Category Archives: Poverty

Labour-run Enfield council left 100 families homeless after they refused to relocate

Posted on by

London council’s policy of offering people homes far from the area led to England’s highest number of refusals

A Labour-run London council left more than 100 families homeless without support last year after they refused to be relocated outside the borough, the Observer can reveal.

Freedom of information data from about 80% of English councils shows that they ended their legal duties to 615 households who refused offers of housing outside the local authority area in 2024 – but this national total is heavily skewed.

Continue reading...

UK drops down list of affluent nations after decade of stagnation, NIESR finds

Posted on by

Districts in Birmingham now ranked below poorest areas of France, Malta and Slovenia as institute urges rethink on planned welfare cuts

The UK has tumbled down the league of affluent nations after almost a decade of welfare cuts and stagnant incomes, according to a report that found the poorest districts in Britain now rank below the lowest-income areas of Malta and Slovenia.

In a warning for ministers to protect welfare spending before Rachel Reeves’s spring statement later this month, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) said the UK’s reputation for high living standards was under threat.

Continue reading...

Labour must target deprived areas or lose out to Reform, says former minister

Posted on by

Peer argues that national ‘trickledown’ approach will fail to benefit those in most need

Keir Starmer’s government must strictly target the delivery of its core “missions” at areas of maximum deprivation or lose huge numbers of votes to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, an independent commission led by a former Labour cabinet minister will suggest this week.

The Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods (ICON), chaired by Labour peer Hilary Armstrong, a former party chief whip and housing minister, will say the government risks “wasting billions of pounds in higher public spending while failing to transform the places that need it most” unless it adopts the targeted approach.

Continue reading...

Cancer death rates 60% higher in deprived areas, UK research finds

Posted on by

Analysis by Cancer Research UK says there are 28,400 extra cancer deaths across the UK every year due to deprivation

Cancer death rates are 60% higher for people living in the most deprived areas of the UK compared with those in more affluent areas, according to new analysis.

There are 28,400 extra cancer deaths across the UK each year due to deprivation, the equivalent of 78 additional deaths every day, Cancer Research UK found.

Continue reading...

Poorest UK households pay rising share of income on council tax, study finds

Posted on by

Resolution Foundation report says failure to reform has ‘slowly recreated the issues that undid the poll tax’

Britain’s poorest households are paying an increasing share of their income on council tax, according to new analysis that likened it to the poll tax that contributed to the downfall of Margaret Thatcher.

The poorest fifth of households paid 4.8% of their income on council tax in England, Wales and Scotland and on domestic rates in Northern Ireland in the 2020-21 financial year, up from 2.9% in 2002-3, according to research by the Resolution Foundation.

Continue reading...

Solar panels could cut fuel-poor UK families’ energy bills by 24%, says study

Posted on by

Call for means-tested grants or loans to cover upfront costs that prevent poorer households from benefiting

Poorer households could cut their energy bills by a quarter if solar panels were installed on their rooftops, a report has found.

However, the upfront costs mean that those who stand to benefit most from decreased energy bills are prevented from getting panels installed, according to the Resolution Foundation thinktank.

Continue reading...

Retirees who rent ‘really struggling’ financially, researchers say – and the problem is getting worse

Posted on by

Two-thirds of retirees in private rentals live in poverty, Grattan report finds, with more than half reporting net worth of less than $25,000

Two in three retirees who rent privately owned homes live in poverty and the problem will get worse, a new report has found.

Most older working Australians who rent do not have sufficient savings to keep paying rent in their retirement, according to the report from the Grattan Institute.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

Labour says cap on school uniform items could save families £50 a child

Posted on by

Government plans to limit branded student kit to three articles, plus a tie, from September 2026 in England

Plans to cap the number of branded uniform items schools in England can require to three, plus a tie, could save families more than £50 a child, with additional annual savings of £450 from free breakfast clubs in all primaries, the government has said.

The cost-saving measures are laid out in the government’s children’s wellbeing and schools bill which is due to be debated on Wednesday when it gets its second reading in parliament.

Continue reading...

Give working parents help with childcare and commuting costs, UK thinktank says

Posted on by

Child poverty plan must address the 70% of families with at least one parent in work, Resolution Foundation says

Labour must offer extra support to working parents, including with childcare and commuting, if it is to fulfil its promise of cutting child poverty, the Resolution Foundation thinktank has argued.

The government’s manifesto promised an “ambitious strategy” on child poverty, and ministers have said they will publish a 10-year plan in the spring.

Continue reading...

UK charity steps up campaign against child hygiene poverty

Posted on by

The Multibank, founded by Gordon Brown, receives boost with Amazon-led drive for 250,000 items this month

A charity founded by the former prime minister Gordon Brown is to increase its campaign efforts against child hygiene poverty this year.

The Multibank, which was founded by the former Labour leader, is working with a number of sports clubs across Britain and the Hygiene Bank charity. Over the Christmas and new year period it collected thousands of hygiene products at sporting fixtures.

Continue reading...

