more than twice as expensive relative to earnings.
2 Rent or Buy? The difference when ownership means wealth
- Property matters
In comparison with other European countries, property prices are a significant proportion of the wealth held by British households. In England and Wales, 69% of people own property, whilst this trend is reversed in Germany. Continue reading 4 unmissable graphs of the UK’s housing bubble
Single parents in benefits storm – Gingerbread’s data
With rising prices on one side and falling benefits on the other, have single parents been disproportionately hit by welfare reforms? Gingerbread, the charity supporting lone parents, believes so.
Their online survey ‘Paying the price:single parents in the age of austerity (pdf)’ asked a number of questions about meeting rising living costs, with 591 single parents replying between July and September 2013.
HMI Welfare have obtained the online survey data results here Continue reading Single parents in benefits storm – Gingerbread’s data
Get the data: prosecution and benefit fraud
The Telegraph and Daily Mail both report today on the number of benefit fraud cases that fail to result in prosecutions, following a parliamentary question from the Conservative MP Richard Fuller.
The stories include some important context for the figures and anyone looking to report on them, including new guidelines, which according to The Telegraph:
“[Mean] suspects can be charged under the Fraud Act, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, and the abolition of the financial threshold which prevented benefit fraud cases of less than £20,000 from being sent to crown court.”
The data behind the stories does not cover sentencing under the new guidelines – but future years will. Continue reading Get the data: prosecution and benefit fraud