The cost of living crisis is deepening for some of those on the lowest incomes. We see this across our network of Trussell Trust food banks and in new research from YouGov which found that half of those on Universal Credit ran out of food in the last month and couldn’t afford to buy more.
More people are being dragged into debt and having to turn to food banks to survive. This escalating hardship creates dire consequences for individuals, communities and the UK as a whole, damaging the nation’s health and holding back our economy.
Over the last 18 months, the UK government has used one-off cost of living payments to help people on low incomes, but the limitations of this approach are now clear. We see in our data that there is a dip in the need for food banks when each payment is made, however this respite only lasts between one and three weeks.