What do low-paid workers think would improve their working lives?

a report by Cordelia Hay of Britain Thinks for JRF (Joseph Rowntree Foundation)

This study explores the experiences and perceptions of low-paid, low-income workers in the retail, hospitality and care sectors.

How do these workers feel about work, and what do they think would most improve their working lives?

The report explores:

• the realities of low-paid work;
• the challenges experienced by workers in the three sectors;
• ideas for improving work for low-paid workers that go beyond pay rises; and
• conclusions for employers of low-paid workers.

A related report, based on a survey of 5,000 low-paid workers in low-income households, is available on the Survation website.

Summary (PDF 4pp)

Full report (PDF 56pp)

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Destitution in the UK: an interim report

a report by Suzanne Fitzpatrick et al for JRF

JRF’s Destitution in the UK programme focuses on the very bottom of the poverty spectrum – those in the most extreme hardship. Over the last few years there has been growing discussion in the media about destitution, with public figures citing the rising use of food-banks as evidence of an increase. However, there has been remarkably little attention paid to whether there is any solid evidence about the extent of destitution in the UK, what causes it or whether it has changed over recent years.

JRF’s Destitution in the UK programme aims to provide this evidence, and this interim report by a team at Heriot-Watt University is the starting point, reviewing the literature and agreeing a definition of destitution. The definition was developed with experts from across the UK and a survey of 2,000 members of the public:

“People are destitute if they lacked two or more of these six essentials over the past month, because they cannot afford them:

• Shelter (have slept rough for one or more nights)

• Food (have had fewer than two meals a day for two or more days)

• Heating their home (have been unable to do this for five or more days)

• Lighting their home (have been unable to do this for five or more days)

• Clothing and footwear (appropriate for weather)

• Basic toiletries (soap, shampoo, toothpaste, toothbrush)

People are also destitute if their income is so low that they are unable to purchase these essentials for themselves.”

A large majority of the public agree that being in this situation constitutes destitution.

Click here for more on our Destitution in the UK programme.

Full report (PDF 73pp )

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Poverty and the cost of living

a report from JRF by Adam Tinson, Peter Kenway, Sabrina Bushe and Tom MacInnes

This research looks at how the relationship between poverty and the cost of living differs between population groups. It also identifies the policy decisions made by government or public bodies that have a direct influence on the cost of some essential items.

The research finds:

• Essential goods and services that people need to participate in society take up a relatively larger share of low-income budgets. These costs have risen relatively sharply in recent years.
• People on low incomes are less likely to be ‘active consumers’, switching suppliers and shopping around. This is partly due to a lack of access to ‘enabling goods’ that give consumers advantages such as a bank account or internet access.
• Regulators are increasingly using the concept of ‘consumer vulnerability’ – a more dynamic and flexible concept than that of ‘disadvantaged groups’. However, there are concerns over how it can be used in practice, and how poverty and low income fit into this framework.

The study looks at how policy options can target the cost of living and its link to poverty – focusing on low-income households, high-cost households or the whole population but with particular benefits to either low-income or high-cost groups.

Summary report (PDF 4pp)

Full report (PDF 54pp)

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Supporting vulnerable people back into society requires time, patience and commitment, not punitive measures

via JRF (Joseph Rowntree Foundation)

Abigail Scott Paul reveals how benefits changes are affecting people on the front line of poverty in the North East.

In the introduction of his book Population 10 Billion Danny Dorling discusses the importance of story-telling:

Human beings progress by telling stories. One event can result in a variety of stories being told about it. Sometimes those stories differ greatly. Which stories are picked up and repeated and which are dropped and forgotten often determines how we progress… And how the future will turn out depends partly, possibly largely, on which stories we collectively choose to believe.

Continue reading

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Government is failing to acknowledge we're not ready for ageing

via JRF blog

If the Government wants people to get ready for ageing, it needs to lead the way, says Claire Turner.

At the end of last week, the Government issued its formal response to the Ready for Ageing report published in March by the House of Lord’s Select Committee on Public Services and Demographic Change. The Committee’s report concluded that the Government and our society are ‘woefully underprepared’ for our ageing population and called on the Government to set out a clear and overarching vision, in a White or Green Paper, with analysis of the issues and the best options for preparing for an ageing society.

Continue reading

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The worst five years for struggling families

a blog post by Donald Hirsch, Director of the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University, for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation

In 2008, with our Minimum Income Standards research, the news for low-income families was grim, but not hopeless. We found that 'safety-net' benefits did not provide a basic living standard for parents who had lost their jobs, but required their families to live at a third below what the public thought you need for an acceptable life. But this was better than for those without children, who got less than half.

And while a minimum wage was also insufficient to bring families above this level, it was not too far below – about £1 extra an hour was needed. Since this was still a time when family benefits, in and out of work, were becoming generous, many low-income families were within touching distance of being able to make ends meet: to provide their children with the necessities of life without going into disastrous debt.

Almost everything that has happened since then has pushed such families in the opposite direction.

