Skip to main content
Work with the NEU
The Tories have pushed one in five Britons into poverty
The UK Poverty 2017 report highlights that overall 14 million people live in poverty in Britain — over 20 per cent of the population. This spiralling poverty and ever-increasing use of foodbanks show just how out of touch the Tories have become, writes KEN LIVINGSTONE

Alongside even the government’s own social mobility commission resigning over the Tories’ failure to act, two different pieces of news illustrated starkly how cuts have consequences and that the longer the Tories’ austerity project goes on the clearer and more widespread these become.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation state of the nation report confirmed a 700,000 increase in the number of children and older people in poverty.

The UK Poverty 2017 report highlights that overall 14 million people live in poverty in Britain — over one in five of the population. This is made up of eight million working-age adults, four million children and 1.9 million pensioners — 8 million live in families where at least one person is in work.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
universal credit
Universal credit / 25 November 2025
25 November 2025

DYLAN MURPHY reports that far from helping people back into work, the sanctions regime is inflicting unnecessary trauma on working-class families

Various For Sale, Sold and Let By estate agent signs juxtaposed next to a Dreams store in Clapham, London
Class / 18 July 2025
18 July 2025

Our housing crisis isn’t an accident – it’s class war, trapping millions in poverty while landlords and billionaires profit. To solve it, we need comprehensive transformation, not mere tokenistic reform, writes BECK ROBERTSON

STUC General Secretary Roz Foyer speaks to lecturers and other university staff at a rally on Buchanan Street, Glasgow, September 19, 2023
Voices of Scotland / 8 July 2025
8 July 2025

Ahead of next year’s parliamentary elections, ROZ FOYER warns that a bold tax policy is needed to rebuild devastated public services which can serve as the foundation of a strong, fair economy