‘We live on Pot Noodles’: rickets hits homeless families with no kitchen

Posted on by

Families placed in hotels in England are being forced to live on snack foods, putting young people’s health at risk

Homeless children placed in hotels are developing rickets and other diet-related health problems because their parents lack anywhere to cook.

The Magpie Project, which works with homeless mothers in the east London borough of Newham, where more households are living in temporary accommodation than anywhere in the country, said families living in hotels were eating an unhealthy diet of takeaways and snack foods because they had no cooking facilities or anywhere to store fresh produce.

Continue reading...

UK charity declares ‘refugee homelessness emergency’ as numbers hit record high

Posted on by

Naccom report says gaps in state support have led to more than 1,940 refugees having no accommodation

Homelessness among refugees has doubled in the last year to reach record levels as charities hand out tents and sleeping bags to those forced to live on the streets for the first time, according to research.

The No Accommodation Network (Naccom), an umbrella organisation for 140 frontline organisations working with asylum seekers, refugees and other migrants across the UK, has collated the data and shared it with the Guardian.

Continue reading...

‘I have lost everything’: southern Africa battles hunger amid historic drought

Posted on by

Crops have failed in several countries, with 27m people at risk of hunger according to World Food Programme

Emmanuel Himoonga paced his dry field, picking up stalks of maize that had been bleached almost to bone white.

The 61-year-old chief of Shakumbila, a mainly agricultural community of about 7,000 people roughly 70 miles west of Zambia’s capital, Lusaka, had seen droughts before.

Continue reading...

Housing, social care and universities: who lost out in the UK budget?

Posted on by

Rachel Reeves made funding the NHS a priority but people working in other areas said they were disappointed

Rachel Reeves’s first budget emphasised raising taxes to help the NHS, as the health service tries to cope with huge waiting lists and an ageing population. Funding the NHS was a top priority but people in other sectors – from universities to social care – feel the budget was a missed opportunity to tackle impending crises or introduce desperately needed reforms in their areas.

Continue reading...

Prince William: ‘I’ll show people how to prevent homelessness’

Posted on by

Heir to the throne responds to criticism about his Homewards programme in two-part ITV documentary

Prince William has said criticism about his privileged lifestyle and many residences drives him to try to end homelessness in Britain.

The heir to the throne was challenged to respond to jibes about his three homes and 135,000-acre Duchy of Cornwall estate for a two-part ITV documentary airing this week.

Continue reading...

Canadians with nonterminal conditions sought assisted dying for social reasons

Posted on by

Some people have asked to be killed due to non-medical reasons – including isolation and homelessness

An expert committee reviewing euthanasia deaths in Canada’s most populous province has identified several cases in which patients asked to be killed in part for social reasons such as isolation and fears of homelessness, raising concerns over approvals for vulnerable people in the country’s assisted dying system.

Ontario’s chief coroner issued several reports on Wednesday – after an Associated Press investigation based in part on data provided in one of the documents – reviewing the euthanasia deaths of people who were not terminally ill. The expert committee’s reports are based on an analysis of anonymized cases, chosen for their implications for future euthanasia requests.

Continue reading...

More than 9 million Britons vulnerable to reliance on food banks, research finds

Posted on by

One million more people are in what Trussell charity defines as ‘hunger and hardship’ than five years ago

More than 9 million people in the UK experience levels of poverty and hunger so extreme they are vulnerable to reliance on charity food handouts, according to research.

A report by the charity Trussell found Labour would fail to deliver its manifesto promise to remove the “moral scar” of food banks unless it tackled low household incomes in this group, which amounted to one in seven of the population.

Continue reading...

Winter fuel cut savings will be far less than Reeves expected, new analysis finds

Posted on by

A surge in claims for pension credit will make thousands more people eligible for the payments and other benefits

Rachel Reeves has been warned that her cut to pensioner winter fuel payments risks saving hundreds of millions less than anticipated, in a new blow to her attempts to close the hole in Britain’s finances.

The chancellor and her Treasury team are already re-examining parts of a plan to crack down on non-dom tax status over concerns that it may not raise any money.

Continue reading...

Poverty in Argentina soars to over 50% as Milei’s austerity measures hit hard

Posted on by

Far-right president has been battling inflation by imposing steep cuts in spending, resulting in widespread poverty

Argentina’s poverty rate has soared to almost 53% in the first six months of Javier Milei’s presidency, offering the first hard evidence of how the far-right libertarian’s tough austerity measures are hitting the population.

The new poverty rate, reported by the government’s statistics agency on Thursday, is the highest level for two decades, when the country reeled from a catastrophic economic crisis, and means 3.4 million Argentinians have been pushed into poverty this year.

Continue reading...

Winter fuel: thousands more could lose benefit if it becomes means tested, data suggests

Posted on by

A further 175,000 pensioners are likely to stop receiving allowance under such plans, official figures show

A further 175,000 pensioners could lose the winter fuel allowance if the benefit becomes means tested, data suggests.

About 11.6 million people in the UK received the benefit last winter, an increase of 214,000 on the previous year, according to figures released on Tuesday by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). The overwhelming majority are to have this removed this winter under plans announced by the Labour government to cut spending on the benefit.

Continue reading...