A snapshot of poverty in Summer 2022

Reports ResourcesJuly 27th, 2022

New Bevan Foundation research reveals majority of people in Wales cutting back on essential items.

The Bevan Foundation’s Snapshot of poverty series has established itself as a vital tool for anyone who wants to understand how the pandemic and more recently the cost-of-living crisis are affecting Wales. This is the fourth report published as part of our series and is unquestionably the report that paints the most disturbing picture.

With rising costs dominating the headlines our latest Snapshot report has a slightly different focus to our previous reports. Instead of looking at what is happening to costs and incomes, our latest survey focuses on the impact of surging costs, and sluggish income growth on households. The findings are incredibly concerning.

Among the key findings of the report are:

Families are struggling to make ends meet – More than one in eight Welsh households (13 per cent) either sometimes or often struggle to afford everyday items. In total 45 per cent of Welsh households never have enough money for anything other than the basics.
The majority of people are now cutting back on essential items – 57 per cent cut back on heating, electricity and/or water, 51 per cent cut back on clothing for adults, 45 per cent cut back on transport costs and 39 per cent cut back on food for adults between January and July.
Children are going hungry – the number of people in households with one or two children who are having to cut back on food for children has nearly double since our last Snapshot report in November 2021, with one in ten families with one child and one in five families with two children cutting back on food for children.
Household debt has remained static – the number of people that are reporting that they are in arrears on a bill or that they have borrowed money has not increased significantly since November 2021. In total 14 per cent of people have been in arrears on a bill for more than one month with 25 per cent borrowing money.
A third of people have no savings – 22 per cent of people in Wales had no savings at the start of 2022, whilst 10 per cent spent all their savings on day-to-day items between January and July 2022. Only 31 per cent of people had savings in January 2022 and did not use them to cover day-to-day items.
More people are worried about losing their home – 11 per cent of people are worried about the prospect of losing their home over the next three months. This rises to a quarter of private rental sector tenants and 17 per cent of social housing tenants.
The cost-of-living crisis is affecting people’s health – 43 per cent of people in Wales have seen their mental health deteriorate as a result of their financial position whilst 30 per cent have seen a deterioration in their physical health.
People are very pessimistic about their prospects over the next three months – nearly two thirds (63 per cent) of people expect to have cut back on at least one essential over the next three months, up more than 20 percentage points from the position in November 2021.
More work to do to raise awareness of support – many people are not aware of all the support they are entitled to from the UK, Welsh and local governments. This means that there are families struggling financially that are missing out on vital assistance that could make a difference.