Record numbers cannot afford the essentials: JRF’s cost of living tracker, summer 2026

Following his re-election to Parliament, the new Prime Minister Andy Burnham talked of the need to “… do something to make life more affordable, to put more money in people’s pockets, to give people more breathing space again so that they can have a better life”. Our latest survey shows that a record number of families across the UK desperately need him to act upon those words.

The cost-of-living crisis is becoming more widespread, with 7.4 million low-income families unable to afford essential items in the last 6 months — the highest number since we began running our cost of living tracker survey in 2021.

Since May 2024, shortly before the current Labour Government came to power, there has also been an increase in the number of families being forced to cut back on meals or go hungry, an increase in the number of families in arrears on their household bills and credit repayments, and an increase in the number of families borrowing money from high-cost lenders such as loan sharks and payday lenders to buy essentials.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Government policy can make a difference. Over the same period, the number of households that cannot afford to keep their home warm has fallen by almost 550,000, reflecting a combination of falling global energy prices and direct Government intervention to bring bills down by an average of £150 a year from April 2026.

More families than ever going without basic essentials

We are now more than 4 years into a cost of living crisis that has left millions of families on the edge. During that time successive governments have vowed to get to grips with the problem: Chancellor Rishi Sunak stated in 2022 that “This Government will not sit idly by…” while families struggle, and PM Keir Starmer claimed in 2026 that every minute not spent talking about and dealing with the cost of living was “…a wasted minute”. Despite these pledges, the number of low-income families that are unable to afford the everyday essential items is increasing.

Our latest survey finds that 62% of respondents have not been able to afford at least 1 essential item in the last 6 months. That is equivalent to 7.4 million families, up from 7.1 million just one year ago. Due in part to population growth this is the highest number recorded since our survey began (Figure 1). These are items that are necessary for an acceptable standard of living, including basic toiletries, heating, suitable clothing and shoes, and the most basic of all needs — food.

Crisis spreading to wider range of households

Households that are most likely to be unable to afford essentials are those in receipt of Universal Credit (UC), those headed up by someone under the age of 25, those headed up by someone from a Black or Mixed ethnic background, those containing non-UK citizens, and those with 3 or more children or in lone-parent families. More than 80% of each of these households have been unable to afford an essential item in the last 6 months. For those in receipt of UC who also have a deduction applied, the proportion going without essentials is more than 90%, while almost every household (95%) in receipt of a UC advanced payment have had to go without an essential item.

However, the increase in the number of households that are going without essentials has mainly been driven by those who are typically less likely to suffer from material deprivation. The number of households going without essentials has increased fastest over the last 2 years for those not on means-tested benefits, those who own their property outright without a mortgage, families without any disabilities or health conditions, childless households, and households that are headed up by someone over the age of 65 (Figure 2).

Mounting pressure on household budgets shows in multiple ways

Faced with an affordability crisis, low-income households find they are being squeezed on all sides.

Food increasingly unaffordable for millions of low-income households

Almost half (47%) of all low-income families responding to our survey said they had gone hungry, cut down the size of their meals, or skipped meals in the last 30 days because they didn’t have enough money for food. Scaled up across the country this equates to 5.6 million households that are going without food because they cannot afford it, a number that has continued to edge up over the last couple of years, from 5.5 million in May 2025 and 5.3 million 2 years ago (Figure 3).

Although food inflation has been markedly lower during this period than the eye-watering 19.2% reached in March 2023, that does not mean food prices have come down, merely that they are not growing quite as fast, and the price of food has continued to rise more quickly than general inflation on average during the last year (food inflation averaged 4.1% over the period May 2025 to May 2026 compared to 3.6% for overall inflation). That has a greater impact on lower-income households because they spend a greater proportion of their income on food.

Faced with this situation many low-income families have no option but to continue relying on charitable donations for their meals, or to increasingly change the way they eat. Our latest survey finds 1.5 million households across the country have used a foodbank in the last 6 months, and half of families have changed the type of food they buy, including consuming less fresh produce and more processed foods.

Households increasingly forced into arrears and towards high-cost debt for essential bills

There are an estimated 3.8 million low-income households that have borrowed money to pay for essentials. This number has remained broadly stable over the last 5 waves of our survey, with a rise to 4.1 million in May 2025 thankfully not sustained.

