Tag: standard of living

Challenge Poverty Week: Change is possible, says Public Health Scotland

This Challenge Poverty Week, Public Health Scotland’s CEO, Paul Johnston explains how PHS are advocating for a Scotland where everyone has access to an adequate income to enable a healthy standard of living:

Living in poverty is detrimental to health and one of the main causes of poor health and health inequalities, with negative consequences for children and adults. Policy changes which impact on the drivers of poverty (income from employment, income from social security and the cost of living) have the potential to impact on population health and health inequalities.

Since 2010 a series of changes have been implemented to the UK (reserved) social security system. An intention of The Welfare Reform Act 2012 which triggered these changes was to help people into work and reduce poverty for adults and children, which in turn would lead to improvements in health.

Policies included reduced financial support to low-income families with three or more children and increased conditionality for lone parents. These are families who already have an increased risk of living in poverty.

Since 2013, Public Health in Scotland (PHS) has been monitoring the economic and health trends associated with Welfare Reform. Our latest report Improving Lives? highlights that the anticipated improvements to income and health from Welfare Reform have not been realised for people in Scotland.

Aspects of health have worsened or remained unchanged since 2010 and importantly, many of these trends pre-date the COVID-19 pandemic. These trends were also observed for the rest of the UK. A forthcoming PHS systematic review found that for people exposed to the changes, UK Welfare Reform made mental health worse, and had no positive effect on physical health.

While some working-age families and children benefitted from Welfare Reform (through increased employment), these gains were offset by those who were harmed by the changes.

This is concerning, especially as our report shows that population groups most likely to be affected by these changes are the groups who are already more likely to be at risk of or experiencing poverty. We know from 2013 that the relative child poverty rates in Scotland increased after a period of decline.

Evidence also tells us that mental health problems became more prevalent, especially after 2015, while health inequalities have risen. The period also saw stalled improvement or worsening trends in financial insecurity and long-term sickness.

This Challenge Poverty Week, we are advocating for a Scotland where everyone has access to an adequate income to enable a healthy standard of living. This will help to create a Scotland where everybody thrives.

A number of changes are needed to make this happen. These include promoting quality employment which supports good health. Almost 19% of employees in Scotland aged 18-55 are in poor quality work, and most working-age adults and children in poverty live in a household where someone works.

We also need to ensure our social security system protects people’s mental health and wellbeing. This could include an Essentials Guarantee to protect people from hardship, supported by 72% of the population.

It could also include improved support for working-age adults with health problems, especially mental health problems.

We know that change is possible.

During 1997–2010 policy choices by the UK government directed financial support at children and pensioners and as a result poverty fell for both of these groups. This period also saw increased employment rates translate into improved mental health for lone parents. This proves that we can make a difference to people’s lives through social security and employment policies.

In Scotland, child poverty rates are lower than many other UK nations. In Scotland, we are doing things differently to tackle child poverty.

The Scottish Government estimates that around 100,000 children will be kept out of poverty as a result of the Scottish Child Payment this year and low-income families are being further supported with the costs of pregnancy and looking after children through Best Start Grants and Best Start Foods payments.

Scotland is delivering a strengthened employment offer to parents, to provide holistic support and address specific barriers to enable more parents to gain and progress in work. This along with focussed action to create a Fair Work Nation, which includes supporting more employers to pay the living wage, provides a platform to build on, to support more parents to escape poverty.

Learning and evidence from past UK policy approaches and Scotland’s actions to tackle child poverty should be used to inform further policy changes to address poverty and improve health.

It is imperative that providing an effective social security safety net for when families need it and creating high quality, flexible employment opportunities for parents, will be central to the UK’s child poverty strategy going forward.

Nearly half of British adults expect fall in standard of living

  • Energy prices and cost-of-living crisis top list of financial concerns
  • Women are more concerned about external factors, such as a recession, impacting their finances
  • People plan to increase time spent reviewing their finances due to rising costs

Nearly half (46%) of UK adults are worried that their standard of living will fall over the next 12 months, reveals research conducted on behalf of Handelsbanken Wealth & Asset Management. 

Concern was highest among those in their 30s (55%), dropping to 38% of over 50’s – likely due to accumulated savings.

Despite recent declines, energy prices still top people’s biggest concerns on the factors threatening their living standard, along with the cost-of-living crisis and high prices caused by inflation.

External risks worry women more

Women are more concerned than men about most external risks to their finances, including inflation (79% versus 72%), rising interest rates (59% versus 52%) and a recession (83% versus 73%). However, men worry more about geopolitical instability (57% versus 50% women) and stock market volatility (42% versus 37% women), with the latter perhaps due to being more inclined to invest, the research also revealed.

Divided on death and divorce

Men are more concerned about losing wealth through divorce (24% versus 19%), whereas women are more likely to fear the financial impact of their partner or spouse dying (47% versus 42%).

