Report
Households below a Minimum Income Standard: 2008/09 to 2016/17
The seventh in a series of reports monitoring the number of people living below the Minimum Income Standard.
It’s not right that many low-income households are shut out of an acceptable standard of living.
This report looks in detail at the family and household characteristics of those below MIS, which is a benchmark for an adequate standard of living in the UK. It focuses in particular on three demographic groups – children, working-age adults and pensioners.
The study shows that:
- nearly 19 million people are living below MIS, up from 16.5 million in 2008/09
- nearly three in four children in lone-parent households are below the Minimum Income Standard, slightly above the number in 2008/09
- while pensioners remain less likely than working-age adults and children to have low income, the number of single pensioners below MIS has risen from one in six to one in four since 2008/09.
JRF recommends that the Government should lift the freeze on working-age tax credits and Universal Credit, so that support keeps up with the rising cost of living.
This report is part of the income, savings and debt topic.
Find out more about our work in this area.