It is 11 years since the Guardian launched a Breadline Britain series intended to uncover the truth about the scale of hardship in the early years of austerity. Around 3.6m households were found to belong to a “squeezed middle”, which meant they were one misfortune away from penury. New research on living standards by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) doesn’t tell us how many of those same households have since been squashed into poverty. But it does reveal that half as many families as were struggling in 2012, but managing to hold on to a decent standard of living, are now destitute. Basic needs are not being met. The problem of poverty, and all its attendant harms, has dramatically worsened.
Hard on the heels of another report revealing that 1 million UK children lack their own bed, this snapshot of life for the worst-off households is full of upsetting details, such as parents skipping meals in order that children can eat. The JRF found that 1.8m households, including around 1 million children, went without some combination of food, heat, housing and other essentials last year. Shockingly, one in 20 people (3.8 million out of a population of 67.3 million) now fall into the category of destitute. Single adults are the type of household most likely to be in that category.