Continue reading

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Minimum Income Standards

The Minimum Income Standards project aims to define an “adequate” income. It is based on what members of the public think is enough money to live on, to maintain a socially acceptable quality of life.

In April 2013*:

• a single working-age adult needs a budget of £200 per week;
• a pensioner couple need £240;
• a couple with two children need £470; and
• a lone parent with one child needs £285

» Download this year’s research here.

*
These amounts are after income tax, and do not include housing or childcare costs.
Most people relying on basic out-of-work benefits do not reach this standard.

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Benefits Cap: a lack of jobs undermines the benefits of welfare reform

via JRF – Combined Feed by Helen Barnard

The benefits cap means some people may be motivated to find work – but finding a job in the first place is the problem, says Helen Barnard.

The benefits cap comes into force today [15 April]. It is a media-friendly, simple-sounding policy, which translates into a rather complicated set of rules and exemptions. The essence, explained in the House of Commons note on the cap, is that most working-age people will have the amount they can claim in benefits limited to £500 per week for couples or lone parents (regardless of the number of children) and £350 for single people; average earnings after tax and National Insurance.

Continue reading

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Council Tax Benefit Reform Creates Postcode Lottery for Poorest

via JRF - Combined Feed by Sabrina Bushe

From Monday (i.e. yesterday 1 April 2013) new local schemes for council tax support come into force. Sabrina Bushe argues the changes create a postcode lottery, with more than two million poor families paying the price.

Today, JRF publishes research conducted by the New Policy Institute on the localisation of Council Tax Benefit (CTB). From 1 April, Council Tax Benefit will be abolished and replaced with schemes devised by local authorities, but with a 10 per cent reduction in spending. The study looks at how local authorities have designed their schemes and how it will affect claimants.

Continue reading but don't expect to be happy about what you read.

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Static incomes + inflation = falling living standards

via JRF – Combined Feed by Donald Hirsch

Why should we get so worried when the Governor of the Bank of England makes a modest adjustment in his inflation forecast, guessing that prices will rise by around 3 and then 2.5 per cent in the next two years, rather than about half a per cent more slowly?

Before the present economic downturn, most people would not have expected this to make much difference to their lives, partly because earnings or benefits were expected to rise at least by inflation. But today, where so many incomes are static in money terms, every percentage point rise in prices can represent a one per cent fall in living standards.

The link between inflation and falling standards of living has been particularly strong for people getting their income from public sources, since deficit reduction is being achieved partly by rigid cash limits. Public sector workers are undergoing a three-year pay freeze, which will see the real value of their pay shrink by over 10 per cent. And from this year, people on benefits and tax credits will see their income from the state rise by a fixed 1% a year for three years, regardless of level of inflation. In both cases, the faster prices rise, the harsher the real-terms cut will be.

Continue reading and despair!

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How do we increase ethnic minority employment?

via JRF – Combined Feed by Helen Barnard

How are employment services and employers helping or hindering people from ethnic minority groups?

The “How do we increase ethnic minority employment?” conference I attended on Monday set me thinking about three themes:

• Where's the power?
• Follow the evidence
• Rhetoric and reality

The speaker presentations are really worth a look.

Read all the stuff I’ve left out and get links to many external sources including Eric Pickles likening ethnic monitoring to a Stalinist 5-year plan!!

Foolish is probably the best thing I could say about that.

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There is much more to poverty than addiction to drugs and alcohol

via JRF - Combined Feed by Chris Goulden

Iain Duncan Smith’s speech on measuring child poverty today [31 January 2013] focused on addiction.

While it’s a serious problem, Chris Goulden argues there is much more to poverty than addiction. The main criteria for judging any poverty strategy should be whether it is firmly grounded in evidence about what policies and practices are effective and finding the mix that provides most impact for least cost.

That’s the starting point for JRF in our new anti-poverty programme.

Continue reading

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Reality of UK poverty captured in online BBC Storyville films

Reality of UK poverty captured in online BBC Storyville films
via JRF – Combined Feed by Andy Glynne

Three eye-opening JRF/BBC documentaries are now available to watch online.
Filmmaker Andy Glynne discusses the Why Poverty? series.

Some months ago, Mosaic Films got together with JRF and BBC Storyville to see if we could make some films about poverty in the UK for the global Why Poverty? project.

I was really keen to make some short documentaries, using talented filmmakers from across the country. Although energised and excited by the idea, I also knew that there were huge gaps in my knowledge.

But, of course, the sort of poverty that we see on our television screens doesn’t exist in the UK, does it?

Read on and find out

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What Cities Outlook 2013 tells us about how cities can promote economic growth

via JRF - Combined Feed by Josh Stott

What can we learn from a new report about how our cities are performing?

Josh Stott explores the issues.

The league table results from Cities Outlook 2013, released yesterday, are a useful barometer for monitoring the relative performance of our city economies. The report also raises some important issues for research that we have just commissioned, which will review our understanding of city growth and shed new light on the connection between growth and poverty in cities.

