The use of foodbanks has rocketed and more and more families are becoming homeless, statistics suggest, and campaigners have demanded for change to finally happen
18:37, 23 Jan 2024Updated 19:23, 23 Jan 2024
The average person in the UK is now more than £10,000 poorer since the Tories came to power thanks to "levelling down", new research suggests.
Analysis from Centre for Cities reveals that most of the UK's major towns and cities have seen a lack of growth in the last decade, with the economy flatlining since 2010, the year that David Cameron became Prime Minister and started 14 years of Conservative rule.
At the national level, on average people are a total of £10,200 worse off than if the economy had grown following pre-2010 trends. However, the amount is far higher in some parts of the UK.
Nearly half of the children in some of our largest cities, including London, Birmingham and Manchester, live in poverty, further new data illustrates. Analysis of this shows a couple with two children under 14 living in very deep poverty would need at least an extra £12,800 just to reach the breadline.
Very deep poverty is defined as a household income of less than 40% of the average, after housing costs - below £14,600 for a couple with two young children. While the actual amount differs, every family from single parents to couples with no children living in this type of extreme hardship would essentially need to double their income to make ends meet. Those in large cities, such as Manchester and Birmingham, are most susceptible to this. Parts of London, including Tower Hamlets and Newham, are also worst-affected by poverty.
Campaigners say the damning statistics show change must happen now - but the use of foodbanks has rocketed and more and more families are becoming homeless, the Mirror recently told.
In a year of a general election where growth and levelling up will be central to the debate, Centre for Cities say addressing this economic stagnation presents a huge challenge for the next Prime Minister.
The report reveals that almost every place has been left out of pocket – both North and South, and from former industrial towns to innovation superstars.
Of the UK’s 63 largest cities and towns included in the analysis, Aberdeen has been hardest hit. The average person in the city has missed out on a total of £45,240 over the last 14 years, as a result of lower levels of growth.Within England, the people of Burnley were especially out of pocket, where the average person was cumulatively £28,090 worse off since 2010.
Just seven places – Aldershot, Bristol, Derby, Northampton, Slough, Telford and York – were better off, in almost all cases due to underwhelming growth in the 1998-2010 period.
Centre for Cities say this shortfall has happened because while the UK has experienced a jobs boom since 2010, this has not been accompanied by productivity growth.
By 2022, there were 4.6 million extra jobs in the UK than there were in 2010, considerably more than the 2.5 million created between 1998 and 2010.
In comparison, productivity increased by an annual average of 0.6 per cent in real terms between 2010 and 2021, much more sluggish than the average annual growth of 1.5 per cent between 1998 and 2010.
Meanwhile, housing affordability - already an issue in 2010 - has gotten worse, eating into disposable incomes. These combined trends have impacted on the level and nature of poverty in the UK.The proportion of children living in relative poverty has risen in almost every city since 2014, with a particular increase in in-work poverty.
In 2021 there were six cities, all in the North and the Midlands, where over a third of children are from households in relative poverty – as recently as 2014, there were none. In Birmingham, there was an increase of 60,000 children living in relative poverty over that period.
Andrew Carter, Chief Executive of Centre for Cities, said: “Everywhere, up and down the country, including places that were doing relatively well before, has been levelled down because of the lack of growth.
“To get growth in every place, the next Government needs to act at a radically different pace and scale, and mark the beginning of a multi-decade policy programme.
“The first step in a realistic approach to grow the economy is to recognise that the British economy is an urban economy. There is no plausible way of achieving higher growth without increasing the innovation and dynamism of urban Britain.
“This means reforming the planning system to enable cities to grow, devolving more powers and financial freedoms to encourage our big cities to make decisions that support growth, and following the levelling up rhetoric with bold actions.”
A Government spokesperson said: “We are committed to levelling-up every corner of the UK, investing billions to support community regeneration projects, connecting 25.7 million premises with gigabit broadband and over 50% of England is now covered by a devolution deal.
“We have halved the number of people on low pay with increases in the National Living wage and thanks to above inflation increase to tax allowances, we have also saved the average earner over £1,000 a year since 2010. We did so after two massive global shocks – Covid and Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine – which affected every economy worldwide. And yet, the UK has grown faster than Germany, Italy, France, Spain and Japan.”