Commenting on the Chancellor’s Spring Statement, Dr Zubaida Haque, Executive Director of The Equality Trust said:
“The Chancellor’s statement showed an inadequate response to the cost of living crisis pressures on the most vulnerable, with little additional support announced for low earners. We face another critical moment, just like COVID-19. Today the Chancellor had a choice to provide targeted financial support to lower-income households who are in the eye of the cost of living crisis storm. Instead, he has chosen to let adults and families be washed away in a sea of debt, poverty and destitution.
It’s not difficult to know what is needed; we’ve already been through this at the beginning of the pandemic. Among other measures, such as fixing a broken energy market and raising the real living wage across the country, the Chancellor must increase welfare benefits in line with inflation in order to buffer the most vulnerable families from the double whammy of higher energy and food prices.
More importantly, we must recognise the reason lower-income families are the most vulnerable during this crisis, as during the pandemic. It is because of a woefully inadequate social safety net in this country, combined with high rates of low paid and insecure work especially among single households, Black and ethnic minority communities and disabled groups. If we don’t address the pre-existing socio-economic inequalities in our society, then lower-income groups will repeatedly be vulnerable every time we are hit with a national crisis.
If the government is serious about its levelling up agenda, then it must level up people as well as places.”
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Notes to editors
1. The Equality Trust is the national registered charity that works to improve the quality of life in the UK by reducing social and economic inequalities. For further comments or to arrange an interview, contact jo.wittams@equalitytrust.org.uk