Jonathan Daniel Portes (born 18 April 1966) is a professor of Economics and Public Policy at the School of Politics & Economics ofKing's College, London[1] and a senior fellow at UK in a Changing Europe.[2]
Portes was born inOxford[3] and grew up in London,[4] the son ofRichard Portes, aRhodes Scholar fromChicago.[5] He earned a degree in mathematics fromBalliol College, Oxford, and a master's degree in Public Affairs (Economics and Public Policy) atPrinceton University. Jonathan isJewish[6][7]
After joiningHM Treasury in 1987, he held increasingly senior positions in the civil service, rising to be the chief economist at theDepartment for Work and Pensions and then the chief economist at theCabinet Office underGordon Brown. He left the civil service in 2011, after the Labour Party lost power to the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government.
Portes was appointed as the director of theNational Institute of Economic and Social Research in February 2011.[8] In October 2015, it was announced that Portes would step down as Director of NIESR before the end of that year, following a management review at the organisation.[9]
His areas of interest includefiscal policy,labour markets and immigration.[10] He has a particular interest in the economic effects ofBrexit, and was a prominent critic of the 'austerity' policies advocated byGeorge Osborne, the formerChancellor of the Exchequer; Portes has described the Coalition'sIncapacity Benefit reassessment programme — a majorWhitehall project that was supposed to cut welfare spending by up to seven billion pounds a year — as "the biggest single social policy failure of the last fifteen years".[11] He analysed the government's welfare reforms forBBC Radio 4 in 2014.[12]
Portes is a council member of theRoyal Economic Society,[13] a trustee of the charityCoram,[14] a senior fellow at the UK in a Changing Europe.[15] He was elected aFellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in 2018.[16]
Portes has said that British government policy since 2010 has disproportionately harmed the poor. In 2018, he said "There were a lot of choices, and the government chose to balance the budget on the backs of the poorest."[17] In 2023, Portes lost a bet made in 2018 with Christopher Snowdon, in which Portes had incorrectly predicted thatrelativechild poverty would rise to unprecedented levels.[18][19]
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