on extra benefits and lower tax revenues for adults who grew up in poverty.30
Kyle, 23, living in a deprived area in Knowsley, unable to find a job despite his enthusiasm:
‘The worst thing about it is you start getting used to [not having a job]. Yeah you just get depressed.’
Very low-paid work costs us all dear too – in the last couple of decades, tax credits have been needed just to achieve a level of subsistence pay for unreliable work that offers no progression to more secure or well-paid employment.
There is a strong relationship between growing up in poverty and being unemployed or in low-skilled, low-paid jobs in later life, even when background and education are accounted for. There is also a relationship between a childhood in poverty and being poor in later life.31
Disability and poor health are linked to and contribute to poverty. People in families where someone is disabled made up 34 per cent of all people in poverty in 2010–11 (Figure 2.3).32 Unemployment is strongly related to health – having a health problem that is classed as disabling doubles the level of unemployment to 50 per cent.
Figure 2.3. Proportion of families living in poverty where someone is disabled. Source: Households Below Average Income, Department for Work and Pensions (figures for Great Britain up to 2001/02 and for the United Kingdom thereafter).
Seventy-five per cent of disabled people who have a mental health problem do not work.33 Of those who can work, there is a higher proportion of low-paid disabled workers than non-disabled workers.34 Although more research is needed on the links between poverty and mental health (and vice versa), it is clear that 24 per cent of adults in the poorest fifth of the population are likely to be at risk of developing mental health problems, compared with 14 per cent of those on average incomes.35
Dec, a resident and community volunteer on the Marsh Farm estate in Luton:
‘[There are] suicidal people [on Jobseeker’s Allowance], people with mental health issues, and if they didn’t have them, they have them now, because they’re being so degraded, so run down in life.’
Poverty is also linked to health inequalities that are both costly to society and wasteful of human life (Figure 2.4). People in the most deprived neighbourhoods live – on average – seven years less than those in the richest neighbourhoods. They spend an average of seventeen years longer with a disability.36 This amounts to 1.3 million years of life lost (each child could expect to live two years longer).37
Figure 2.4. Expected age at death at age 65 for men and women. Source: Inequality in Disability-Free Life Expectancy by Area Deprivation: England, 2001–05 and 2006–09, Office for National Statistics (May 2012).
These health inequalities carry a significant cost – £31–33 billion of lost productivity per year in addition to lost taxes and higher welfare payments of £20–32 billion per year, plus NHS healthcare costs.37
Poverty is strongly associated with offending and antisocial behaviour. Evidence looking at the United States may not transfer directly to the United Kingdom but does indicate that people growing up in deprived areas have a greater chance of being a victim of crime. There is also a strong association between experiencing crime as a victim and becoming an offender.38 One does not necessarily cause the other, although evidence suggests that poor family functioning and low self-esteem, fuelled by child poverty, can contribute to antisocial behaviour.39
Poverty has an enduring and scarring effect across the lives of people who experience it. This varies depending on the persistence and depth of poverty. People in poverty say that it wastes their capability and skills, erodes hope and ambition, and makes it hugely difficult to make long-term plans or move on.
Despite an increase of education courses, the poverty in Barkerend lays waste to ability. A youth and community worker says:
‘At the end of it there’s nothing [for the young people] and it all seems pointless to them.’ 46
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