Progress expected to stall as deep poverty and child poverty reach record levels

Nearly half of the people living in poverty in the UK are now experiencing the deepest forms of poverty. The government has put national renewal at the heart of its plans for the country, but there will be no national renewal without decisive action on poverty.

Around 400,000 fewer children will be living in poverty this April compared to the last, primarily due to the removal of the two-child limit in Universal Credit. But new JRF analysis suggests that 4.2 million children will still be growing up in poverty come April 2029.

While JRF welcomes the government’s Child Poverty Strategy, especially the two-child limit removal, this cannot be the only step. If the strategy is not followed up with more action, progress on poverty will likely stall after April.

JRF’s latest UK Poverty report accounts for the time just before the current government took power. It clearly shows the depth of the problem and the scale of the challenge. These levels of poverty are incompatible with the Prime Minister’s ambition that “no child is held back by poverty”.

Key findings

• More than 1 in 5 people in the UK, around 14.2 million, were living in poverty.
• Britain’s poorest are getting poorer: 6.8 million people are now living in very deep poverty, almost half of everyone in poverty, the highest level on record.
• Poverty has hardened, not eased: the average person in poverty now lives 29% below the poverty line, compared with 23% in the mid-1990s.
• Child poverty has climbed again: 4.5 million children are in poverty, rising for the third year in a row.
• Hunger is spreading fast: 1.1 million more people in poverty cannot afford enough food than two years ago, bringing the total to 3.5 million, while 2.8 million more people overall are now food insecure, bringing the total to 7.5 million.
• Work doesn’t guarantee security: around two-thirds of working-age adults in poverty, 5.4 million people, live in households where someone is in work.
• New JRF analysis shows that, under central Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) projections, the headline poverty rate will remain broadly unchanged (21.3% to 21.1%) between 2026 and 2029.
• Current policies will see little progress towards meeting the government’s manifesto commitment to end the mass dependence on food banks.

Deep poverty at record levels

While overall poverty rates remained broadly unchanged in the period leading up to the 2024 general election, the depth of poverty worsened significantly, meaning millions are further below the poverty line.

Around one in 10 of the entire UK population are living in very deep poverty, households with an after-housing-costs (AHC) income of less than 40% of the UK median. That amounts to income of around £16,400 or below a year for a couple with two young children.

The findings indicate that poverty in the UK has not so much spread as hardened. The average person in poverty now lives 29% below the poverty line, compared with 23% in the mid-1990s. For those in very deep poverty, average incomes are 59% below the poverty threshold, underlining the growing gap between incomes for poorer households and an acceptable living standard. A couple with two primary-school-aged children in very deep poverty would have to earn an extra £14,700 to move out of poverty completely.

JRF Chief Analyst Peter Matejic said:

“The longer we tolerate unacceptably high levels of poverty, the worse it is for our country. The corrosive impacts of poverty on families — the exhaustion of having to work multiple jobs, not knowing where the next meal is coming from — hamper both their participation in society and their scope to make a bigger economic contribution. Failure to address poverty can hold back economic growth itself.

“It’s been 125 years since Seebohm Rowntree first outlined the scale and depth of poverty people faced. Poverty in the UK is still not just widespread, it is deeper and more damaging than at any point in the last 30 years. When nearly half of the people in poverty are living far below the poverty line, that is a warning sign that the welfare system is failing to protect people from harm.

“The government has promised to reduce child poverty this parliament, and this analysis is the starting line of that commitment. JRF analysis shows that, without further changes, relative poverty levels remain stuck at a high level after April 2026. There can be no national renewal if deep poverty remains close to record levels.

“People want to feel like the country is turning a corner. That means taking action on record levels of deep poverty so everyone can afford the essentials. It means making people feel supported rather than being one redundancy or bout of ill health away from failing to make ends meet.

“And it means supporting individuals so they can afford to be their most productive selves at work, enabling them to find a job that works for them while improving productivity and growing the economy.”

Further findings

Child poverty

Children continue to be disproportionately affected by poverty. The report estimates that 4.5 million children were living in poverty in 2023/24, with child poverty rising for the third consecutive year. Around 3 in 10 children are growing up in households below the poverty line, with the poverty rate for families with three or more children around twice that of smaller families.

Food insecurity

The report highlights a sharp rise in food insecurity, a key marker of severe hardship. Between 2021/22 and 2023/24, an additional 1.1 million people living in poverty were unable to afford enough nutritious and varied food, bringing the total to 3.5 million. Across the whole population, the number of people experiencing food insecurity rose by 2.8 million over the same period, a 60% increase in just 2 years.

Disability

Disabled people face particularly high risks of poverty. More than a quarter of disabled people were living in poverty in the latest data. Half of disabled people in poverty have a long-term, limiting mental health condition, with a higher poverty rate than people with a physical health condition. The report notes that employment rates among disabled people have increased over the past decade, but poverty rates have remained stubbornly high. This points to the limits of work alone as a route out of hardship.

Ethnicity

Poverty rates are very high for some racially minoritised groups. In 2021–24, over half of people in Bangladeshi (53%) and around half of people in Pakistani (49%) UK households lived in poverty. Poverty levels are even higher for children in those households, at 65% and 60% respectively.