In work poverty hits record high as the housing crisis fuels insecurity
The keynote speaker at the ACRE conference last week flagged up how the key issue facing many rural families was in work poverty. Interestingly the following week this article came out. It tells us:
Monitoring Poverty and Social Exclusion 2016 an annual state of the nation report written for the independent Joseph Rowntree Foundation by the New Policy Institute, has found that 13.5 million people, 21% of the UK’s population, are living in poverty. The economic recovery has helped to stop poverty rates from rising higher, with overall poverty levels remaining flat compared to 2010. But the new report finds that there is growing insecurity underneath positive economic headlines. Since 2010/11, when the economic recovery began, in-work poverty has increased by 1.1 million people.
The rise is being driven by the UK’s housing crisis, particularly high costs and insecurity in the private rented sector.
The report highlights the difference in poverty levels across different regions of the UK. More than half of people in poverty in England live in London and southern England (the East, the South East and the South West), and the capital has the highest poverty rate at 27%, 6% above the UK average. There is a full breakdown of regional poverty statistics, including information on in-work poverty, regional income levels and poverty among people living in the PRS in the notes to editors.