Authors: Sara Davies and Jamie Evans
Funded by: Fair By Design
Published by: University of Bristol
Publication date: April 2023

From 2016, the UK suffered a series of economic shocks which had a detrimental impact on household incomes, particularly for those at the bottom of the income scale. Events such as the vote to leave the EU, the Covid pandemic, and subsequent cost of living crisis left lower-income households with static or decreased incomes and far higher costs. The financial precarity of those on the lowest incomes, therefore, markedly increased since our original 2016 study on the poverty premium was conducted, and it is in this context that we explore the level and nature of poverty premiums experienced in 2022.

This study builds on and updates the 2016 study, while drawing on a similar 2019 study (published in 2020). The findings are based on a representative survey conducted in 2022 of 741 respondents whose household income was below 70% median income equivalised for household size.