We know housing is a major cost to many families and make a real difference in how families actually experience changing living standards - which is why unlike the OBR, our JRF measure of living standards includes the impact of housing costs.

New JRF analysis of the Spring Statement coming soon!

Not only is 'imputed rent' not actually felt as a boost to living standards by most families (because they live in their homes, not rent them out), it's being scored as an increase to living standards without scoring the other important part of the equation - rising housing costs!

Instead the Chancellor should look to the tax system, to cover any shortfall in headroom and provide targeted boosts to living standards for families currently suffering the most.

Read it all here: www.jrf.org.uk/cost-of-livi...

The Chancellor always has choices about how to balance the government books. Given a weak economic outlook and dire forecasts for living standards, particularly for low-income families, it is the wrong choice to balance the books on the backs of disabled people and a squeeze on public services.

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.

Further fiscal retrenchment could be extremely harmful given already falling living standards and a weakening economic outlook.

The Chancellor must look to careful reforms of the tax system, not balance the Government books on the backs of those least able to afford it.

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.

The Chancellor always has choices when it comes to balancing the Government's books. Doing so on the backs of disabled people is the wrong choice.

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.

You can read the full Health and Poverty chapter, and much more, here: www.jrf.org.uk/uk-poverty-2...

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.

Life expectancy has also headed in the wrong direction in Scotland, with even greater gaps.
Comparing the most and least deprived areas:
- Females live on average 10.5 years less
- Males live on average 13.2 years less.

You can read the full report here : www.jrf.org.uk/uk-poverty-2...