The latest Joseph Rowntree Foundation annual report finds that those who had been struggling to make ends meet before the pandemic have suffered the most financial damage during the crisis,
Poverty as measured by material deprivation through lack of economic resources remains absolutely central to understanding the causation of most aspects of social exclusion and a range of social outcomes, concludes the 2nd of the two-volume PSE-UK study.
The human cost of government imposed austerity should be a key issue, argue Vickie Cooper and David Whyte. Drawing on their new book, 'The Violence of Austerity', they set out how austerity is shaping people's lives and deaths.
Read the Journal papers coming from the PSE research. The latest paper examines how analyses of the micro paradata ‘by-products’ from the 1967/1968 Poverty in the United Kingdom (PinUK) and 2012 Poverty and Social Exclusion in the UK (PSE) surveys highlight changes in the conditions of survey production over this 45 year period in the latest output from the PSE research.
A report by MPs has criticised the Department for Work and Pensions for a series of cases in which official statistics were used to 'spin' stories about benefit claimants, thereby encouraging 'negative preconceptions and prejudices'.
Each year as many as 68,000 people on jobseeker's allowance have their benefits taken away unfairly and face unnecessary hardship as a result, according to a new report from the Policy Exchange think tank. The report calls for the system of sanctions to be overhauled.
Twenty-seven Church of England bishops have signed a letter condemning the coalition government's benefits reforms, which they say have forced people into food and fuel poverty.
In an open letter to the Prime Minister, published in the Daily Mirror to mark the beginning of Lent, the bishops – along with 16 representatives of other Churches – said that too many people were having to choose between 'heat or eat' as a result of 'cut backs and failures in the benefit system'.
The total number of sanctions imposed on benefit claimants in the year to September 2013 was 897,690 – the highest figure for any 12-month period since jobseeker's allowance was introduced in 1996 – according to figures published by the Department for Work and Pensions.
The figures show the number of sanctions imposed under the tougher new regime introduced by the coalition government in October 2012. They cover jobseeker's allowance (JSA) and employment and support allowance (ESA).
Britain's most senior Catholic cleric has described the effects of the coalition government's benefits reforms as a 'disgrace', and said the changes have removed even the most basic safety net for those threatened by poverty. In an interview with the Daily Telegraph newspaper, Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, said the system has become more 'punitive', leaving people with nothing if they fail to fill in forms correctly.