Poverty in the UK

Poverty in the UK is much harder for us to see.

It is the mother waiting around in the supermarket for the reduced items to go on sale, so her children can have dinner that evening.

It is the father who works three jobs on minimum wage to put clothes on his children’s backs, so they don’t have to go through what he does in later life.

And it is the teenager living on a council estate, who is constantly told by the media and politicians that he is a scrounger and will never amount to anything in life.

Statistics show that 14.5 million people live in poverty in the UK, which is over a fifth of the population.

That’s a lot of families who have to make difficult financial decisions day in day out; a lot of children for whom the school lunch is the only hot meal they have all day; and a lot of people who are stuck in low-paid jobs and cannot afford rising food and fuel costs.

And although we are fortunate to have a welfare system in the UK, it does not provide access to skills and opportunities to help people better their circumstances or equip people with sufficient savings to deal with a life crisis or change in circumstances.