Poverty in the UK

A new report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation entitled, 'UK poverty: Causes, costs and solutions' aims to define what poverty is and its causes, highlighting trends and projections in UK poverty; recommendations are given for tackling:

• the high costs driving poverty, including housing
• poverty in childhood
• poverty in working age
• poverty in later life
• poverty for people with complex needs.

It echoes the findings of a report released earlier this year: 'Living Standards, Poverty and Inequality in the UK, which uses modelling techniques to paint a picture of how things are likely to evolve in the coming years, specifically, labour market trends and the impact of policy changes on household incomes, up to 2020–21.

Destitution in the UK

Much media attention has been given to the increased use of food banks as an indicator of the prevalence of extreme hardship, painting a picture of increasing destitution in the UK. Evidence to support this, however, is scarce. This new report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation sets out to address this issue by defining destitution in the UK, looking at how many people are affected, who they are, and the main pathways in and out of destitution. It also looks at the impact and experience of those people directly affected.