OBR's measure of living standards, RHDI, is up by £500 - largely due to stronger wage growth, including planning reforms which boost incomes.

BUT when you dig into it, 3/4 of the extra income from housing services is 'imputed rents' (what families would receive if they rented out their home).

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Working age families who are not working and claiming benefits have already sustained significant losses in incomes, down 8pp, and this continues over the rest of the decade, down a further 4pp.
This is before the cuts to disability benefits, which will make this picture even worse.

Families with children continue to struggle, with lone parents and couples with children seeing disposable incomes down 4 percentage points between now and 2030.

Lone parents have been hit particularly hard, forecast to have £1,100 less in disposable income in 2030 compared to now.

Families on the lowest incomes are set to bear the brunt of the pain, with real disposable incomes falling almost twice as fast as middle and higher income families between now and the rest of the decade.

Living standards are forecast to have already peaked this parliament, with Keir Starmer on track to preside over the worst parliament in modern history for living standards.

New JRF analysis on living standards ahead of the Spring Statement ⬇️

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JRF analysis after the Autumn Statement projected falling living standards across the rest of the parliament, with lowest incomes households hit the worst.
Since then, forecasts have deteriorated which will bring more pain for families.

Low-income families where someone has a learning disability, learning difficulty or mental health condition expected to last more than 12 months are experiencing some of the highest rates of hardship.

Cutting access to PIP will only cause more pain.

Today's announcement to cut £5b from disability benefits, to plug a funding gap in the Spring Statement, is an immoral choice to balance to books on the backs of those who need it the most.

JRF's cost of living tracker shows the hardship already deeply hitting low-income families, before any cuts

The proportion of people who live in poor health is also on the rise, and of real concern is young people.

People aged 16-34 have seen the largest increases in the proportion living in poor health, up 40% compared to levels in 2012/13.

Key stats from the cost of living chapter of the latest @jrf-uk.bsky.social UK Poverty report, out today 🧵

7 in 10 families in the lowest fifth of incomes were going without essentials in October 2024, including
- Over half cutting back or skipping meals
- 4 in 10 going hungry

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Around ¾’s of lone parents or families with 3 or more children were food insecure in October 2024, compared to 34% of families without children.

Around 2/3rds of households with a black respondent were food insecure in October 2024, compared to 42% of families with white respondents.

73% of families on Universal Credit were food insecure in October 2024, twice that of families not on mean-tested benefits (36%).

DEFRA report out today shows food insecurity is up, from 8% of all households in 2019/2020 to 10% in 2022/23.

Our cost of living tracker in October 2024 finds 46% of households in the bottom 40% of incomes were food insecure, most similar to the ‘very food insecure’ measure.

Thread of stats:

The hit to disposable incomes is forecast to be felt the most by those on the lowest incomes, while no income group see any improvement. Without concerted action from Government to ensure families have more money in their pockets after paying their housing costs, hardship is likely to increase.

For the first time we included new miscrosim modelling showing the outlook for disposable incomes after housing costs for the bottom 40%.
Between now and 2029, they are set to fall by around £440 in real terms. Housing costs is a key driver, pulling down otherwise flatish incomes.

Families continue to take on debt to get by. In October 2024, 4 million low-income households (34%) held £9.6 billion of loans they originally took out to pay for food, housing or essential bills like council tax or energy.

Hardship is not felt equally. In the 6 months to October 2024 the following low-income families were going without essentials:
- 86% on UC, and 93% on UC with deductions
- 81% with a black respondent
- 76% of private renters, and 76% of social renters
- 87% of lone parents, and 87% with 3+ kids

@jrf-uk.bsky.social latest cost of living tracker out today shows why living standards must drive Starmer's reset.

Hardship remains entirely unchanged, with a warning of worse to come
- 7m families going without essentials, including 5.4 without enough food
- 4.3m in arrears

Thread on findings: