Tom Clark is a journalist who takes a special interest in social science and its application to the problem of poverty. Before joining JRF as a Fellow, he spent five years as Editor of Prospect, Britain’s leading current affairs monthly. Prior to that he was at the Guardian, writing daily editorials on social policy and economics, running its opinion polling and eventually becoming the paper’s chief leader writer. Earlier on, he did a spell as an adviser in Whitehall, and another at the Institute for Fiscal Studies researching inequality. Tom is a regular podcaster, fronting weekly shows at both the Guardian and Prospect, and has written books including Hard Times: Inequality, Recession Aftermath (Yale). Alongside his work for JRF, Tom remains as a Contributing Editor at Prospect and is also a Visiting Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford.
Tom Clark introduces his run of four essays about the role of assets in social injustice – and progressive ideas to spread ownership.
Myriad policies have been pursued in the name of building a society of stakeholders. But in this essay – the fourth and final piece in his series – Tom Clark reviews the many questions such rhetoric always leaves hanging.
In the third of a series of blogs, Tom Clark looks at what worked – and what didn’t – in past experiments to build 'wealth for all'.
In this blog, the second of four, Tom Clark steps back from public policy questions and looks at the latest information about how wealth is shared – and why it matters.
In this blog, the first of four, Tom Clark looks at the role of assets and ownership in tackling poverty – and asks why this important topic slid off the political agenda.
Material insecurity can negatively affect mental health, but to tackle the issue we must see how racial injustice intertwines with both – Tom Clark and Andrew Wenham explain why.
Has Britain become an ‘insecure society’? Is anxiety running out of control? If so, could the two things be connected?
The official story on poverty among disabled people is bad enough. But new JRF analysis reveals that when it comes to the real essentials of life, like heating and food, the problem is far worse than acknowledged in Whitehall.
This report considers the changing face of very deep poverty and the risk of going without the essentials. It paints a picture of concentrated deprivation for some family types as the UK entered first the pandemic, then the cost of living crisis.