Hardship in the UK has worsened, with about 6.8 million people living in “very deep poverty” — the highest level in more than 30 years — a charity said on Tuesday.
Very deep poverty is defined as earning less than 40% of the UK median household income after rent. For a couple with two children, this amounts to £16,400 (€18,900) per year or less.
The research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) found that about a fifth of the UK’s population — 14.2 million people — were in poverty in 2023-2024.
That was broadly the same rate as the previous year, yet the proportion of people in very deep poverty increased to 10% from 8%.
Nearly half of all those in poverty were in very deep poverty, the highest number and proportion since records started in 1994/95, according to the JRF.
“This report shows that poverty in the UK is still not just widespread, it is deeper and more damaging than at any point in the last 30 years,” said Peter Matejic, the JRF’s chief analyst.
The charity’s most recent estimates showed that about 3.8 million people in the UK experienced destitution — where households cannot afford to stay warm, dry, clean, clothed and fed.
The JRF said it saw evidence of deepening hardship in the large increase in the number of people struggling to access enough nutritious and varied food.
The number of people who were food insecure rose to 2.8 million in 2023/24 — an increase of 60% in just two years, the data showed. Child poverty has also increased, with 4.5 million children in poverty, rising for the third consecutive year.
The charity said the deepening poverty was due to a lack of coherent focus on the issue, with policy interventions over the past two decades being “fragmented and reactive”.
The report is based on the latest data from up to the end of 2023-2024, the final year of the previous Conservative government and just before Labour won a general election.
