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Single parents have to work seven hours more each week than they did 10 years ago to stay above the poverty line due to the effect of benefit cuts, a new report exploring in-work poverty has found.
In 2010, a single person with two children would have had to work 16 hours per week on the minimum wage to escape poverty, but benefit cuts now mean that the same single parent needs to work 23 hours per week.
The report, published by the Resolution Foundation in partnership with Clarion Housing Group, found that poverty rates fall from 35% to 18% when people move into work – but even sustained employment does not eliminate in-work poverty for many households.
Almost seven in 10 working-age adults living in poverty today are either working themselves or living in a household where someone else does, up from fewer than five in 10 two decades ago.
The report, entitled Working hard(ship), showed that while record employment levels have gone hand in hand with rising in-work poverty, moving into work continues to be a very effective way for someone to exit poverty.
But the challenge of escaping in-work poverty is particularly difficult for social housing tenants, the report said.
Social housing tenants who work are more than twice as likely to live in poverty than homeowners and those in private rented accommodation.
Almost one in four social renters said they work part time because they cannot find a full-time job, compared with just over one in 10 workers in other tenures. And one in three social renters are in jobs paid at or very close to the minimum wage, compared with one in seven of those in other tenures.
People who moved back out of employment were a third more likely to remain in poverty three years on from initially entering work, compared with those who stayed in employment.
However, the report warned that even sustained employment cannot entirely protect people from poverty and that the benefits system has a critical role to play in supporting in-work households.
Lindsay Judge, principal research and policy analyst at the Resolution Foundation, said in-work poverty was “one of the biggest challenges facing 21st century Britain”.
“Work alone cannot eliminate poverty,” she said. “Support to sustain employment and progress out of low pay are needed alongside a benefit system that provides adequate support for low-income working families.”
Clare Miller, chief executive of Clarion Housing Group, said: “Social housing provides a vital safety net and undoubtedly the heavily subsidised housing costs offered by housing associations helps save many from falling into poverty. However, it is important to better understand why for some of our residents, simply finding work isn’t the end of the story.”