Two in five families ‘will be unable to afford essentials’

Two in five families will be unable to afford a decent standard of living by the next general election, the New Economics Foundation (NEF) has said.

The think tank’s research shows that, by December 2024, 43% of families (12.5 million households, 30.6 million people) will be unable to afford the cost of essentials, like putting food on the table or replacing clothes – an increase of 12 percentage points (3.6 million families, 8.9 million people) between the 2019 general election and December 2024.

As a result, the NEF is calling for universal credit to be replaced by a new social security system, a national living income intended to set a point below which no one can fall whether they are in or out of work.

f Over three million low-income households have not been able to keep their home warm because they aren’t able to afford it as dangerously cold weather sets in, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimates.

The figure is based on a survey of 4,251 people in the bottom 40% of incomes, which asked how they were coping with the rising cost of living.