To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of the findings of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation report, entitled UK poverty 2018, that in-work poverty is increasing faster than unemployment.
Answered on
14 February 2019
Our evidence shows that work offers people the best opportunity to get out of poverty. A working-age adult living in a household where every adult is working is about 6 times less likely to be in relative poverty than one living in a household where nobody works. The majority of people in in-work poverty are with part-time work only, single earner couples, or those in full-time self-employment. Universal Credit addresses this by supporting full-time work through smooth incentives to increase hours, a general expectation that lone parents and partners should work, and generous childcare subsidies.