There has, however, been a worrying uptick in borrowing from loan sharks, payday lenders, doorstep lenders and pawn brokers to pay for essential items, reversing the decline observed in the previous wave of our survey. While the number of low-income households using high-cost lending to buy essentials is lower than at its peak in May 2025, the number is creeping back up and is higher than it was 2 years ago. In May 2026 an estimated 1.3 million low-income families had used this type of lending to pay for food, housing and other essential bills such as Council Tax, electricity, gas and water. 

Meanwhile, almost 40% of low-income families are in arrears on at least 1 household bill or debt repayment, equivalent to 4.5 million households across the UK. This is yet another number that has been trending gently upward over the last 2 years (Figure 4).

The cost of living crisis is relentless

New questions added to our survey for wave 10 shed further light on the extent of hardship facing low-income households.

Cost of living is a daily struggle for many low-income families

For the vast majority, being unable to afford an essential item is not an isolated experience. In most cases, households have been forced to go without essentials on multiple occasions over the last 6 months, and in many cases have had to do so on a weekly basis. This is especially the case for low-income households who have been unable to heat their homes or have a bath or shower. Around half of the families unable to afford these essentials have found themselves in that situation at least once a week for the last 6 months.

A never ending crisis?

Compounding the depth of hardship that low-income families are experiencing is the relentlessness with which the crisis is impacting their lives. Our latest survey reveals that for many the crisis is becoming a permanent reality:

• 42% of families that have heated their home less than needed have now been doing it for more than 2 years.
• 39% of families that have reduced the number of showers or baths they take to reduce costs have now been doing it for more than 2 years.
• 38% of those who have stopped socialising with friends have done so for more than 2 years.
• 34% of those who have stopped making pension contributions from their salary have done so for more than 2 years.

The cost of living crisis has fundamentally changed the way of life for millions of households, sometimes in ways that are likely to have much longer-term implications.

It doesn’t have to be like this: government policy can turn the tide

While the findings from our latest survey show that the situation facing low-income families is increasingly desperate, the future can be different if the Government is prepared to make the bold policy choices that are needed.

In May 2026, around 2.4 million low-income families had not been able to keep their home warm over the last 6 months because they could not afford it. That number is unconscionably high, but it has declined steadily over 5 consecutive surveys, falling by more than half a million in just 2 years (Figure 5).

While this improvement is largely due to falling global energy prices, the Government can take some credit for bringing household energy bills down through the energy price cap, changes to green levies which brought average bills down by £150, the launch of the Warm Homes Plan, and the expansion of the Warm Home Discount.

But there is no room for complacency. As welcome as this single finding is, living standards will continue to deteriorate without much more extensive action. The new energy price cap, which came into place on 1 July, is pushing typical annual bills up by £221, and recent JRF modelling shows average incomes for the poorest fifth of households are expected to fall by 3.4% over this parliament.

The new Prime Minister’s announcement yesterday to temporarily remove VAT from domestic electricity bills from October 1 will offer some breathing space, and is a strong indication that the new Government is prioritising tackling the cost of living, but it has its limitations. As JRF pointed out in an assessment of options to address high energy bills last year, this policy is regressive, with the largest cash savings going to higher-income households, is capped as an amount of support, and once removed it leaves little room for further adjustment.

A plan for rebuilding living standards and economic security

JRF has begun to set out a range of policy options with the power to make a material difference to households’ living standards, reform our economic systems, and build the resilience required for the turbulence of the twenty-first century. It includes:

• Introducing  an Affordable Energy Guarantee that provides a portion of cheaper energy to all households designed to cover a typical household’s basic energy use, with larger amounts for families based on need and means. This will help 2.4 million low-income families who continue to be unable to afford to keep their home warm.
• Controlling the growth of private rents and re-linking Local Housing Allowance (LHA) to the 30^th percentile, helping nearly 80% of low-income families in private rented accommodation that have been unable to afford essentials in the last 6 months.
• Moving towards a protected minimum amount of support in UC that at least covers essential costs, providing vital support for the 84% of low-income households on UC that are unable to afford essential items.
• Improving the in-work safety net against life shocks, for example through stronger pay protections against parenthood and sickness. In our latest survey, around 84% of low-income families who saw their income fall over the last 6 months due to changes in employment or pay were forced to go without essential items.

As the old adage goes, if you keep doing the same thing you’ll get the same results. Without the sort of wholesale policy reform like that set out above, it is very hard to see what will change for the millions of low-income families behind these numbers that are unable to make ends meet year after year.