The economy

Fact checks about the economy, covering levels of inequality, prices, taxation, employment, unemployment and housing across the UK nations and regions

25 July 2012

Are two million people making cash-in-hand payments costing the treasury over £2 billion?

The finger is being pointed this week at 2 million people who are supposedly costing the Treasury over £2 billion through 'cash-in-hand' payments which aren't subject to tax. Full Fact …

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23 July 2012

Is Polly Toynbee wrong to be pessimistic about jobs figures, as Chris Grayling claims?

After a routine release of unemployment statistics, a not-so-routine row about the 'Olympics effect' rages on between journalists and ministers. But who's got their stats wrong?

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12 July 2012

Are farmers losing out on a pint of milk?

With thousands of farmers protesting at cuts to milk prices, several commentators have claimed that some farmers lose money on every litre of milk they produce. So what kind of …

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9 July 2012

How will capping student visas affect the economy?

Immigration is inevitably a contentious issue, both in terms of fact-checking and policy-making. Full Fact has had to look at several immigration-related claims, and has found that publicly-available data on …

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5 July 2012

Freedom of Information shows no evidence for thousands of 'never-worked' families

Earlier this year the Guardian ran an editorial attempting to debunk a 'convenient untruth' - the belief that there are potentially thousands of 'never-worked' families living on what have been …

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29 June 2012

Has the Government's Work Programme failed? Let's wait for the data.

Channel 4 News claimed to have a scoop yesterday after it unearthed data on the Government's much-discussed welfare-to-work scheme. which suggested the scheme was "failing to meet the minimum targets …

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27 June 2012

Are almost all new Housing Benefit claimants in work?

After Housing Benefit stormed the news agenda earlier this week, yet more claims about the employment status of recipients have circulated across the papers. Are they any more accurate?

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26 June 2012

Are only one in eight Housing Benefit claimants unemployed?

After David Cameron indicated over the weekend that the Government may scrap Housing Benefit for the under-25s, news outlets have been quick to provide their own analyses of who actually …

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25 June 2012

Housing Benefit cuts explained

Our latest video factcheck, in which we explain more about the Prime Minister's proposed cuts to Housing Benefit and what difference they'll make. Is £2 billion enough to matter? Where …

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25 June 2012

Science: a girl thing, not yet a women thing — women in science in the UK

The European Commission's 'Science: It's a girl thing!' campaign launched at the end of last week. A controversial video brought the campaign a good deal of attention. But is the …

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