What protects people from very deep poverty and what makes it more likely?

At the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) we know hardship is intensifying in our country. Around 6 million people face very deep poverty (an income below 40% of median income after housing costs, around ￡109 per week for a single person) an increase of nearly 1.5 million compared to 20 years ago. This should concern us all, as going without essentials like enough food or warmth and facing the stress and anxiety of how to make ends meet harms people’s physical and mental health, their social connections and their ability to get on in life.

In this context it is essential to understand what can protect people from, and increase their risk of being tipped into, very deep poverty. So working with one of our brilliant analysts, Isabel Taylor , we used Understanding Society – a large, nationally representative data set that has tracked the lives of the same households over more than a decade – to look at this in detail. Here's some of the things we found that stood out for me.

Who experiences very deep poverty and for how long?

This is not a fixed group of people – many people move in and out of very deep poverty as their circumstances change. Between 2017–18 and 2020–21, an average of around 2.5 million people moved into, and a similar number moved out of, very deep poverty each year. Across this four-year period, over 12 million people experienced very deep poverty in the UK. For some 10.4 million people (around one in seven of the population) it was a reasonably short experience, lasting one or two years. For a smaller - but still sizeable - group experienced persistent very deep poverty, with 1.9 million living in very deep poverty in at least three out of these four years.

The risk of very deep poverty is not evenly spread. Families with children, especially lone parents, large families and young families, households headed by a single adult, disabled people, carers and both social and private renters are all more likely to experience very deep poverty.

The life events and circumstances that protect and add risk

There's loads of rich detail in the reports - I won't try to summarise it all here - but six things that stood out for me:

1. Drawing a pension is great for exiting very deep poverty. 73% of over 55s living in very deep poverty exited it when they started to receive their state pension, compared to only 45% of those who did not. Private pension receipt had similar impact. It's a great strategy, but only if you're the right age!
2. Work protects from very deep poverty, but job quality makes a big difference. Move from a temporary to a permanent job and your chances of exiting very deep poverty increase from 49% to 62%. Move from being paid by the hour or task to a salaried job and they increase from 58% to 69%. Good jobs matter.
3. The benefit system can make a huge difference. Newly disabled people who start to get a Personal Independence Payment (PIP - a benefit to cover the additional costs of being disabled) are almost 50% more likely to exit very deep poverty compared to newly disabled people in very deep poverty who don't get PIP. Clearly getting the benefit you're entitled to is important, but basic benefit levels need to be high enough for people to afford the essentials so these disability benefits can be used for the purpose intended: to cover the additional costs associated with being disabled.
4. Strong social networks may not prevent very deep poverty but may offer some protection from its worst effects. People in very deep poverty who can rely on friends a lot are around 1/2 as likely to be behind on bills & council tax as those who cannot rely on them at all. But sadly the experience of very deep poverty is an isolating one that can weakens social ties.
5. Mental health and very deep poverty is a vicious cycle. 25% of people entering very deep poverty already had poor mental health, compared to 18% who didn't enter. Once in, the likelihood of developing poor mental health is nearly double that of people not in very deep poverty. People in very deep poverty with poor mental health are also more likely to be behind with essential costs. The challenges compound.
6. Relationship breakdown is a huge risk factor, especially if you have children. Couple parent families not living in very deep poverty who change to a single-parent family have a 1 in 7 chance (14%) of moving into very deep poverty. This is three-and-a-half times the entry rate for those who remain in couple families (4%).

You can read the full overview and find links to three deep dives here: https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/what-protects-people-very-deep-poverty-and-what-makes-it-more-likely.

What does this imply for how we reduce levels of hardship?

Beneath the steadily rising overall number of people in very deep poverty, large numbers of people have moved in and out of it as their fortunes have waxed and waned. These are the moments in life when our social security system should be offering protection, but it is clearly failing to do that adequately, with over 12 million people experiencing very deep poverty at some point between 2017–18 and 2020–21.

It is for this reason JRF and the Trussell Trust have been calling for an ‘essentials guarantee’ to be built into Universal Credit, so people can always at least afford life’s essentials.

But this needs to be complemented with other measures, such as increasing the number of good jobs offering regular hours, employment support that actually helps people to find a job that is a good fit for them, ensuring more housing is genuinely affordable and helping with housing costs.

But life is not just about money. People’s relationships and networks clearly play a key role too, providing informal help and assisting people to access help and support to cope with living on very low incomes. Often this is the first line of support for people, and it can help to protect people from some of the worst effects of deprivation.

There are clearly many points of intervention that can make a difference, and we will be exploring these themes further in a series of policy briefings later in 2023.