UK Poverty 2025

UK Poverty 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 (UK). We know poverty can lead to negative impacts at all stages of life, so it is critical to look closely at the available information to work out who is worst affected, determine how levels have changed over time and see what the future prospects are likely to be.

This is the first UK Poverty report to be released under the new Labour Government. Much of the latest data on which this report is based ends before the election. However, using JRF’s cost of living tracker, we see the unacceptably high levels of poverty we referred to in last year’s report persist, with economic security out of reach for millions of people. This is an urgent problem that the new Government needs to address. There were some helpful pledges in its manifesto on child poverty and ending the need for emergency food parcels, but much more will be needed if they are to be successful in ‘driving down poverty in every part of the country’.

Below is a summary of the key findings of the UK Poverty 2025 report.

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average incomes recovered after the pandemic, at the same time as a range of temporary coronavirus-related support was withdrawn.

It is 20 years and counting since we last saw a prolonged period of falling poverty. Taking a longer view, we can see that overall poverty barely changed during the Conservative-led Governments from 2010 to the latest data covering 2022/23. The last period of falling poverty was during the first half of the previous Labour administration (between 1999/2000 and 2004/05), but it then rose in the second half of its time in power.

In part, the lack of progress over the last 20 years reflects the series of hits to living standards that have affected the whole population. Each of the 5 Parliaments since 2005 has recorded lower quarterly income growth than the last 13 Parliaments before 2005, stretching back to the start of available data in 1955. This started with the economic slowdown even before the global financial crisis and persisted through the crisis itself, then austerity, Brexit, the coronavirus pandemic and finally the cost of living crisis.

It is almost certain that economic stability is necessary to sustainably reduce poverty. However, economic growth on its own won’t reduce poverty, and it is deeply unjust to force families to wait for economic growth before they feel their situation improve, especially given the picture of deepening poverty.

In 2022/23, 6 million people – or 4 in 10 of those in poverty – were in very deep poverty, with an income far below the standard poverty line. More than twice as many (over 12 million people) had experienced very deep poverty in at least one year between 2017/18 and 2020/21.

Between 2020/21 and 2022/23, the average person in poverty had an income 28% below the poverty line, with the gap up from 23% between 1994/95 and 1996/97. The poorest families – those living in very deep poverty – had an average income that was 57% below the poverty line, with this gap increasing by almost two-thirds over the past 25 years.

Families with children

We have already seen that children have higher risks of poverty overall (30% versus 21% for the whole population), but larger families with 3 or more children have consistently faced a higher rate of poverty (45% of children in large families were in poverty in 2022/23). This is because a number of benefit policies have a disproportionate impact on larger families. These include the 2 child limit, which restricts eligibility for many child-related benefits to the first 2 children in a family whether the family is in or out of work, and the benefit cap, which limits the total income a household can receive in out-of-work benefits. Reductions in the poverty rate of children in large families drove child poverty downwards until 2012/13, but increases for this group have driven child poverty back up again since then.

Families with children also face additional challenges if childcare responsibilities limit their ability to undertake well-paid and high-quality work, which is often the case for lone-parent families and families with younger children (as well as for larger families); 44% of children in lone-parent families were in poverty in the latest data – 2022/23 – as were 36% of children in families where the youngest child was aged under 5.

Minority ethnic groups

Poverty rates are very high for some minority ethnic groups. In particular, between 2020/21 and 2022/23, over half of people in Bangladeshi (56%) and around half of people in Pakistani (49%) households lived in poverty, with even higher poverty levels for children in those households (67% and 61% respectively). Around 4 in 10 people in households headed by people from Black African backgrounds (40%) were in poverty, with around half of children in these households in poverty. All these groups were much more likely than people in households headed by someone of white ethnicity (19%) to be in poverty (24% of children in households headed by someone of white ethnicity were in poverty). Minority ethnic groups with higher rates of poverty tended to also have higher rates of very deep and of persistent poverty.

