This article is part of a blog series published in partnership with Academics Stand Against Poverty UK, as they develop their third manifesto audit in the build up to the 2024 election. They will analyse the policies in the manifestos in relation to poverty to assess how confident they are that they will enable British society to flourish.
Around half of people receiving Universal Credit are unable to afford enough food. Community centres and libraries are being converted into warm spaces for people who can’t afford to heat their homes. The number of households homeless and living in temporary accommodation is at an all-time high. Visceral signs of deepening poverty are all around us.
It’s time for our political leaders to get real about levels of hardship in the UK. The next govenment needs a plan, otherwise the grim records will keep on coming, storing up problems for the future.
More severe poverty and rising destitution
The headline rate of relative poverty (defined as below 60 per cent of median income, after housing costs) has been stubbornly static for 20 years, but beneath the surface, people are being pushed further below the line. The number of people in very deep poverty (below 40 per cent of median income, after housing costs) has increased by 1.5 million over 20 years, and stands at six million in the latest data (2022/23).
This intensification of hardship is seen most clearly in the growth in numbers of people experiencing destitution. This most severe form of poverty is when people cannot afford to meet their most basic physical needs to be warm, dry, clean and fed. JRF and Heriot-Watt University’s work shows destitution has more than doubled in the last five years. Shamefully, 3.8 million people experienced destitution at some point in 2022, including one million children.
This is hardship on a scale that our politicians cannot ignore.
A threadbare safety net
A major driver of deepening poverty has been the series of cuts and freezes that have chipped away at the adequacy of our social security system. With the basic rate of Universal Credit just £91 per week (from April 2024), it is failing in its job of protecting people from hardship.
This has come alongside a housing crisis, too many low paid and precarious jobs, an employment support system that focuses on compliance rather than engagement and motivation, and increasingly rationed and stretched public services. There is also a growing number of migrants who are not entitled to help in a crisis because they have ‘no recourse to public funds’. Layer on top of all that a sharp increase in the price of essentials like food and energy and it’s hardly surprising that poverty is deepening.
Storing up problems
Failing to address such levels of hardship is not only morally wrong, it also has knock-on effects that store up problems for the future. Poverty stunts people’s spending power in the here and now, meaning less money circulates in the local economy with impacts for jobs and tax revenues. Poverty also hampers investment in the future, as your mental bandwidth being taken up with where your next meal is coming from makes it harder to find the space to think about job hunting, planning a new business start-up or developing your skills. This denies the economy of talents and resources. Poverty also breeds ill health, takes a toll on mental health and holds back child development and learning, increasing the pressure on public services such as schools and the NHS.
Towards a plan for hardship
The urgency of rising levels of hardship requires immediate action that will ease hardship now. But it is essential that immediate actions also set us on the path of more fundamental structural changes, such as more good jobs, genuinely affordable housing and a social security system that guarantees people can at least afford life’s essentials – like food, utility bills and basic toiletries.
Here are five areas for action that would get things moving in the right direction:
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- Tackle the sharp edges in the social security system: There are multiple quick, relatively low-cost and impactful reforms that could be made to Universal Credit. These include reducing the amount that can be deducted from benefits to repay debts, reforming the five-week wait for an initial Universal Credit payment, ending the two-child limit or reducing the severity and prevalence of sanctions. In parallel to these quick fixes, work could begin on addressing the inadequacy of social security by laying the groundwork for an ‘essentials guarantee’, to ensure the basic rate of benefits is always enough to afford life’s essentials. Low-cost first steps would include introducing a protected minimum amount into the system, so there is a floor below which deductions and caps cannot reduce support, and establishing an independent process to advise on the target level for the guarantee.
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- Set out a renewed ambition to end homelessness, which has been rising fast. The experience of ‘Everyone In’ during the pandemic shows what is possible with focus and determination, and we should take inspiration from movements like Built for Zero which are driving down homelessness in parts of the United States. This aim could be reinforced by speeding up and strengthening the introduction of protections for renters against eviction.
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- More people in better jobs: People with temporary jobs or those paid by the hour or task are more likely to be pushed deeper into poverty and less likely to exit from it. JRF’s work with people with experience of in-work poverty highlights making more secure contract types the default, more notice of shifts and compensation for shifts cancelled at short notice as priorities. This should be complemented by reorienting employment support to prize engagement and motivation – rather than compulsion and threat. This would help deliver higher employment among disabled people and those with caring responsibilities, many of whom want to work but struggle to find good jobs to suit their circumstances.
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- Rebuilding local crisis support: Even if we fix our social security system, people will still face crises and need immediate help when facing hunger, hardship and unexpected costs. This is where local crisis support should come in. But the £1 billion Household Support Fund, which has propped up this system, is due to end in September 2024. It must be made permanent and knitted together with practical help and advice to get people back on their feet and the wealth of energy, creativity and relationships in communities that bring people purpose and connection.
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- Better protection for everyone in our communities: This should include making it quicker and easier for people with ‘no recourse to public funds’ to have the condition lifted when they face hardship, allowing asylum seekers to work after six months and allowing people granted refugee status a longer ‘move on’ period from asylum accommodation.
The cost of living remains a top issue in the eyes of voters. They are concerned about current levels of hardship, and don’t think either party is taking it seriously enough. It’s time for our political leaders to get real about the extent of hardship in the UK and tell us their plans to tackle it.
Katie Schmuecker is a Principal Policy Advisor at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and leads a programme of work on destitution and deep poverty at JRF. She is a regular commentator in the media through blogs, articles and broadcast appearances, and her areas of expertise include poverty, destitution, living wage, Minimum Income Standards, Universal Credit, devolution, and local growth. She is also a Commissioner on the Scottish Poverty and Inequality Commission.
Read all the articles in the Academics Stand Against Poverty blog series here.
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