The proportion of pensioners in poverty is at record low levels while young adults have become increasingly impoverished over the last decade, according to a new report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF).
In the 2012-13 financial year, 13% of pensioners were living in low-income households compared to 24% ten years earlier. For working age adults the proportion has risen from 19% to 21%.
The trend is particularly bad for the 16-19 year old and 20-24 year old age brackets, for which 34% and 29% are in low-income households respectively. Both groups have faced an increase of 6 percentage points over the preceding decade.
Pensioners have been less affected by the coalition government’s austerity programme than other age groups, retaining free TV licenses and winter fuel allowances among other benefits.
Life certainly is not getting cheaper for people living on Britain’s breadline.
Of the essentials listed in the chart below, only communication, recreation and clothing have got cheaper over the past ten years. Domestic fuel bills have more than doubled while food and transport are both more expensive in real terms - and rail fares are set to increase yet again this year.
The report also shows that as many people in working families are in poverty as those in workless ones - ramming home the point that it is not simply a question of getting more people into employment.
Two thirds of people who moved from unemployment into work in the last year are paid below the living wage, according to the report. The long term prospects are not particularly rosy either, with only a fifth of employees in low paid work moving out of that bracket a decade later.
Government figures released last week showed that pay had been dropping in real terms for six years now while a substantial pay gap still persisted between men and women.
Tom MacInnes, Research Director at the NPI, said:
This report highlights some good news on employment – but earnings and incomes are still lower than five years ago, and most people who moved from unemployment into work can only find a low paid job. Government has focussed its efforts on welfare reform, but tackling poverty needs a wider scope, covering the job market, the costs and security of housing and the quality of services provided to people on low incomes.
The definition of poverty is someone with a household income below 60% of the median after housing costs.
Using this measurement, 13m people are in poverty within the UK. The poverty line for different households is provided in the table below.
