UK households waking up £2,300 worse off under Labour

Expensive housing leaves British families £2,300 worse-off than Germans, according to a new study by the Resolution Foundation.
-Credit:Reach Publishing Services Limited


UK households are waking up to being £2,300 worse off than families in Germany under the Labour Party government. Expensive housing leaves British families £2,300 worse-off than Germans, according to a new study by the Resolution Foundation.

UK households on lower incomes spend around two fifths more on housing than those in other developed countries. As a result, the poorest British families are £2,300 worse off per year than their equivalents in Germany, the think tank said.

Simon Pittaway, senior economist at the Resolution Foundation, said Britain’s high housing costs were “a major driver of child poverty”. He added: “Britain’s recent toxic history of low growth and high inequality has left low-to-middle-income families far poorer than their counterparts in Western Europe.

ADVERTISEMENT

READ MORE: Benefit to be scrapped and DWP says 'no more payments will be made'

READ MORE: DWP sending £884 direct to state pensioner bank accounts in January

READ MORE 16 counties in England face MORE snow this week with 'five inches' hitting

“These damaging income gaps are even worse once we factor in the prices of goods and services that matter most to these families. While food and clothing are relatively cheap, the sky-high cost of housing – which accounts for almost a quarter of all spending by lower-income households – makes Britain a particularly pricey country for poorer families.

“The crisis needs to be tackled urgently – from building more affordable homes to providing better support for low-income renters.” Poorer households – which have smaller disposable income – tended to spend 9 per cent more of their budget on housing costs and 4 perm cent more on food.

ADVERTISEMENT

And housing in Britain is around 44 per cent more expensive than in the average OECD nation. It adds: “Accounting for this fact widens the existing income gaps between low-to-middle-income families in Britain and their European Union counterparts.”

It comes after Angela Rayner told MPs on a parliamentary committee: “Even if I and this government achieve this 1.5 million homes target, it is a dent in what we need to achieve as a whole country to deliver the houses that we desperately need.”