Destitution growing, says JRF
‘Single working-age people were at highest risk of destitution, but in 2019 we found more families with children experienced destitution.’
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) has called for more sustained assistance for people experiencing extreme poverty, in the third of its destitution studies. The report released on 9 December shows that, even before the Covid-19 outbreak, destitution was rapidly growing. Since 2017, it said, ‘many more households, including families with children, have been pushed to the brink’.
While people in destitution benefitted in the short-term in 2020, following ‘a series of temporary lifelines’ that helped them to ‘weather the coronavirus storm’, more support is needed. Recommendations include making the £20 weekly uplift in Universal Credit (UC) and Working Tax Credit (WTC) permanent and extending this to those claiming legacy benefits. JRF also highlights how ‘the minimum five-week wait for the first UC payment is a core driver of destitution’.
It recommends that the government work in partnership with people with lived experience of the social security system. ‘to ensure that debt deductions from benefits are not drivers of hardship and destitution’.
‘Destitution means going without the essentials we all need to eat, stay warm and dry, and keep clean,’ writes Emma Wincup on the JRF website, to coincide with the latest Destitution in the UK 2020 study, which reveals that around 2.4 million people experienced destitution in the UK at some point during 2019, including over half a million children.
‘Single working-age people were at highest risk of destitution,’ she says, ‘but in 2019 we found more families with children experienced destitution.’ Just over half were disabled or had long-term health conditions, and many were insecurely housed, staying in emergency or temporary accommodation.
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