Cost of living rise means low income families need a third more income to make ends meet.

Low income families need a third more income than they did a decade ago just to get by according to a leading charity.

Research conducted for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) by the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University shows that rises in transport, energy and food costs are major causes.

Researchers used the Minimum Income Standard (MIS), a ‘barometer’ of living standards in the UK based on the level of income members of the public think necessary to achieve a decent standard of living. This is regularly updated to reflect changes in the economy.

They found that respondents beloved a single person needs an income of £18,400 a year to achieve MIS and a couple with two children needs £20,000, a lone parent needs £28,450.

These estimates do not match the sort of incomes on which many individuals and families have to try and make ends meet.

Since 2008 the cost of basic goods and services has risen by 35% for single adults, by 30% for a couple with two children and by 50% for a pensioner couple.

In 2018 a lone parent in work has an income 20% below MIS level, a couple where both partners are in work falls 11% short and a couple where just one partner works by 27%.

The rise in the cost of goods and services has been driven by factors including a 65% increase in the cost of using public transport, a 40% hike in energy costs and a 50% rise in childcare costs. All this in an environment of seemingly unending ‘austerity’ where government support for working families has failed to keep pace.

Joseph Rowntree Foundation chief executive Campbell Robb said the figure shows ‘just how precarious life can be for low income households’.

This despite record low levels of unemployment, 4.2% in March-May this year, the lowest level since 1975 according to research carried out for the Library of the House of Commons. At the same time wages have increased by just 2.5%, only a fraction ahead of the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which increased by 2.4% over the same period.

Professor Donald Hirsch of Loughborough University said the past decade had been ‘particularly difficulty’ for low income families because the costs they have to pay have risen faster than the consumer prices index, whilst the support they get from the state have lagged behind.

The JRF are calling on the government to allow low income families to keep more of their earnings by increasing the work allowance aspect of Universal Credit. This, they say, would help three million families reach the MIS.

It was time, said Campbell Robb, for the government to ‘put things right by allowing families to keep more of their earnings’.