Employers have been asked to play their part after a new
report highlighted a sharp rise in working poverty.
Working poverty rates have risen across the entire country, according to the
report by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) think tank.
The IPPR said the Government’s current levelling-up agenda is unlikely to benefit working families if it remains largely focused on physical infrastructure and fails to address growing inequalities.
Clare McNeil, IPPR associate director and head of its Future
Welfare State programme, said the rise in working poverty cannot be solved by
Government alone. She said employers could help with measures such as flexible
hours to work around childcare commitments and using fixed contracts with
regular hours.
While families of all sizes have been affected, single parents, couples with a
single earner and large families have been hit the hardest.
The report, No Longer Managing,
identified four factors behind the growth in poverty: spiralling housing costs
among low-income households, low wages, an inadequate social security system
and a lack of flexible and affordable childcare.
Two-earner families, where one partner works full-time and one works part-time,
were found to be most at risk of in-work poverty.
For people in this group, the chances of being pulled into poverty have doubled
over the past two decades, from one in 20 to one in 10.
Even for households with two people in full-time work, the chances of being pulled
into poverty have more than doubled over the same period, rising from 1.4 per
cent to 3.9 per cent.
Couple households with one full-time earner now also have a poverty rate of 31
per cent, almost as high as working households where nobody works full time.
Ms McNeil said: “There are a number of things employers can do, from increasing
flexible working options for parents to allow them to work around childcare
commitments and advertising jobs on a flexible basis, to using fixed contracts
with regular hours in favour of insecure or temporary contracts.
“Equally important is investing in employee skills to give them the best
possible chance of progressing out of low pay.”
The think tank recommended labour market reforms, an effective skills policy
and more income support.
Ms McNeil said an alternative to levelling up is needed, “something that
looks beyond headline incomes to the true costs and obstacles people face when
struggling to make work pay”.
She said: “If this does not happen, more and more families who were once just
about managing will join the growing number who are no longer managing.
“Short-term fixes are needed to alleviate the immediate crisis, but to solve
the underlying problem we need a far deeper rethink of housing, childcare, social
security and work.”
The working poor are working people whose incomes fall below a given poverty line due to low-income jobs and low familial household income. These are people who spend at least 27 weeks in a year working or looking for employment, but remain under the poverty threshold.
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