What Percentage Of People Live In Poverty In Britain?
The percentage of people living in poverty in Britain is determined very much by how we define poverty in the first place. What might seem like poverty in one culture may not be seen as so in another culture. So where do we draw the poverty line? The definition which is accepted within the European Union is being below 60% of the median net disposable income – the median being the midpoint of the range of incomes. By this definition, a whopping 13 million people in the UK are living in poverty. That is a staggering 1 in 4 people, and includes almost 1 in 3 children. A recent survey cited by Oxfam showed that 6.5 million adults have to go without essential items of clothing, such as warm coats, simply because they do not have the money to buy them. It is thought that over 10.5 million people live in financial insecurity in Britain, unable to save, or to insure their homes adequately.