Proportion of people concerned about various factors impacting their personal finances

FactorOverall proportion of individualsWomenMen
Energy prices78%80%74%
The cost-of-living crisis / recession78%83%73%
Inflation76%79%72%
A global economic downturn63%63%63%
Rising interest rates55%59%52%
Income tax increases54%56%53%
Geopolitical instability53%50%57%
Scams and frauds51%56%46%
Death of a partner / spouse45%47%43%
Stock market volatility40%42%37%

Time invested

The study showed that these concerns are changing how much time we spend reviewing our finances each month.

On average, consumers spend over six hours a month on their finances, with groceries and other household costs taking up the most time (52 minutes) followed by bank account management (48 minutes), and paying for holidays (42 minutes). Wealthier people with assets over £100k spend longer keeping their financial house in order, averaging eight hours a month. Men, meanwhile, typically spend around 20% longer than women.

A tougher financial climate means we expect to spend more time managing our finances overall, largely in response to dealing with rising costs and stubborn inflation (48%) and the need to save more money (41%).

When it comes to those looking to decrease their time investment, nearly a third (29%) said they plan to reduce the time spent looking at their financial affairs as it makes them feel too anxious.

This may go some way towards explaining the fact that a significant proportion of people don’t currently spend any time at all reviewing commitments such as their pensions (33%), insurance (31%) or investments (23%).

Alasdair Wild, Area Manager at Handelsbanken Wealth & Asset Management, said: “Dealing with the ongoing cost-of-living and keeping your finances in check can be a time-consuming process and a real challenge for most people given there only are so many hours in the day. 

“However, doing the bare minimum is unlikely to offer much protection in such a tough financial climate, and investing time to plan and manage your finances and, when required, bringing in external professional support, can make a real difference to protecting your standard of living.

“While avoiding the issue may provide temporary relief, it will only exacerbate problems down the line, so seeking support is key.”

Click here to view the full research report Gender and generation: unravelling the wealth gap.

wealth-survey-2024Download

Children’s Commissioners urge UK Government to stop violating children’s rights to an adequate standard of living

The Children’s Commissioners of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland have repeated their calls to the UK Government to end its two-child limit on Universal Credit and Child Tax Credit warning that the policy continues to violate children’s human rights. 

All three have also called on the UK Government to abandon the scrapping of the £20 uplift, which would compound the poverty issues facing children across the nations, and urge the prioritisation of children’s rights in any further changes to Universal Credit.  

Giving evidence yesterday  (Wednesday, September 8) to the Public Services Committee at the House of Lords, the Commissioners again pointed out that the two-child limit policy – which disallows benefits payments to third and subsequent children born after April 2017 in most circumstances – is a discriminatory policy contrary to the government’s obligations under the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child.  

Children’s Commissioner for Wales, Sally Holland said: “We remain deeply concerned that the two-child policy and the scrapping of the £20 uplift breaches childen’s rights to an adequate standard of living and is contributing to a rising gap in poverty levels between families with three or more children and smaller households.  

“The two-child limit in particular has a disproportionate impact on social groups where larger families are more common, such as some minority faith and ethnic groups and in Northern Ireland where families are larger than the rest of the UK.”  

The Commissioners – Bruce Adamson for Scotland, Sally Holland for Wales, and Koulla Yiasouma for Northern Ireland – remain concerned that UK benefit rules prevent devolved governments from fully tackling child poverty.   

Speaking after the Committee session, Children and Young People’s Commissioner for Scotland, Bruce Adamson said: “The Scottish Government had an opportunity yesterday within the Programme for Government to do all that it can to mitigate against the worse of the UK Government’s benefit rules.

“While new commitments on housing, food and the new Whole Family Wellbeing Fund are welcome, not increasing the Scottish Child Payment with immediate effect was hugely concerning as children need this money now.

“Poverty is a human rights issue and while UK benefit rules continue to play a significant part in keeping families in poverty, the Scottish Government plays an important role in ensuring children’s rights are met. The effects of the pandemic – which are still becoming clear – have only served to make a dire situation worse for those in poverty or only just getting by. Both governments must do more.”

Commissioner Sally Holland said: “Children are hungry and living in sub-standard housing in the UK in 2021 and that is a disgrace. Poverty affects every aspect of a child’s life, from their health – both physical and mental – to their education. How can a child concentrate properly at school and learn if they are hungry? 

“The State has an obligation to children and every child has the right to an adequate standard of living. Families have a right to social security. These polices are a clear breach of children’s human rights.”  

  In May, the Children’s Commissioners of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland wrote an open letter to the Right Honourable Thérèse Coffey, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, calling for an end to the two-child limit of Universal Credit and Child Tax Credit and for the £20 uplift in universal credit amounts to be maintained.