Few people have got through the past 20 months or so without having to make sacrifices. Horizons have narrowed and savings have shrunk. But for low-income households simply trying to keep food on the table, and with no reserves to draw on, the effects of the pandemic have been felt much more keenly.
To blame the pandemic for this situation, however, is to misunderstand the systemic pressures that trap people in the cycle of poverty. The number of people experiencing destitution in the UK had already risen by 54% between 2017 and 2019.
Rich country, poor people
Shouldn’t an affluent country such as the UK – the world’s fifth-richest, according to the World Bank – have fewer people scrabbling around for the essentials? In terms of GDP per capita, when compared with neighbouring France, the UK is almost £1,000 better off per person – and yet the poverty rates of these two countries are quite different: according to the World Bank 18.6% for the UK’s population (in 2017), versus 13.6% of the French population (in 2018). Wealth only tells part of the story; how that wealth is distributed is key.
Centre for Health Economics at the University of York
Sadly, successive UK governments have been wearing their heartlessness on their sleeves since the days of austerity, when then-chancellor George Osborne chose to seek to balance the country’s books, rather than help individuals and families in poverty. The cuts announced in his June 2010 budget nibbled away at an already stretched-thin society, and have been linked to at least 50,000 unnecessary deaths over the term of the first Cameron government.
The Trussell Trust
Food for families
And so it fell to charities and organisations working outside government to pick up the slack. In 2011-12, food banks in the Trussell Trust’s network distributed almost 130,000 food parcels; by 2020 that had increased to more than 2.5m food parcels being distributed via 1,300 food banks in its network. The biggest year-on-year increases as a percentage were between 2012 and 2014 – when the accumulative squeeze of austerity was biting. However, the absolute increase in parcels from 2019-20 to 2020-21 is the largest ever increase and is notable for the Trussell Trust network being far more stable (and so not so driven by increases in the size and scale of the network).
As Margaret Sena, CEO of Cambridge City Food Bank points out, not all food parcels are created equal: “We have standard boxes, we have family boxes, and then we have bonus boxes, for particularly large families.” It’s worth noting that when a household of four goes away from a food bank, the Trussell Trust reports that as four food parcels.
Not all of those parcels go to people stuck in a long-term cycle of poverty. A third of people referred to food banks in early 2020 had only recently found themselves in difficulty.
Impact on families
In mid-2020, 84% of people referred to food banks in the Trussell Trust network were people aged 25-54, versus 77% in early 2020. This increase points to a group of income earners whose working hours or employment status took a hit during the pandemic, as well as the likelihood of them being parents dealing with school and nursery closures.
The Trussell Trust, State of Hunger report
Although only one in seven families in the general population have three or more children, nearly two in five (39%) of people referred to food banks have larger families, up from 36% in 2018. The imposition of a “two-child limit” on universal credit and child tax credit in 2017, which stripped those families of at least £53 a week – or £2,780 a year, including the tax credits – may well bear some of the blame for this increase. For context, the amount mothers in Germany receive for each subsequent child grows with the size of family: they get €219 (£186) for the first and second child, €225 for the third, and €250 for the fourth and all further children (until they’re 18) – on top of being paid at 65% of their wage for more than a year of maternity leave and paying nothing for nurseries.
The Trussell Trust, State of Hunger report
Crutches and cuts
The government introduced a £20 boost to universal credit in April 2020 for everyone claiming the benefit. In early 2020, 95% of people referred to food banks in the Trussell Trust network met the definition of being destitute.
This didn’t stop at least one MP saying many of those in receipt of the extra £20 “don’t really need it” even as he defended MPs with second jobs for being “people who have families [to take care of].” Positive changes that have come in since to the universal credit taper rate, “give something back to people”, says Emma Revie, chief executive of the Trussell Trust, “but don’t cover the remainder who find themselves unable to work at the moment, for many, many reasons”.
Mental health: the other pandemic
Certainly, one of the more extreme trends witnessed as a result of Covid was the growth in households that used food banks reporting mental health problems, up from an already high 51% in early 2020 to 72% in mid-2020.
The Trussell Trust, State of Hunger report
Despite being a wealthy country, the reality of living in the UK is, for many, grim and getting grimmer. If the true measure of a society is how it treats those in need, the UK must be languishing well towards the bottom of the leaderboard. The system seems hell bent on propelling more towards destitution, rather than supporting struggling people to feed themselves, make ends meet and inch their way out of poverty.
