{"id":432389,"date":"2026-02-18T14:15:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T14:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/432389\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T14:15:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T14:15:08","slug":"four-million-uk-households-in-work-not-earning-enough-for-decent-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/432389\/","title":{"rendered":"Four million UK households in work \u2018not earning enough for decent life\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph-text\">The data, covering the year just before Labour came into power, \u201clays bare the scale of the challenge facing the Government\u201d, the Centre for Research in Social Policy (CRSP) at Loughborough University said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">Last month, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said \u201chelping British people with the cost of living is my top priority\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">The CRSP research, funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), suggested there were 4.2 million working households living below the minimum income standard (MIS) in 2023\/24.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">This is more than two-thirds (68.5%) of all households living below the standard, and has risen from just over half of households in that situation in 2008\/09.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">Read more: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lbc.co.uk\/news\/cost-living\/inflation-falls-to-lowest-level-in-year\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Inflation falls to 10-month low of 3% in boost to interest rate cut hopes<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">Read more: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lbc.co.uk\/business\/32b8e63fbdc34994923079ffe883ba0f\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cold weather payments made to nearly 1.5m households so far this winter<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">Researchers said the MIS \u2013 calculated as the amount needed for different types of households to meet their needs and to participate in society \u2013 was \u00a330,500 a year for a single person in 2025 and around \u00a374,000 for a couple with two children.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">They said there were 25.3 million individuals \u2013 including children, working-age adults and pensioners \u2013 in households below MIS in 2023\/24, up from 16.5 million in 2008\/09.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">Those living in households below the MIS might not always be able to afford to heat their home, have days out with their children at weekends or save money for the future, researchers said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">Peter Matejic, JRF chief analyst, said: \u201cNearly four in 10 of the population of the sixth richest country in the world can\u2019t afford to live a decent life. It\u2019s simply not right that millions of people don\u2019t earn enough to afford a publicly agreed standard of living.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">\u201cNot earning enough has a ruinous effect on people\u2019s productivity at work, their mental health and their relationships with family and friends. Worrying about affording the basics means people can\u2019t spend time on the things that make them and our economy grow.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">Elaine Robinson, lead report author from the CRSP, said: \u201cOur analysis shows that increasingly, work does not give people what they need for a decent standard of living \u2013 over two-thirds of working-age households living on an inadequate income have someone in work.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">\u201cWages have failed to keep pace with the cost of living, and rapid rises in the cost of necessities such as food, energy bills, transport and childcare have hit low-income families particularly hard.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">\u201cThis report lays bare the scale of the challenge facing the Government. Improvements in workers\u2019 rights are welcome, but these do little to ensure that work provides what households need to cover the basics, let alone to feel part of the society they live in.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The data, covering the year just before Labour came into power, \u201clays bare the scale of the challenge&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":432390,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,1294,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-432389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/432390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}