Population in Poverty
Following a gradual decline across the last three years, the poverty rate in London has jumped back up to 26%, which represents a 2-point increase on the previous year.
In terms of absolute numbers, it is estimated that around 2.36M Londoners are currently living in poverty, compared with 2.2M in the previous year. This means that the incomes of a further 160,000 Londoners have fallen below the poverty line in the latest year.
The poverty rate in London has risen for all ages groups, yet some have been more severely impacted than others:
- Following a steady decline over the last three years to 32% (the lowest level on record), London’s child poverty rate has shot back up to 35% in the latest year. This 3-point increase, which amounts to just over 65,000 children, represents the largest recorded single year increase in London’s child poverty rate.
- A similarly large increase is recorded for London’s pensioner population, with poverty incidence rising by 3 percentage points from 19% in the previous year to 22% in the latest. This amounts to around 35,000 pensioners. Although London’s pensioner poverty rate has historically been more volatile than other age groups, this 3-point increase represents a sharp break in the trend observed across the last three years, which had seen pensioner poverty falling at a fast and consistent rate.
- A far less pronounced increase is recorded for working age Londoners, with poverty incidence rising by 1 percentage point from 22% to 23%. This amounts to around 60,000 working age Londoners. In isolation, a single year increase of one percentage point is not especially concerning, particularly when compared with the far more severe jumps in poverty incidence recorded for London’s child and pensioner populations. However, when set against a near-15-year trend of consistently falling rates of poverty, it is significant that London’s working age poverty rate has now increased (albeit very slightly in the previous year) for the second year running. The potential for a permanent break in this historical trend is, at the very least, something to monitor going forward.
HBAI Poverty in London
Greater London Authority (GLA)
Updated about 2 years ago
These reports from the GLA Intelligence Unit look at the London figures from the DWP's households below average income series, on which the government's official poverty targets are based.
This dataset is one of the Greater London Authority's measures of Economic Fairness. Click here to find out more.
This dataset is one of the Greater London Authority's measures of Economic…
