Elena Gheorghe had never eaten at a food bank until this year. But like millions of people in the UK, she has watched her daily expenses eat up more and more of her income, and she ran out of corners to cut.
So, for the third time in recent weeks the 35-year-old mother and nursery school administrator is getting a hot meal at a London charity called Dads House. “It’s nice because people around you are the same like you,” she said while sharing a table with a former chef and entrepreneur. “Normal people.”
As they’ve watched double-digit inflation degrade their paychecks, millions of people in the UK have for the first time found themselves in a similar position to Gheorghe. Over the last nine months, the share of UK households with little or no discretionary income has doubled from 20% to 40%, according to Asda Income Tracker data.
Many have gone into debt paying for things other than food and housing. Others are cutting back on essentials. One study from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that 7 million families have gone without things like heating, toiletries or showers this year. Gheorghe, for her part, sometimes eats just one meal a day.
The 20% of earners who sit in the second lowest income bracket have been hit hardest. For more than a decade that group has enjoyed having at least some extra spending money, according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research, which releases the Asda tracker. That group’s gross income was £407 ($473) a week in September. But after paying for taxes and essentials, which includes housing, heating and food, they had £2.66 a week of discretionary funds left, down from a high of £55 last year. That just about covers one cup of coffee.
And as for the poorest families, whose gross income was just £189 per week in September, they don’t even have enough to cover essentials: They’re behind by about £63 pounds each week — the biggest deficit that group has seen in 15 years.