One in three people fall into poverty with women more at risk

Women are more at risk of experiencing longer term poverty than men, the analysis by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) also suggests.

The gap between men and women remaining in poverty over several years has been “relatively stable” at 1.5 per cent but the UK was behind countries including Lithuania, Spain and Poland. The overall UK poverty rate in 2014 was, at 16.8 per cent of the population, 12th highest compared with 27 other European Union countries. But Britain had the third-lowest rate (6.5 per cent) of those remaining in persistent poverty over three years or more, equivalent to around 3.9 million people.

The poverty rate was calculated based on the number of people whose income after tax is less than 60 per cent of the national average - equivalent to £9,956 for a single person without children and £20,907 for a family of two adults and two children.

Richard Tonkin, head of household and income expenditure statistics at the ONS, said: “Over a four-year period it’s actually surprising how high the proportion of the population is whose incomes slip below that. In the UK, compared with other countries, people have a relatively high risk of slipping into relative low-income poverty. But high exit rates mean people are much more likely to escape poverty than in other countries.”

Poverty tended to be “transient” for many people in the UK and was strongly linked to the labour market, with those finding employment having a greater chance of escaping, Mr Tonkin said.