📊 A big change to the way official poverty statistics are constructed comes into effect this year.
Family Resources Survey responses and official government benefit records will now be linked for the first time.
📝 In this short explainer video, we take you through what the changes mean.
On 26th March, new poverty stats are out. They'll look different though, with one of the biggest ever changes in methodology. Read why this is short-term pain for long-term gain, and why the changes are a bit like this Formula 1 season: linkedin.com/pulse/next-g...
Remember when food banks weren't normal? JRF & Trussell NI wanted to find out how the public reacted to the reality in one year over 500,000 people across Northern Ireland, including 130,000 children, lived in a food insecure household & what they thought the @northernireland.gov.uk should do
We asked the public if they think politicians in NI are doing enough to tackle the rising cost of living. Their reactions were clear & honest. People are struggling & want leaders to act. Today @jrf_uk presents our Poverty in NI 2025 findings to Communities Committee for the @northernireland.gov.uk
Tomorrow JRF presents Poverty in NI 2025 research to the Committee for Communities.
Before that, we went out w/ Trussell NI to hear some public reaction to our findings. The responses were powerful & demonstrate the urgency that @northernireland.gov.uk need to place on this. Watch the 1st video 🔽
Poverty is deepening.
🔎 Our #UKPoverty2026 report was launched this morning.
People in very deep poverty now make up the biggest group of people in poverty, at 6.8 million people.
This is unacceptable for the fifth richest country in the world, and it has consequences.
❓ What can we expect from the economic situation in the UK in 2026?
It's a mixed picture, as @chrisbelfield.bsky.social explains, with some relief for low-income households.
Hear his predictions for the year ahead below 🔽
www.youtube.com/shorts/g8Twm...
Our modelling shows that introducing a targeted child payment would deliver the most immediate and effective impact, cutting overall child poverty to 20%
Addressing these issues will require long-term labour market reform to improve pay, job security, and the structures that enable people to work.
📉But the most urgent priority for the NI Executive must be to reduce child poverty now.
⛔Structural barriers, particularly the high cost and limited availability of childcare, continue to prevent many parents from increasing their working hours.
Image shows JRF branding and small girl crouched down, playing. The text reads: 6 in 10 children in poverty in Northern Ireland live in households where at least one adult is in work.
🔎Our Poverty in Northern Ireland (2025) report highlighted two consistent challenges emerge in the local labour market: pay and hours.
Almost half (45%) of all workers here have experienced low pay in one of the last 5 years.
Many of us think that getting and keeping paid work protects us from poverty. But our report today challenges that view.
🔎 The reality for people in Northern Ireland is that too many are held back by low pay and significant barriers to work that keep them trapped in hardship.
Children are bearing the brunt of poverty in Northern Ireland.
Too many families face unthinkable choices between feeding their children or keeping their homes warm.
18 months out from the next Assembly election, our Poverty in NI report looks at the action that's needed 🔽
We need to see bold, long-term interventions that make sure people in Northern Ireland facing rising housing costs are protected from going without life’s essentials.
Read our full report here: www.jrf.org.uk/poverty-in-n...
🪟Since 2002–05, the number of people living in the private rented sector has more than doubled to around 320,000 by 2021–24.
The poverty rate for private renters is up by 63% to 100,000 over the same period.
Action is needed from the NI Executive to help tackle this hardship.
This is pushing more and more households to depend on the more expensive and less secure private rental sector.
📈 Rents in Northern Ireland have increased by almost half (46%) since 2000, compared to 31% in England and 34% in Wales.
🏘️ Our Poverty in Northern Ireland report shows housing costs, once a relatively modest pressure compared with other parts of the UK, have become a central risk factor of poverty.
Despite ambitious targets, social housing completions have fallen far short of what’s needed.
Poverty in Northern Ireland 2025, Thursday 4th December, 10.30am-12pm on zoom.
Just a reminder you can still register to join our webinar tomorrow here taking a fresh look at the realities of poverty here & the challenge the NI Executive need to address- events.zoom.us/ev/AhMa6dD3t...
Welcome to join us this Thursday 4th December online or in person @NICVA for our launch of Poverty in NI 2025. You can register here or share with others who might be interested! - tiny.cc/k7uv001
📣New @jrf-uk.bsky.social analysis
Scrapping the 2 child limit alone has reversed the projected decline in living standards by *more than half* for the bottom third of households
1/2
These are big changes from Govt to protect existing disabled claimants from cuts - Govt has been listening. But new claimants from April 2026 still face deep hardship from cuts, which should be opposed. Over 400,000 new PIP & 700,000 new UC-health claimants will be £'000s worse off in 2029 1/2
Text from OBR document: Labour supply impact of Spring Statement welfare and employment support measures: We have not made a comprehensive assessment of the labour supply impacts of those elements of the Green Paper that we have incorporated into the fiscal forecast. The individual measures’ labour market impacts are complex to assess and would have interacting effects. The Government did not provide us with a comprehensive and robust analysis of these potential effects, and we were not, in the very limited time available, able to develop our own analysis of their net impact on labour supply. In addition, some of the wider Green Paper reforms set out above, which are not included in the fiscal forecast, could also have labour market implications. We will make a full assessment of the Green Paper policies’ effects ahead of our next forecast
The OBR has not yet been able to forecast any employment gain from the cuts/changes to incapacity & disability benefits
MPs are being asked to support around £6.5bn of cuts & increased conditionality for ill & disabled people without any clear assessment of what it will achieve
Confirmation of chunky cuts to SG and NI Executive budgets because of PIP cuts.
Big choices for those Ministers as to whether to copy the cruel choices of UKG.
The Chancellor said today that she would not do anything to put household finances in danger
Yet the government’s own assessment shows their cuts to health related benefits risk pushing 250,000 people into poverty, including 50,000 children 📢
Their assessment also found... 1/3
www.niassembly.gov.uk/globalassets...
Approx 29,000 children experiencing poverty currently in NI are in households where either a parent or child have a disability, legitimately limiting work as a route out of poverty for their household. PIP = lifeline for many in times of high costs & limited support services
