Inclusive Prosperity
Report of the Commission on Inclusive Prosperity, January 2015
In January 2015, Ed joined senior politicians and policy-makers from around the world for the UK launch of the Commission on Inclusive Prosperity’s report.
The report was be launched by the Commission’s Co-Chairs: Ed Balls and Larry Summers, former US Treasury Secretary and former Director of the National Economic Council for President Obama. Speaking at the launch Ed said:
“The biggest economic challenge for our generation is to deliver sustained rises in living standards for all working people.
“Our task is to reverse the toxic combination of too little growth, stagnating wages and rising inequality which has hit many developed economies in recent years.
“While growth has returned in many countries working people on middle and low incomes are still seeing wages stagnating.
“Here in Britain working people are now £1600 a year worse off since 2010 and this is a key reason why the government has failed to balance the books.
“And it is why David Cameron and George Osborne are completely out of touch when they try to tell people in Britain that the economy is fixed.
“In the short-term falling global oil prices may bring some respite for consumers across the world. But that is no substitute for tackling the deep-seated problem of our economy not working for working people.
“Because, as our report sets out, left to their own devices, unfettered markets and trickle-down economics are leading to increasing levels of inequality, stagnating wages and a hollowing out of decent, middle income jobs.
“So this is no time for complacency or triumphalism from politicians or policy-makers.
“Without a strong and progressive response, the danger is that our politics will tend toward populism and insularity.
“But a better future is possible – one that combines openness with solidarity, dynamism with security and innovation with equity.
“Our task is to deliver the rising productivity and more good jobs which will ensure rising living standards for all, not just a few at the top.
“It requires a progressive policy agenda, active government and international co-operation. It won’t be achieved by laissez-faire and trickle-down economics of the right, nor isolationism and protectionism.”
Download the full report here and watch the launch event here.
'Beyond the Third Way: A new inclusive prosperity for the 21st Century', Ed's speech to the London Business School, June 2014
"This morning I do not intend to talk about the short-term challenges that economic policymakers face here in Britain – the new normal for interest rates, how to boost housing supply, the right pace for deficit reduction – vitally important though they all are.
"Instead, I want to stand back and ask what the economic trends we have seen over the last twenty years can teach us about how we should shape our economic policy for the next twenty.
"And I want to make my contribution to a debate which economic policymakers have been grappling with, and on which Ed Miliband has been leading the way…
"…in the face of seismic global and technological changes, rising inequality and a decade of stagnating median incomes so pay packets are buying less and less, how can we earn our way out of this cost of living crisis and deliver a rising prosperity that can be shared by all citizens and not just a few? ..."
Read the full speech here.