Boris Johnson has been told to "wake up" to the wealth gap after a new study showing that poor families are far more likely have plunged into debt during the coronavirus pandemic.
Research has shown that lower-income households have exhausted meagre saving and turned to high-interest credit to ride out the lockdown.
The Rainy Days study for the Resolution Foundation think tank found that the coronavirus crisis exposed Britain’s wealth gap and the ability of low-income households to weather the economic storm.
One in four of those households have increased their use of consumer credit by resorting to credit cards which carry high interest rates.
In contrast, just one in eight high-income households have increased their use of consumer credit, while 34 per cent of better-off families are seeing their savings increase significantly as their spending falls.
The study found that among the second poorest fifth of households, 32 per cent are saving less than usual, compared with 17 per cent who have increased their savings.
The figure show that a typical worker in a shut-down sector of the economy had average savings of just £1,900, far less than the £4,700 average savings of someone who has been able to work from home during the crisis.
George Bangham, of the Resolution Foundation, said: “Pre-coronavirus Britain was marked by soaring wealth and damaging wealth gaps between households.
“These wealth divides have been exposed by the crisis. While higher-income households have built up their savings, many lower-income households have run theirs down and had to turn to high-interest credit.”
Neil Gray MP, the SNP Work and Pensions spokesman, called on the UK government to act by strengthening welfare protections.
He said: “After spending years dismantling the UK’s social security system, making the poor poorer and the rich richer, this research should serve as a wake-up call to the Tories.”
“If they fail to act poverty rates will continue to soar, the gap will become a black hole and we will see long lasting damage for generations to come.”
The SNP has repeatedly called on the UK government to strengthen welfare protections during the crisis by implementing an emergency basic payment, making Universal Credit advance payments non-repayable grants instead of loans.
Gray also called for an increase in the child element of Universal Credit and Child Tax Credit by £20 per week, increasing legacy benefits and scrapping the benefit cap.