Disabled people

Disabled people face a higher risk of poverty. This is driven partly by the additional costs associated with disability and ill-health, and partly by the barriers to work that disabled people face. However, the proportion of disabled working-age adults in work increased from 42% in 2010/11 to 53% in 2022/23, while poverty rates remained steady over that period. In the latest data, there were 16 million disabled people in the UK – that is, nearly 1 in 4 people (24%) – and almost 4 in 10 families contained at least one person who was disabled. The poverty rate for disabled people was 30%, 10 percentage points higher than the rate for people who were not disabled. Nearly half of all people who were disabled and living in poverty had a long-term, limiting mental condition – around 2.4 million people. The poverty rate for this group was 50%, compared with 29% for people with a physical or other type of disability.

Informal carers

Similarly, informal carers are much more likely than those with no caring responsibilities to be living in poverty (28% compared with 20%). In 2022/23, 1 in 10 adults (5.1 million) were informal carers, with 6 in 10 of these carers living in families where someone was disabled. Their reduced ability to work means informal carers face a financial penalty, with unpaid social-care givers experiencing an average pay penalty of £414 a month (nearly £5,000 a year).

People in workless households

People in workless households also face a higher risk of poverty, with more than half of working-age adults (54%) in workless households being in poverty, according to the latest data. However, because such a high share of the population is in work, around two-thirds of working-age adults in poverty actually lived in a household where someone was in work, despite these households having a much lower poverty rate of 15%. The poverty rate for part-time workers was nearly triple that for full-time workers (22% compared with 8%), and part-time self-employed workers were more than twice as likely to be in poverty as employees (23% compared with 10%). Workers in the administration and support activities sector had the highest poverty rate at 22%. Part-time self-employed workers had even higher rates of 28%. Workers in the accommodation and food services (23%), administrative and support service activities (21%), and agriculture, forestry and fishing (21%) had the highest poverty rates of the sectors of work we looked at.

Social and private renters

There is also a link between tenure type and poverty. In 2022/23, more than 4 in 10 social renters (44%) and around a third of private renters (35%) were in poverty AHC. Within this group of renters in poverty, around 3 in 10 social renters and half of private renters were only in poverty after their housing costs were factored in and so appear to be pushed into poverty by the amount of money they have to spend on housing. Among homeowners, around 1 in 7 (14%) of people who lived in a home that was owned outright were in poverty, while 1 in 10 people living in a home being bought with a mortgage (10%) were in poverty.

People claiming income-related benefits

Finally, the poverty rates of people claiming different income-related benefits are much higher than the national average poverty rate. On the one hand, this is to be expected given the ‘low income’ eligibility criteria for claiming these benefits, but on the other hand, it demonstrates that the level of benefits available is frequently not sufficient to enable recipients to escape poverty. Indeed, the basic rate of UC is even below destitution thresholds.

Poverty rates vary significantly between UK nations and regions

In the latest data, the average poverty rates in England (22%), Wales (21%) and Scotland (21%) had converged to around the same level, although poverty rates were much lower in Northern Ireland at 17% (note all country figures are averages of 2021/22 and 2022/23 data as single-year figures can be volatile). These variations in poverty rates across the different nations of the UK are driven by differences in labour markets (including the levels of employment, the sectors worked in and rates of pay), housing markets (the mix of tenures and housing costs) and rates of benefit receipt, alongside wider demographic factors (age, family types and sizes). The greater reliance on renting and the higher costs of housing generally are substantial drivers in larger cities in particular, while lower rates of employment, with fewer employment opportunities alongside a greater concentration of employment in lower-paid roles and sectors, are more significant drivers of poverty across many post-industrial and coastal areas.

Child poverty rates in Scotland (24%) remain much lower than those in England (30%) and Wales (29%) and are similar (if slightly higher) than in Northern Ireland (23%). This is likely to be due, at least in part, to the Scottish Child Payment. This highlights the effect benefits can have in reducing poverty.

In October 2024, around 2.6 million of the poorest fifth of households (44%) were in arrears with their household bills or behind on scheduled lending repayments, 4.1 million households (69%) were going without essentials and 3.2 million households (54%) cut back on food or went hungry.

