1 in 5 key worker households have children living in poverty, says TUC

Friday, 5 August 2022 00:01

1 in 5 (19%) key worker households have children living in poverty, new TUC research has revealed today (Friday). The research, which uses the government definition for key workers, shows that the number of kids growing up in poverty in key worker households has increased by 65,000 over the past two years to nearly 1 million (989,000) in 2022. It forecasts that in 2023 that number will rise again to 1.1 million unless ministers take further action to support families....Request free trial

1 in 5 (19%) key worker households have children living in poverty, new TUC research has revealed today (Friday).

The research, which uses the government definition for key workers, shows that the number of kids growing up in poverty in key worker households has increased by 65,000 over the past two years to nearly 1 million (989,000) in 2022.

It forecasts that in 2023 that number will rise again to 1.1 million unless ministers take further action to support families.

North East hit hardest

The analysis – undertaken for the TUC by Landman Economics - highlights how in some regions of the UK more than two-fifths of children in key worker households are now living in poverty.

Key worker families in the North East (41%) have the highest rate of child poverty followed by the North West (29%) and London (29%) and the East of England (24%).

Scotland (8.3%) and Wales (8.9%) have the lowest rates.

Worse set to come

The TUC warned child poverty rates among key worker households are likely to get worse.

Ministers have announced another of year of real-terms pay cuts for key workers in the public sector.

The union body says this will have a devastating impact on frontline workers after a brutal decade of pay freezes and cuts:

Hospital porters’ real pay will be down by £200 this year
Maternity care assistants’ real pay will be down by £600 this year
Nurses’ real pay will be down by £1,100 this year
Paramedics’ real pay will be down by over £1,500 this year

And ministers are calling for wages to be held down for some key workers in the private sector too.

The TUC says the additional support announced by the Treasury this year to help families with energy bills will be offset by cuts to real-terms pay and other rising living costs.

Risk of recession

The TUC says government calls for widespread pay suppression will reduce household spending and demand as the UK teeters on the brink of recession.

The union body highlighted how at the same time key workers are being told to tighten their belts, city bonuses are rocketing.

TUC analysis published in June month revealed that bonuses in the financial and insurance sector grew by 27.9% over the last year, six times faster than average wages in the same period, which grew by 4.2%.

TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said:

“Our amazing key workers got us through the pandemic. The very least they deserve is to be able to provide for their families.

“But the government is locking too many key worker households into poverty.

“Ministers’ heartless decision to hold down pay will cause widespread hardship and put the UK at greater risk of recession.

“After the longest wage squeeze in 200 years we urgently need to get more money in the pockets of working families.

“This will help people get through this cost of living crisis and inject much-needed demand into our economy.

She added:

“It is particularly galling that as key workers are being told to tighten their belts, city executives are enjoying bumper bonuses.

“Once again ordinary working people are being forced to carry the can for a crisis made in Downing Street.”

Support needed for key worker families

The TUC is calling on the government to guarantee decent living standards by:

Raising the national minimum wage immediately.
Giving all key workers a fair pay rise that meets the cost of living
Funding the public sector so that all outsourced workers are paid at least the real Living Wage and get parity with directly employed staff.
Boosting universal credit to 80% of the real Living Wage
Significantly increasing benefit payments to children and removing the two-child limit within social security.

ENDS

Notes to editors:

Children in poverty in key worker households by UK nation and region in 2022

Region	Total number of children in key worker families	Number of children in poverty in key worker families	Percentage of children in poverty in key worker families
North East	170,586	70,311	41.2%
North West	600,325	174,495	29.1%
Yorks & the Humber	434,335	47,659	11.0%
East Midlands	426,335	49,150	11.5%
West Midlands	396,756	93,156	23.5%
East of England	490,577	115,563	23.6%
London	661,487	189,691	28.7%
South East	811,614	125,848	15.5%
South West	362,539	43,287	11.9%
Wales	249,789	22,285	8.9%
Scotland	445,826	37,005	8.3%
Northern Ireland	146,353	20,787	14.2%
Total	5,196,522	989,237	19.0%

- Methodology: Landman Economics combined information from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) and Family Resource Survey (FRS) for 2020/21 to calculate the number of children living in key worker households and how many of those households are in poverty, taking account of changes in real terms pay between 2020 and 2022 for public and private sector workers using figures from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE).

- All figures are based on household income after housing costs. Note that the 2020/21 FRS is based on a smaller sample size than previous years of FRS due to the difficulty of interviewing households during the Covid-19 pandemic, and poverty estimates are accordingly subject to higher degrees of uncertainty than in previous years.

- The analysis does include the impact of the reduction in Council Tax announced by the government in February 2022 in response to the cost-of-living crisis and the one-off grants announced by the Chancellor in May 2022.

-Under the government’s own definition of a key worker, 10.6 million of those employed (33% of the total workforce) are in key worker occupations and industries.