“People are turning to food banks because they don’t have enough money to live on. But we know it doesn’t have to be this way,” Barnard said.
The charity is calling on the government to embed an ‘essentials guarantee’ in universal credit, to ensure that people can at least afford the basics they need to live – the benefit currently falls short by around £120 every month.
Trussell researchers estimate that this would mean 1.9 million fewer people would be at risk of hunger and hardship in 2025/26, including 580,000 children.
Rajun, a lived experience participant in the research, said: “I definitely have cut down on food and that’s not because I’m not hungry but because it’s important for me to prioritise my wife and daughter.”
Around 46% more children are facing hunger and hardship than two decades ago.
A quarter of children under the age of four are experiencing hunger and hardship – making them the age group most at risk of needing a food bank to survive.
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They are also among the children most likely to be impacted by the two-child limit on benefits, which sees families denied universal credit for their third and subsequent children born after April 2017.
Removing the two-child limit and benefit cap would mean 825,000 fewer people would be facing hunger and hardship by 2025/26, including 570,000 fewer children, according to Trussell.
Iain Porter, senior policy Adviser at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said: “Successive governments have let the number of people facing hunger and hardship creep up over decades. Millions of people now face a daily struggle to afford enough food to feed themselves and their families. In one of the world’s wealthiest economies, this should be unimaginable.
“Ministers, who have promised to bring poverty down, must see these findings as a sign they can’t afford to waste any more time, and must take immediate action.”
Some groups are more likely to be impacted by poverty than others. More than half (53%) of people currently facing hardship are living in a family with at least one disabled person.
It comes as the government considers plans to tighten the work capability assessment, which could see hundreds of thousands of people with physical and mental health conditions miss out on support by 2029. Trussell is urging the government to halt this.
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“If the UK government is to deliver on its vision, it must make our social security system fit for purpose as an urgent priority. These findings show this is the most direct way it will end the need for emergency food,” Barnard said.
“We urge the government to play its part in ending hunger and prioritise providing immediate relief to people facing hunger and hardship in its upcoming budget, to avoid people being pushed further into hardship.”
Porter added: “The government has a moral obligation in their first budget to relieve the hardship which has become all too widespread over recent years. There is also an economic motivation, as going without essentials is bad for people’s mental and physical health and holds back their potential. Tackling hardship will help build a stronger economy. We need to consign the shameful experiences raised in this report to history.”
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