Report
Child poverty
Work
Housing
Monitoring poverty and social exclusion in Wales 2015
This Findings from the New Policy Institute analyses the latest data to show trends in work, poverty, housing and benefits sanctions in Wales. It looks at measures of low income, low pay and other types of disadvantage. It then considers what challenges these changes and the Summer Budget 2015 pose to policy-making in Wales.
It finds that:
- an average of 700,000 people were in poverty in Wales in the three years to 2013–14, equivalent to 23 per cent of the population;
- compared with ten years earlier, there are more people of working age (particularly young adults) in poverty and fewer children and pensioners;
- there has been no reduction in the extent of low pay in Wales for a decade –270,000 jobs, mainly held by women, are paid below two-thirds of the UK median hourly wage;
- in 2014 there were 30,000 Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) sanctions, lower than in 2013, due mainly to fewer claimants.