Pre-Budget Report 2004 Summary Leaflet | Employment opportunity for all

			Pre-Budget Report 2004 Summary Opportunity for all: The strength to take the long-term decisions for Britain


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The Government's long-term goal is employment opportunity for all. It aims to promote a dynamic and flexible labour market which can react efficiently to changing economic circumstances and in which everyone has the opportunity to fulfil their potential.

Since 1997, the New Deal has helped nearly 520,000 young people into jobs. Employment has risen by almost 2 million in that time and unemployment has fallen to 4.6 per cent which is the lowest of the G7 economies. The New Deal has also helped to provide greater employment opportunity for people who find it harder to obtain jobs, such as lone parents and people with disabilities.

The Government has introduced reforms to improve work incentives and provide support for those on low incomes. Introduced in April 2003, the Working Tax Credit helps to make work pay for people on low incomes and has already helped 2.35 million families. As announced in Budget 2004, the National Minimum Wage was raised to £4.85 per hour for adults in October 2004. The Government is now taking further steps to deliver higher employment across the country by:

providing extra support for people on incapacity benefits who want to return to work, through a major extension of the successful Pathways to Work pilots, announcing wider benefits changes and providing extra help for GPs in promoting recovery and rehabilitation;
increasing the Working Tax Credit thresholds by £3 per week, to ensure that families with rising incomes retain more of their tax credits in 2005-06;
introducing a new Housing Benefit Reform Fund to finance reform to ensure that Housing Benefit does not constrain the ability of the unemployed to find work;
piloting a Learning Allowance that will allow benefit claimants to participate in full-time training; and
extending the In-Work Credit to more lone parents in areas that need it most, to increase the financial gain from working.