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The energy price crisis caused the sharpest increase in UK absolute poverty in 30 years, new figures show.
Steep prices rises, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, meant hundreds of thousands more people fell into absolute poverty.
The figure jumped to 12 million in 2022-2023, a rise of 600,000 – or 0.78 percentage points.
Absolute poverty is the measure used by the PM when describing the government’s record.
Even more families would have fallen into absolute poverty had it not been for government support like the Cost of Living payments.
Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride – whose department compiled the figures – pointed to the government’s “biggest cost of living package in Europe, worth an average of £3,800 per household”.
The government says that without these measure the increase would have been three times worse.
Mr Stride said the government’s “unprecedented support prevented 1.3 million people from falling into poverty in 2022-23”.
How is poverty measured?
There are two main measurements of low income used by the government:
Absolute poverty measures how many people this year cannot afford a set standard of living. The Department for Work and Pensions currently defines it based on the living standard an average income could buy in the year ending in March 2011. If your income is 60% below this, after adjusting for rising prices since then, you are classed as living in absolute poverty
Relative poverty is the number of people whose income is 60% below the average income today. There are also two versions of each of these measures: one counts your total income, the other counts your income after you have paid housing costs (rent or mortgage payments). When discussing poverty, Rishi Sunak talks about absolute poverty, after housing costs are taken into account
The figures were collected before the 10% rise in benefits and pensions that took effect in April 2023.
Labour said the statistics were “horrifying”.
“The Conservative government crashed the economy and unleashed a cost of living crisis, pushing families across the country into poverty and a million children into destitution”, said shadow employment and social security minister Alison McGovern.
The figures were a “wake-up call moment”, according to the Liberal Democrats.
“This is a devastating rise and behind these numbers will be stories of children going hungry and families unable to heat their homes,” said Treasury spokesperson Sarah Olney.