If you think about poverty in the UK you might picture Victorian workhouses, the slums of the 1930s, or the dole queues of the 1980s. After all, we’re in the 21st century now – everyone has a smartphone and a high quality of life. But beneath the veneer of national prosperity lies the distasteful fact that a fifth of people in the UK are in poverty.

We’re used to being told that people in the UK aren’t really in poverty: that they’re just not working hard enough, or trying hard enough. That poor people are feckless and unable to budget, that their suffering is their own fault. But government figures for the financial year 2019/2020¹ (the most recent year with published data at the time of writing) shows that 22% of the UK population lives below the poverty line after paying housing costs – that’s 14.5 million people. Can they really all be to blame for the inadequacy of their income? Almost a third of children in the UK live in poverty, almost a fifth of pensioners, and more than a quarter of the households where someone has a disability – is that really because of a failure to budget? Or is something else going on?

I’ve lived in poverty. I know many people who still do. I’m not writing this blog for fun, or for money, but because I believe that the facts about poverty in the UK need to be shouted from the rooftops. There are many myths and sensationalist stories as well as misinformation and ignorance, and I want to cut through all that to the truth that lies beneath.