It is clear that the current economic situation is by no means positive, with many of the key drivers either showing a negative or mixed picture. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecast no wage growth between Q1 2025 and Q1 2029, with benefits only keeping up with inflation (with a lag), so we expect little of the (in many cases) extensive ground lost through the cost of living crisis and beforehand to be made up. Increasing housing costs and frozen levels of support, as well as the basic rate of benefits only being maintained at a level around the threshold for destitution, will continue to hold living standards back.

It is clear that levels of poverty and hardship in the United Kingdom are unacceptably high. This is a view shared by the British public, with a survey conducted by More in Common on behalf of JRF showing very high levels of concern about hardship (84%) and 92% of people questioned saying tackling the cost of living and reducing levels of hardship should be important for the Government. It also, however, reveals a great scepticism about the extent to which the UK Government is committed to doing so, with only 32% thinking Labour are committed to tackling these issues compared to 44% who think they are not. Almost two thirds of people think Labour is not committed to improving the lives of the worst off, and expectations for the future are bleak, with, for example, 64% of people thinking food bank use will go up over this parliament.

We need to break out of this culture of low expectations of progress with concrete action and demonstrable prioritisation to address hardship, drawing on the Labour manifesto commitments to ‘develop an ambitious strategy to reduce child poverty’ and to ‘end mass dependence on emergency food parcels’, as well as to ‘review UC so that it makes work pay and tackles poverty’. We at JRF strongly believe that, beyond any actions in these areas, there needs to be a more holistic plan for hardship that addresses a much wider range of causes and consequences of poverty, moving towards building economic security not waiting for growth first.

These are some of the key actions that can be taken across critical areas:

• Offer help and space for those looking for work to find a secure job that sticks, while making work possible and desirable for those outside the labour market if this is feasible.
• Improve financial protection if people lose their jobs or cannot work for a period, such as paid leave due to caring demands or sickness, building on new policies which have started to raise the basic level of workplace rights and protections.
• Give people the ability to care alongside work without falling into hardship, including by increasing the value of carer benefits while making paid care services more affordable and accessible.
• Ensure social security is there for all of us when we need it, with the basic rate set so it is at least enough to afford life’s essentials. This includes permanently re-linking the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) to local rents and removing the 2 child limit in the benefit system, alongside forging a ‘social safety net’ of crisis support, practical help and social connection where people live.
• Put future pension provision on a more secure footing by raising minimum contribution rates and establishing good options for people to use their savings pot to provide a secure standard of living in retirement.
• Help people accrue modest savings, access affordable credit, gain relief from problem debt and hold assets (especially those without access to family wealth).
• Expand access to affordable, secure, decent homes, whether rented or owned, by increasing the supply of homes, including those for social rent, and ensure that the benefit system works to support households with their housing costs by ensuring housing benefit is unfrozen and reflects the actual cost of rents.
• Work closely with devolved governments where powers overlap to make services as easy as possible to access and collaborate on shared priorities, such as supporting individuals into work.

Our polling with More in Common suggests that the Labour honeymoon period is over. With limited action on poverty and hardship seen in the first 6 months of the Government, there is huge scepticism over what can be delivered. What now is needed is a ‘relentless focus on long-term ends’ in order ‘to change lives for the better’. We have had 20 years of no progress in reducing the overall level of poverty and a deepening of poverty below this static picture. To borrow the title of the Labour Party manifesto, this needs to change.

Note: After publication, an error was discovered in Figure 13 of the main report, where poverty in overall Black-headed households was incorrect. This has now been corrected. 

Authored by: Taha Bokhari, Carla Cebula, Rachelle Earwaker, Joseph Elliott, Maudie Johnson-Hunter, Peter Matejic, Becky Milne, and Andrew Wenham.

Reviewed and edited by: Pinnacle Graphic Design Ltd, Westchester Publishing Services UK, JRF Insight and Policy, and Communication and Public Engagement teams.

Project co-ordination and management: Leigh Brunskill.

Communications and engagement work: JRF Communication and Public Engagement teams.

If you are using this document in your own writing, our preferred citation is: 

Joseph Rowntree Foundation (2025) UK Poverty 2025