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Falling short: the experiences of families living below the minimum income standard

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posted on 2016-08-05, 13:31 authored by Katherine HillKatherine Hill, Abigail DavisAbigail Davis, Donald Hirsch, Lydia Marshall
This qualitative research study of thirty families living between 10 and 50 per cent below the Minimum Income Standard (MIS) considers how well families cope on low income, what factors influence this and how they prioritise spending. It finds that families in this situation often face an unstable or uncertain world, including unstable work and for some the uncertainties of privately rented housing, and that they greatly value stability. It identifies factors that help or hinder family well-being, including health conditions, the availability of extended family support and whether there is a background of debt. In considering how they deploy family budgets that are insufficient to cover all the items agreed as essential in the MIS research, the study found that parents prioritise children’s well-being over their own to a considerable degree. It also identifies ways in which family needs are served differently when resources are limited, such as spending more on recreation within the home when external activities are unaffordable.

Funding

Joseph Rowntree Foundation

History

School

  • Social Sciences

Department

  • Communication, Media, Social and Policy Studies

Research Unit

  • Centre for Research in Social Policy (CRSP)

Citation

HILL, K. ... et al., 2016. Falling short: the experiences of families living below the minimum income standard. York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 62pp.

Publisher

Joseph Rowntree Foundation © Loughborough University

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Publication date

2016

Notes

This is an official report.

ISBN

9781910783658

Language

  • en

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