UK low- to middle-income families are found to be “far poorer” than their European Union counterparts. People in the UK are 39 per cent worse off than Dutch equivalent due to housing costs 44 per cent higher than western European average.
The Resolution Foundation thinktank said that while prices in the UK were eight per cent higher than the average in the 38 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), less well-off Britons were more affected by the cost of housing.
German families are 21 per cent or £2,300 a year better off than their UK equivalents and the gap with Dutch families is even wider, at 39 per cent. Without that adjustment, poorer German families would be 16 per cent, or £1,700 a year, better off than poorer British families.
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In the UK, middle income is generally considered to be between £30,000 and £60,000 per year. Simon Pittaway, a senior economist at the Resolution Foundation, said: “Britain’s housing costs crisis is a major driver of child poverty, and contributes to poor families being £2,300 worse off than their German counterparts. The crisis needs to be tackled urgently – from building more affordable homes to providing better support for low-income renters.
“While food and clothing are relatively cheap, the sky-high cost of housing – which accounts for almost a quarter of all spending by lower-income households – makes Britain a particularly pricey country for poorer families.”
It comes as as many as one in six workers in Britain are skipping meals to make ends meet as households remain under pressure from the higher cost of groceries, energy and other essentials. The Trades Union Congress (TUC) showed 17% of full- or part-time workers had skipped a meal to reduce their spending in the past three months.
According to a survey of more than 2,500 working adults by YouGov in the week before Christmas, carried out on behalf of the trade unions’ umbrella group, as many as one in 10 said they had skipped a meal every day or most days.