Donald Hirsch

My profile:

I have been analysing trends and policies related to poverty and low income for over four decades. In the 1980s I was a journalist, latterly on The Economist. In the 1990s, after a period at the OECD, I was an international policy consultant, and between 1998 and 2008 the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's Poverty Adviser. I played a central role in establishing the Minimum Income Standard for the United Kingdom (MIS), joining Loughborough's Centre for Research in Social Policy (CRSP) in 2008 to lead the MIS work. I was Director of the Centre from 2012 to 2022. From 2022 until 2025 I was policy adviser to abrdn Financial Fairness Trust, which funded a range of research related to income, assets and spending.

I have always been more interested in the impact of my work than in performing on conventional academic indicators. I am fortunate to have been able to make a tangible difference to policies and practices affecting low income households. I established the original basis for a UK-wide living wage, now paid by thousands of employers. My work has contributed to strategies to combat child poverty and fuel poverty. It provided an evidence base for a more generous legal aid means test, announced in 2022. It gives charities tools to prioritise financial aid for families in need.