John Hills

Scroungers versus Strivers: the myth of the welfare stat‪e‬

This LSE IQ podcast is dedicated to Professor John Hills. In this episode, he tackles the myth that the welfare state supports a feckless underclass who cost society huge amounts of money, and instead sets out a system where most of what we pay in comes back to us (2 March 2021).

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Parents, Poverty and the State

What do children need from parents, how is poverty a barrier to meeting needs, and what has Government done – and should do – about it? This public event brought together a panel that explored the radical changes in public attitudes and public policy concerning parents and parenting (10 October 2019).

Speakers: Naomi Eisenstadt, Carey Oppenheim, Ryan Shorthouse and Matthew Taylor

Chair: Professor John Hills

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Sure Start: celebration and reflection

This event, hosted by the III and supported by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, was a tribute to Tessa Jowell, then Public Health Minister, marking 20 years since the first Sure Start programmes (22 February 2019).

Speakers: Naomi Eisenstadt, Edward Melhuish, Carey Oppenheim, Susie Owen, Natalie Perera, Baroness Stroud, Kathy Sylva and Polly Toynbee

Discussant: Torsten Bell

Chair: Professor John Hills

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Understanding the relationship between poverty and inequality: overview report

The Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE) and the III collaborated in leading a three-year programme of research on the connections between inequality and poverty, funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. They published a main summary report from the Improving the Evidence Base for Understanding the Links between Inequalities and Poverty programme (January 2019).

Contributing authors: John Hills, Abigail McKnight, Irene Bucelli, Eleni Karagiannaki, Polly Vizard and Lin Yang with Magali Duque and Mark Rucci

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Five LSE Giants' Perspectives on Poverty

Five ‘Giants’ in the study of poverty over the last 100 years discussed how their thinking articulates has advanced our understanding of poverty and how to tackle it, focusing on Beveridge’s Giant of ‘want’ (24 February 2018).

John Hills shed light on the ‘rediscovery of poverty’ marked by the publication of Brian Abel-Smith and Peter Townsend’s 1966 work on ‘The Poor and The Poorest’, the corrective this provided to the somewhat over-optimistic interpretation of the achievements of the welfare state in eliminating poverty, and how it foregrounded Townsend’s subsequent development of the relational and ‘relative’ conception of poverty. 

Speakers: Dr Tania Burchardt, Professor John Hills, Professor Stephen P Jenkins and Professor Lucinda Platt

Chair: Professor Paul Gregg

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Stagnation Generation: exploring intergenerational fairness 

The Resolution Foundation, convenors of the Intergenerational Commission, partnered with the International Inequalities Institute to debate the pressing issue of today's young people experiencing the biggest pay squeeze in the aftermath of the financial crisis. They have seen their dreams of home ownership drift out of sight and witnessed a welfare state in retreat. Are these short term effects or do they run deeper, and how can policy make a difference? (22 February 2017).

Speakers: Professor John Hills, Georgia Gould, Omar Khan and Nona Buckley-Irvine 

Chair: David Willetts

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Charles Booth Centenary Lectures

Session 4: "The Chain: How Inequality Works" 

Professor John Hills traced some of the ways in which rising inequalities in income and wealth and the policies associated with them are driving the housing crisis for those at the margins (3 November 2016).

Speaker: Professor John Hills

Chair: Professor Julia Black

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Taxing the Rich (III Annual Conference) 

The III 2016 Annual Conference was an international gathering to discuss inequality held at Friends House, London (25 May 2016).

Speaker: Professor John Hills 

Discussants: Deborah Hargreaves and Professor David Soskice

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