Children, pensioners face sharp rise in poverty
Thousands of children and older people are facing a sharp rise in poverty according to an analysis from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF). The research, called UK Poverty 2017, revealed a gradual increase in poverty rates over the past four years, reversing a trend of falling numbers since the mid-1990s, voice-online.co.uk wrote.
It found that almost 400,000 more UK children and 300,000 more pensioners have struggled to keep up with the cost of living compared with 2012-13, the first sustained increases in child and pensioner poverty for 20 years.
According to the JRF, weak wage growth, rising inflation and benefit cuts were at the heart of the problem.
About a third of children were living in families lacking the resources for their minimum needs in 1994-95 before the rate fell to 27 percent in 201112 with the help of higher employment rates and tax credits introduced under the last Labour government. The proportion of pensioners living in poverty fell from 28 percent to 13 percent over the same period.
However, poverty rates increased to 16 percent for pensioners and 30 percent for children last year, while the charity also found as many as one in five people across the UK may be in poverty — which it defines as being when someone earns less than 60 percent of median earnings.
The think tank has urged the government to unfreeze benefits, increase training for adult workers and to embark on a more ambitious house-building program to provide affordable homes for struggling families.
JRF chief executive, Campbell Robb, said: “These worrying figures suggest that we are at a turning point in our fight against poverty. Political choices, wage stagnation and economic uncertainty mean that hundreds of thousands more people are now struggling to make ends meet.”