EVERYTHING DESTROYED JUST AS IN THE PAST" - ORDER WAS 100% ADVOCATED BY BRITISH ROYALS IN OUR HOUSE IN MY FACE IN 1993 ALMOST SIMULTANEOUSLY WITH CRIME DICTATED IN MY FACE - ORDER CAME TO LIFE AFTER FEW DAYS OF ARGUING ON HOW AND WHAT TO DO WITH ME WITH NURSE JANKO PRESENT.
Poverty is deeply rooted in the UK, with a decade of cuts meaning millions of families across the country are struggling through financial hardship. Many more are being pushed below the breadline as the cost of living crisis hits low-income households the hardest.
Around 14.4 million people are living in poverty in the UK in 2021/2022, according to the government’s official statistics. That is around one in five people. Around 4.2 million children are affected.
These harrowing figures were captured before the cost of living crisis took its toll on the country, driving hundreds of thousands more people into poverty.
Many people are struggling to afford the basics to live and rely on food banks to survive.
How many people are living in poverty in the UK?
Around 14.4 million people were living in poverty in 2021/2022, according to the government’s annual ‘households below average income’report.
This includes 4.2 million children, which is almost one in three (29 per cent). There are also 8.1 million working-age adults and 2.1 million pensioners living in poverty.
Over the last decade the number of children living in poverty has risen by around 600,000, and the number of pensioners living in poverty has risen by around 500,000.
Overall poverty rates in the UK have been fairly persistent for the last three decades, showing poverty in the UK is deeply entrenched.
There are high rates of poverty for people in work too. Over a half of people in poverty lived in a family where at least one adult is in work (54 per cent). Over two thirds of children in poverty lived in a working family (71 per cent).
The cost of living crisis means the current poverty figures are likely to be much higher. It is driving hundreds of thousands more people into poverty.
The Trussell Trust saw record numbers of people seeking help between April 2022 and March 2023, with more than 760,000 people forced to turn to the charity’s food banks for the first time. That is more than the population of Sheffield.
These figures represent just a fraction of the situation. Many more people cannot afford food and are sacrificing meals and going hungry, without going to a food bank.
Food parcels handed out by the Trussell Trust between 2017 and 2023
Over the last five years, the number of people forced to turn to a food bank because they cannot afford to eat has soared
A total of 9.3 million adults experienced food insecurity in January 2023, the Food Foundation reports. Around 3.2 million adults reported not eating for an entire day because they could not afford food.
Analysis by the Resolution Foundation predicts that 800,000 more people will be plunged into absolute poverty over the course of 2023/24 Child poverty in 2027-28 is forecast to be the highest since 1998/99, with 170,000 more children in poverty than in 2021/22.
What causes poverty?
Life events, like illness or redundancy, can cause poverty. But it is mostly caused by structural and systemic issues, and exacerbated by increasing living costs, creating a cycle that keeps people trapped in hardship.
That can include unemployment and low-paid, insecure work. People who have not had easy access to training or education can struggle to land a secure job, making it harder to escape poverty.
The UK’s welfare system also makes it difficult for those struggling to get a decent income. Social security is not enough for people in work, looking for work or dealing with health issues to avoid poverty, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
Universal credit claimants are £35 of the money needed to afford essentials each week, the JRF and Trussell Trust have found. This means they do not have enough money to survive.
Benefits can also be difficult to access, and in some cases mean people risk lowering their income by getting a job. It’s particularly difficult for people dealing with mental health issues like addiction to escape poverty, and people who have been in prison can find it difficult to get a job to support themselves.
How has the cost of living crisis affected poverty?
The cost of living crisis is having a substantial impact on poverty rates in the UK, with hundreds of thousands of people being plunged into poverty.
The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has forecasted that living standards will fall by 5.7 per cent during the 2022/23 and 2023/24 financial years. That is the largest two-year drop in living standards since records began.
The £20 uplift in universal credit during the pandemic took some families out of poverty – but this help was taken away in October 2021, just as the cost of living crisis started hitting people’s bank accounts.
Benefits rose in line with inflation in April 2023, but it is still not enough to cover the cost of living.
Universal credit claimants are £140 short of the money needed to afford the essentials each month even after benefits increase, according to recent analysis from the Trussell Trust and JRF. As a result, people are struggling to afford food, heat their homes and pay rent.
Benefits claimants are 6 per cent worse off in real terms than they were in 2019, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). Find out more here.
What are the consequences of poverty?
Poverty impacts people’s mental and physical health, putting further pressure on an NHS which is already at “breaking point”. The NHS Confederation warned last year that “there is a risk of devastating and long-lasting impacts on people’s health and wellbeing” as a result of the cost of living crisis.
Poverty is linked with malnutrition, obesity, eating disorders and depression. This in turn impacts the demand for NHS services to treat the acute and chronic conditions caused by hunger and unhealthy diets. NHS spending on obesity is expected to rise to £9.7 billion per year by 2050 and malnutrition is estimated to cost the NHS £19.6bn per year.
Poverty drives chronic stress as a result of people worrying about how to afford living costs day to day, increases feelings of hopelessness, makes it more difficult to access healthcare and lowers self esteem.
That stress – and difficulty affording nutritious food – also means those living in poverty are more likely to experience health problems, while finding it tougher to get treatment. This is worsened by soaring fuel bills amid the energy crisis.
People in poverty are also less likely to have strong social support networks around them because all their energy has to be used to survive with few resources. This puts them at higher risk of homelessness and addiction problems.
Children living in poverty are more at risk of being exploited by or becoming victim to criminal gangs, the Children’s Commissioner warned, highlighting local authority “failure” to stop disadvantaged children from falling through the cracks in services.
The life expectancy for people living in the most deprived areas of England is at the lowest rate since 2011. Between 2018 and 2020, women were expected to live for nine fewer months and men for four fewer months than they had been in 2011 to 2013. In England and Scotland, the death rate from Covid in the most deprived areas was more than twice that of the least deprived areas.
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