Minimum Income Standards

Minimum Income Standards

JRF launched the latest update (for 2016) of their minimum income standards work.  It reveals the significant impact rising childcare fees have had on the quality of people’s lives and the flexibility of their income overall. A few years ago a rural spin on this research revealed it is considerably more expensive to maintain a reasonable standard of living in rural than urban England. This latest report tells us:

JRF is calling on the Government to undertake a radical overhaul of the childcare system to make it easier for families to balance earning and caring, and improve the quality and affordability. Costs leave working couples £2,600 a year short of decent living standard. Childcare provision needs ‘fundamental reform’ to offer high quality provision spanning summer holidays and the working day.

Research shows weekly budgets for food, clothes and family activities

The findings emerge from JRF’s annual Minimum Income Standard (MIS) research, carried out by the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University. It is based on what members of the public think people need to achieve a decent living standard. A full breakdown of weekly budgets is available.

The research shows that to meet what the public consider a minimum standard:

A couple with two children needs to earn at least £18,900 a year each.

A lone parent with one child needs to earn £27,900.

A single person without children needs to earn £17,100 a year.

The research found that although some necessities like food and fuel have become cheaper in the past two years, one of the most significant barriers to reaching a decent standard of living for working families is the cost of childcare. Parents on low incomes who have to pay for childcare are often unable to find arrangements that leave them financially better off.

Young and poor hit hardest as UK cuts widen inequality, says OECD

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I like the OECD. I don’t intend to make a political point as they are impartial and involve as many right focusing countries USA etc as left. We all know it costs more to live in rural England as per the work done by the University of Loughborough on minimum income standards for Joseph Rowntree. This report therefore suggests inequality may well be growing in rural England. Let me know what you think. The article tells us: A fresh analysis shows that in 2010, the disposable income of the top 10% of UK households was an average £53,600 a year – 10 times higher than the bottom 10th, which survived on just £5,300. Five years earlier the ratio was closer to 9:1. In Europe only Greece, Italy and Spain appeared more divided societies after the first three years of the crash than the UK. “The concern is inequality will rise much more once the full impact of public spending cuts is felt,” said Michael Förster, senior analyst at the OECD social policy division. Förster said that in the UK the coalition had chosen policies that were likely to “fall on the back of the poor population groups”. By attempting to prune back welfare directed at poorer people, such as housing allowances, he warned, inequality will rise in the short term. Förster argued that proponents of austerity defended the strategy on the grounds that more people will get jobs eventually – and help reduce inequality in society. “The theory is that in the medium term more people will go into the labour market and this low-wage employment will help equalise household incomes,” he said. However this has only worked in one country in recent years – Germany – and that was unique, Förster said. “Germany had the benefit of a weak euro and high exports and also a model of social partnership where trade unions were always at the table, asking for very modest wage increases. But both these elements are not there in Britain.”