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This is a forensic examination - by the man best placed to do so - of what it costs to run the United Kingdom''s economy. To follow the money. To provide an explanation, of where that money comes from and where it goes to, how that has changed and how it needs to change. We are heading off, in fact, on a journey to not just follow the money, but to track it and pin it down, to find out how much of our money government takes and spends to keep the country we recognise as the UK running. Government decisions determine the welfare of the poor and the elderly, the state of the health service, the effectiveness of our children''s education, and our preparedness for the future: whether that is a pandemic or global warming. As a society, we are a reflection of what the government spends. Nearly four pounds out every ten we earn goes, one way or another, to the taxman? What are the combined effects of these decisions to take hundreds of billions from us every year and then dish it out again? Johnson looks at what happened following the financial crisis of 2008-09 and the austerity years that followed. And then at how in 2020 the government reacted to the coronavirus with by far the biggest spending splurge in peacetime history. And he peers into our economic futures as we try to reach a new ''normal'' after Covid-19.
About the author
Paul Johnson has been Director of the IFS since January 2011. He is also currently visiting professor in the Department of Economics at University College London. Paul has worked and published extensively on the economics of public policy, with a particular focus on income distribution, public finances, pensions, tax, social security, education and climate change. He was awarded a CBE for services to the social sciences and economics in 2018. As well as a previous period of work at the IFS his career has included spells at HM Treasury, the Department for Education and the FSA. Between 2004 and 2007 he was deputy head of the Government Economic Service. Paul Johnson is currently also a member of the committee on climate change and the Banking Standards Board.
