Given the New Year hype from the Prime Minister about better times to come, it may seem counter-intuitive but already 2024 is threatening to be the worst year in living memory for already hard-pressed families – worse than even 2023 or 2022. More so than the last two winters, when anxiety about heating and food costs was at its height, all-round rises in the costs of telecoms, housing (whether rent or mortgages), toiletries, clothing and transport are pushing families over the edge.
Nine out of every ten low-income households on Universal Credit are going without basics and, as reported by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, one million children out of a total of almost four million fellow citizens have either no home, no heating, adequate food or toiletries to ensure proper hygiene, and are deemed destitute. And so the crises of the past years, starting with austerity itself, have all left their mark on family resilience and brought matters to a head.
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