Analysis by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) reveals that a record 6.8 million people in the UK are living in ‘very deep poverty’, the highest number and proportion since records began 30 years ago. This group, which constitutes half of all those in poverty, has household incomes below 40% of the poverty threshold after rent, with the average income 59% below the poverty line.
The JRF warns that poverty is ‘deeper and more damaging than at any point in the last 30 years’, with households unable to cover basic costs such as food, energy, and clothing. For a couple with two young children, very deep poverty means an annual income of £16,400 or less, requiring an extra £14,700 to escape poverty entirely.
About 1.9 million people (3% of the population) are persistently in very deep poverty, while 3.8 million experience destitution, an even more extreme category where households cannot afford to stay warm, dry, clean, clothed, and fed. The JRF notes that no progress in reducing poverty was made under the Conservative government between 2010-11 and 2023-24.
The JRF welcomes Labour’s recent child poverty strategy, including scrapping the two-child benefit limit, which it says will lead to the biggest fall in child poverty in a single parliament since the 1960s. However, it criticises a lack of urgency in tackling broader hardship, citing rising food insecurity, low benefit rates, and slow progress on ending food bank dependence.
A government spokesperson responded: ‘We understand that too many families are struggling, and we are taking decisive action to address poverty by boosting the national living wage by £900, cutting energy bills by £150 from April, and launching a £1bn Crisis and Resilience Fund. Scrapping the two-child limit will lift 550,000 children out of poverty by 2030.’
