UK Poverty 2025

UK Poverty by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation looks across a range of data sources and published insights to build up a comprehensive picture of the current state of poverty across the United Kingdom.

This report sets out the nature of poverty in the UK in the run-up to 2024’s General Election. It also sets out the scale of action necessary for the Government to deliver the change it has promised.

More than 1 in 5 people in the UK (21%) were in poverty in 2022/23 – 14.3 million people. Of these, 8.1 million were working-age adults, 4.3 million were children and 1.9 million were pensioners. To put it another way, around 2 in every 10 adults are in poverty in the UK, with about 3 in every 10 children being in poverty. The picture compared to 2021/22 is one of stability: child poverty rose slightly, pensioner poverty fell slightly, and working-age adult poverty stayed the same. Poverty for all 3 groups has returned to around pre-pandemic levels, rising after average incomes recovered after the pandemic, at the same time as a range of temporary coronavirus-related support was withdrawn.

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