This is a post commemorating Dr John Hills who passed away yesterday. Professor of Social Policy at the LSE, and Director of its Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion @CASE_LSE, Dr Hill was a hugely influential thought leader and academic with more than three decades of research/policy work on welfare and social security issues and more importantly, someone with genuine generosity and kindness towards his colleagues, students and everyone he met as one notices in exuberant condolence messages for him. His influential body of work looked at issues of inequality, social inclusion, the welfare state and the role of social policy.
Dr Hills was also a @BritishAcademy_ Fellow and one of the members of the Pensions Commission where, during his tenure, reforms to the state pension as well as the idea that employees should be ‘automatically enrolled’ into an employer pensions scheme were proposed.
John authored the most authoritative review of social housing policy of a generation. Here is a very interesting Guardian interview of him. His pathbreaking book ‘Good Times, Bad Times‘ made important revelations about the welfare state in the UK and how it works for all, and not just a minority of welfare seeking class, in effect busting myths associated with the welfare state.
Here are two highly engaging videos of his talk on the changing patterns of inequality in the UK, and How Inequality Works.
R.I.P. Dr Hills.
econhistorienne.com 