Working households in poverty says report

Story published in Women's Views on News, December 3, 2012

A new report finds that the nature of poverty in the UK is changing.

And most working-age households affected by poverty are in work rather than unemployed, with low income (or poverty) defined as ‘people living in households with income below 60 per cent of the median for that year’.

For the tax year ending 5 April 2012, the median gross annual earnings for men were £28,700, and for women were £23,100.

According to the report, ’Monitoring Poverty and Social Exclusion 2012′, written by the New Policy Institute for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation there are now 6.1 million people living on less than two thirds of the average wage – on around £8,400 a year.
And around 6.4 million workers are under-employed – wanting to work more but unable to obtain extra hours.

According to the Office for National Statistics, part-time workers are four times more likely to be those under-employed.

Just under one fifth of people in Britain are on low incomes at any one time, but poverty affects a third at some time in a four-year period.

Over half of the children living in poverty now live in working households.

And poverty is no longer confined to those living in social housing: most poor people live in the private rented sector.

The government’s welfare reforms are worsening their plight, as they are cutting things like tax credits and housing benefits, which the working poor need to supplement low wages and meet rising housing costs.

And these trends are more likely to affect women. Women living in the most deprived areas can now expect to live shorter lives than men in the richest parts of the UK.

The report concludes that ’changing the benefits system will not solve problems such as in-work poverty, increasing underemployment and rising health inequalities’.

According to a recent TUC study, three quarters of the UK’s over 8 million part-time workers are women and they earn 36 per cent less per hour than full-time workers.

The regional earnings distribution figures released recently by the Office for National Statistics showed how wages in the UK differed by sex.
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While weekly earnings were highest in London for both sexes, earnings for men were lowest in Northern Ireland, at £479, and for women they were lowest in the East Midlands, at £402.