400,000 families in poverty ‘have traditional breadwinner’

NEARLY a third of families living in poverty have a “traditional” sole breadwinner, researchers finds today.

Some 400,000 couples where only one parent earns have been struggling on less than £251 a week, figures compiled for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation show.

Double-income families made up 16 per cent of the 1.3 million classed as in poverty, while 105,000 were headed by single parents who work, and the rest did not have anyone earning.

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Katie Schmuecker, policy and research manager at the York-based foundation, said: “The traditional family model where one parent – usually dad – goes out to work and supports his family does not offer a guaranteed route out of poverty in Britain today. Our low pay jobs market means many families that are reliant on a single breadwinner find it hard to make ends meet.

“Measures like the Living Wage, supporting people to progress into better jobs and ensuring it always pays to work more will all help increase household incomes.

“So too will helping more families to become dual-earning households. This means we have to tackle the barriers that prevent people that want to work from doing so – such as unaffordable childcare and the lack of financial incentive to work.

“Otherwise many parents and their children may find themselves trapped in poverty with little prospect of bettering their situation.”

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The IPPR think-tank called for second earners to be allowed to keep more of their pay before means-tested benefits are withdrawn.

Senior research fellow Kayte Lawton said: “Childcare enables parents with young children to work, particularly mothers, but remains expensive for many poor families and needs to be made more affordable.”