A slightly different outlook on the report that I blogged about yesterday.

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Pension reform means we must claim all benefits for a minimum income retirement

via JRF - Combined Feed by Katie Schmuecker

The new simplified state pension provides a safety net so that most pensioners should achieve an acceptable standard of living – as long as they claim all the benefits they&rsquo:re entitled to.

Inevitably, much of the comment and discussion of these reforms has turned to winners and losers. But stepping back from this level of detail, Pensions Minister Steve Webb has been on the airways saying this reform will provide a “bare minimum” income for people to live on, for them to top-up with a private pension where they can – something the means-tested pension credit has arguably disincentivised.

So the question is whether the “bare minimum” the government is proposing is adequate to achieve an acceptable standard of living.

Continue reading

New JRF research programme to explore how housing can provide a buffer against poverty in the UK

via JRF – Combined Feed by Kathleen Kelly

How could housing protect people in the UK from the worst effects of poverty?

Kathleen Kelly highlights some of the issues JRF is exploring in its new work on housing and poverty.

Looking at how little the Coalition’s mid-term review mentioned the Government’s fundamental changes to housing policy, I’m really pleased that JRF is investing in a new research and development programme on housing and poverty.

We want to understand more about how people’s housing circumstances can be a springboard out of poverty, a buffer against its worst effects – or make things worse perhaps because of costly, poor quality housing. We want to understand how we can make best use of public and private funds to build more homes and meet the pressing housing needs of those 1 in 12 families in England on the social housing waiting list.

The 70-year anniversary of the Beveridge Report sparked a discussion of what Beveridge would make of today’s social security and housing systems.

Seventy years ago it must have felt like a neat side step to argue that there would be a massive council house building programme that would bring down housing costs (not to mention rent controls). But for all the political rhetoric, a massive house building programme looks extremely unlikely these days.

Continue reading

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Are “cultures of worklessness” passed down the generations?

via JRF – Combined Feed by daniel.clarkson

Are there really families where three generations have never worked?

New research found that “cultures of worklessness” was not a good explanation for unemployment.

A new JRF study investigates the concept of “intergenerational cultures of worklessness”. The idea of “three generations of the same family who have never worked” appeals to many, including politicians and policy-makers, to explain entrenched worklessness in the UK.

Researchers in deprived neighbourhoods in Glasgow and Middlesbrough found that worklessness was not the result of a culture of worklessness, held in families and passed down the generations.

Continue reading

Summary report (PDF 4pp)

Full report (PDF 65pp)

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Work IS the best route out of poverty – half the time

via JRF - Combined Feed by Chris Goulden

Is work the best route out of poverty?

This cliché has been pinging around again following Iain Duncan Smith’s interview yesterday [on 25 October], where he said that unemployed people need “to learn that it’s the right thing to go to work”.

On the face of it, the answer is a clear yes but if you look more closely at the evidence, it’s only a half-truth.

Proponents of the ‘work is best’ view often compare the relative income poverty figures for households where everyone is working full-time (3% before housing costs) with those where all adults are out of work (much higher at 55%).

But the latter kinds of households are very different. It is not the case that if you move from being a workless to fully employed household, you immediately lower your risk of poverty to 3%.

Continue reading

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Universal Credit: without urgent changes the Government risks undermining it.s own reforms

via JRF - Combined Feed by Tony Wilson

The government’s arguments for welfare reform are well rehearsed.

There is a fiscal case but also an economic and social one: too many people are only marginally better off in work, while the design of the system has trapped people in poverty and worklessness.

Universal Credit, we are told, will fix these economic and social problems.

However research published today [30 October 2012], supported by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, tells us that without urgent changes the Government risks undermining its own reforms.

Continue reading

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The challenges for disadvantaged young people seeking work

via JRF - Combined Feed by daniel.clarkson

What are the challenges for disadvantaged young people seeking work?

Very active job search is important in the current UK labour market for disadvantaged young people – a “job in itself”.

New research for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (Disadvantaged Young People Looking for Work: A job in itself? by Rebecca Tunstall, Ruth Lupton, Anne Green, Simon Watmough and Katie Bates) describes the difficulty of job searching for young people seeking low-skilled work. Studying three contrasting areas in England and Wales, it found that:

• Only 24 per cent of low-skilled vacancies found for the study offered full-time, daytime work. Over half of vacancies stating the pay offered minimum wage, and 78 per cent paid under £7 an hour, making it less likely that jobseekers could travel far for them.
• Employers also preferred local candidates for such jobs. So although jobseekers need to search beyond their immediate neighbourhood, policies demanding wider geographical searches will not necessarily get more people into work.
• Intense competition meant that some employers advertise vacancies online and close them as soon as they have sufficient applicants to select from. Not all jobseekers were aware how speedily they need to respond to vacancies, and those without internet access at home were at a disadvantage.
• Despite public perceptions that employers discriminate against residents from neighbourhoods with poor reputations, the study found no significant difference in positive response rates.

Summary (PDF 4pp)

Full report (PDF 78pp)

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