A Minimum Income Standard for Britain is an ongoing programme of research to define what level of income is needed to allow a minimum acceptable standard of living in Britain today.

Funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, it is a collaboration between the Centre for Research in Social Policy (CRSP) at Loughborough University and the Family Budget Unit at York University.

It brings together two approaches to setting budget standards: the "consensual" negotiation of budgets by panels of ordinary people, and  budgets based on research evidence and expert judgements. In MIS, members of the public negotiate budgets and experts check these decisions and advise where they think there is a case for amending them.

The first results of MIS were launched in July 2008. The results were updated in July 2009.

Further work is underway looking at a minimum for Northern Ireland.

Join email list