Working families on the 'breadline' would need to work eight days a week to escape poverty

It finds that an ‘average’ low-income family where every parent is already working full-time would need to squeeze in an extra 19 hours a week to escape the breadline – equivalent to working an eight-day week.

As well as looking at the number of extra hours needed to escape poverty, the research looked at earnings. It found the average (median) low-income family where every parent worked full time would need a weekly pay rise of £168 (£8,736 more a year) to clear the poverty line – and over a quarter (28 per cent) would need to earn more than £300 extra a week (over £15,600 more annually).

The analysis also reveals:

• An estimated 41,000 low-income families in full-time work are trapped in poverty because at least one adult is self-employed with very low or even negative earnings (business losses).
• Nearly half of those in poverty working full-time are single parent families, and nearly one in five were from London.
• Low-income parents in full-time work are much more likely to be in caring, leisure and other service and ‘elementary’ roles like cleaning, as well as significantly less likely to be in professional roles than the wider population of full-time workers.

 'We need to be honest about why so many children are growing up poor'.

Action for Children’s chief executive, Paul Carberry, said, ‘Our research shows we need to be honest about why so many children are growing up poor and confront the myth that work alone is a passport out of poverty.

‘In this election year, this is something all political parties must address. Further research is needed into the financial challenges facing these working families so we can find more targeted and effective solutions.

‘This should be part of a wider programme of reform that strengthens the social security system and tackles the barriers to work and opportunity that are keeping families trapped in poverty.’

Case study

Dan Smith, 37, and his fiancée Leanne Jones, also 37, live in Kent with their four-year-old daughter, Beau.

Dan worked full-time at a specialist SEND school until November when he decided to become self-employed, starting a business as a SEND therapist supporting families with neurodiverse children.

Leanne is a senior administrator for an incineration waste disposal company and was working full-time until she had to halve her hours to help care for their daughter, Beau, who was born with Down Syndrome in 2020. Leanne now works five mornings a week, taking home on average around £1,400 a month after tax.

Before Dan resigned from his job at the school, he was earning around £1900 a month after tax but his take-home pay now fluctuates between £1,000 and £1,400 a month since becoming self-employed as a therapist. He’s currently waiting on news of whether he’s won a new contract – but he admits if he hasn’t, he may ‘be back to square one’ and have to search for a full-time job again.

Dan said, ‘Before Beau was born and Leanne had to go part-time, we were a £60,000 a year household - but we’re now living hand to mouth. We’d worked really hard for many years to save £30,000 for a deposit for a house but when we looked into it, incredibly £30,000 wasn’t enough to make the repayments affordable on our incomes. The mortgage repayments would’ve been almost twice our rent at the time.

‘So, instead we used our savings to set us up renting in a two-bed semi-detached house.  Then it wasn’t long before we needed to bite into the savings more and more every month just to cover our day-to-day expenses as the cost of living went up and up.

‘A lot had to go on nursery fees which were around £1,600 a month just after Beau was born and are still £900 or so now Leanne has gone back to work part time. We’ve worked out we’d be worse off if Leanne went full-time because of the extra fees.

‘We’re now down to the last bits of our house deposit savings and they’ll all be gone by next month. It’s disheartening when we realised it took us four times as long to save them as to spend them’, he added.