Cost of Living Crisis

In early 2022 as we emerged from the Covid-19 pandemic, we faced a major cost of living crisis. Inflation peaked at 11.1% in October 2022.

This crisis is gendered.

• Women are more likely than men to be poor and have been harder by cuts to social security and the provision of public services;
• Women have lower levels of savings and wealth than men;
• Women’s caring responsibilities leave them less able to increase their hours of paid work; and
• Women are the ‘shock absorbers of poverty’, tending to bear responsibility for household budgets and to skip meals and make other sacrifices to support their children.

Particular groups of women have been hit harder by this crisis.

• Poverty rates are significantly higher among people from Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Black ethnic groups than among White people;
• Disabled people face higher costs on average resulting from their impairment or condition;
• Single parents, most of whom are women, tend to have lower savings and be more in debt than dual couple households with children;
• Victim/survivors of domestic abuse, including economic abuse, face greater barriers to leaving an abusive relationship; and
• Women with ‘no recourse to public funds’ are excluded from claiming social security and therefore at high risk of poverty and destitution if they lose work or separate from a partner.

While inflation is falling, prices are still higher than they were before the crisis started.