Austerity: the truth about life at the bottom

Shopping for bargains in the excellent Chrisp Street market.

The empty slogans trip off the tongue: it’s the poor who are bearing the brunt of austerity… women suffer disproportionately from the cuts… Now research from thinkmoney, the alternative account provider, confirms this is the shocking truth.

One in eleven people, their survey shows, have less than £10 a month to spend once they have paid all necessary bills – that’s four and a half million people in the UK who would need to save up for ten months to buy a breadmaker like David Cameron’s. One in four people have less than £50 a month to spend after bills.

The average monthly disposable income is, of course, higher: £224.50. However, men’s average income is a staggeringly 43% higher than women’s. The youngest age group surveyed (18-24 year olds) have the lowest disposable incomes, whereas the over 65s have the highest – that’s a national average, of course, not a measure for Tower Hamlets. Disposable incomes are highest in London and the South East (despite the higher costs of living) and lowest in the North East and Wales.

Think money tries to support its customers by ringfencing the part of their income they need for bills, so they can be clear about how much money they can spend each month without getting into debt. However you look at it, though, and however you try to help people keep their heads above water, that’s an obscene lot of human misery for a supposedly civilised country to live with.

•For more information about think money, go to www.thinkmoney.co.uk .