What is the poverty threshold in the UK?
The latest research highlights that a poverty crisis affecting 900,000 children has grown in the UK over the past 14 years under the Tory government.
Two reports by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) have outlined the effects of low wages and price increases on the lives of hundreds of thousands of children.
Specifically, the past 14 years have shown an additional 1,350 children per week living in households with at least one working parent have been dragged into poverty.
“No child in Britain should be growing up below the breadline,” Paul Nowak, the general secretary of the TUC, said. “But under the Conservatives we have seen a huge rise in working households being pushed into poverty. We urgently need an economic reset and a government that will make work pay.”
A combination of wage stagnation and cuts to social welfare funding has led to devastating consequences for British families.
With the general election approaching, it poses a serious challenge for whatever party takes power in July.
Here’s everything you need to know about the UK poverty threshold.
What is the poverty threshold in the UK?
Households are considered to be in poverty if their income is 60 per cent below the median equivalised income after housing costs for that year, according to Trust For London statistics.
Equivalisation means that households of different types have different poverty lines. Households considered to be in destitution are those who have to go without two or more essentials in the past month, because they can’t afford them, or if their income is extremely low (less than £70 a week for a single adult), according to statistics from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
Essentials are defined as having a home, food, heating, lighting, and clothing, as well as basic toiletries.
How is poverty measured?
According to the House of Commons Library, various poverty measures based on disposable household income are in common use, and the trend can look different depending on the measure used.
Two commonly used measures are:
People in relative low income – living in households with income below 60 per cent of the median in that year;
People in absolute low income – Living in households with income below 60 per cent of (inflation-adjusted) median income in some base year, usually 2010/11.
Income can be measured before or after housing costs are deducted.
How many people are in poverty?
More than one in five people in the UK, or 22 per cent, were in poverty in 2021/22, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. That accounts for 14.4 million people in real terms.
That breaks down into 8.1 million (or around two in 10) working-age adults, 4.2 million (or nearly three in 10) children, and 2.1 million (or around one in 6) pensioners.
