Rachelle's research focuses on decent and affordable housing, and fiscal and economic policy. Rachelle previously worked as an analyst at the New Zealand Treasury, where she coordinated the Budgets, including implementing the first Wellbeing Budget in 2019. She also worked on housing policy, focusing on social and emergency housing in New Zealand.
Email: rachelle.earwaker@jrf.org.uk
Twitter: @r_earwaker
If the Government wants to end emergency food parcels and tackle child poverty and homelessness, re-linking benefits to costs is the right thing to do.
We've developed a new interactive dashboard to explore insights gathered from the JRF cost of living tracker.
With levels of hardship in May 2024 unchanged for the lowest-income families in the last year, the cost of living crisis is far from over.
Millions of people are still in the grip of high and rising prices, a rapid rise in interest rates, and a deteriorating job market. This remains a dangerously evolving crisis. The Autumn Statement must address the breadth and depth of hardship in the UK - anything less will be a failure.
As the cost of living crisis enters a dangerous new phase, it's pushed millions of people to rely on unsecured lending as a last resort to pay for bills and essentials. With interest rates rising, and inflation stubbornly high, it's unclear how much more pressure this strategy can bear.
JRF’s latest cost of living tracker shows that almost half of low-income mortgage holders were behind on their bills before June’s interest rate rise – they must not be ignored as the Government and Bank of England look to reduce UK inflation levels.
This new research shows persistently high levels of hardship in the UK, with the numbers of low-income households going without essentials or in arrears not having budged in over a year.
This report makes clear that the Government support provided so far in the cost of living crisis hasn’t been sufficient to stem the rising tide of hardship for millions of families on the lowest incomes up and down the country.
New measures will significantly limit low-income families’ exposure to rising costs next year. But as attention shifts to 2023, they are about to face the worst winter many will remember.