Living standards are being squeezed – and single people without children are the group to be worried about, says Katie Schmuecker.

There is a lot of concern about living standards at the moment. The cost of living is rising while household incomes – from both earnings and benefits – are stagnant or even shrinking. This has prompted Nick Clegg to brand the 2015 election as the ‘scarcity election’.

Understanding how the squeeze on living standards is being shared between households is important, as is knowing how far households are from achieving an adequate standard of living. Only by understanding these trends can we make informed choices about targeted policies to protect and maintain the living standards of those who need it most. And it is here that a new series of reports published by JRF will play an important part.

For some years now we have published the Minimum Income Standard (MIS). This research brings together a cross-section of ordinary members of the public to reach a consensus on what essential items every household should have to achieve a minimum acceptable standard of living in the UK today. In turn, the income that is needed to deliver that standard of living is calculated for different household types.

Today we publish, for the first time, an analysis of who is falling short of this standard – and how far short. This is not a poverty line as such, but it offers a different route into a conversation about who is doing well in the UK today, and who is being left behind.

The study looks at the early part of the recession, from 2008–2010. It finds that the living standards of families with children – both couples and lone parents – were holding up pretty well, despite this group having the highest risk of a less than adequate standard of living. This is partly due to few families becoming entirely workless, but also because those remaining in work and heavily dependent on tax credits had this portion of their income protected by above-inflation increases to tax credits at that time. Cuts in tax credit entitlements since then are likely to result in less favourable trends for families with children in the next report (out later this year). This goes to show how policy can make a difference to living standards.

The group that emerges from this analysis as the one to be worried about is single people without children, living alone – especially those below the age of 35. This is a very diverse group, but it is one that saw a big downward shift in living standards and some serious increases in people experiencing hardship. The risk of young singles having less than half of the income required for an adequate standard of living nearly doubled, increasing from 9 to 17 per cent. This was also the group that saw the fastest increase in worklessness during the period, suggesting the general economic context is a major driver of this trend.

Regular updating of this analysis in future will enable us to monitor trends in income adequacy. And we anticipate that for many groups – with the exception of pensioners – the situation will get worse before it gets better as a result of cuts to tax credits and benefits, and changes to the eligibility rules. It will provide valuable evidence to assess how scarce resources are being distributed and which groups are feeling the effects as the ‘scarcity election’ approaches.

Katie Schmuecker is a programme manager at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

Katie joined JRF in December 2012 and is part of the Poverty team working on the Minimum Income Standard, Future Labour Markets and Anti-Poverty strategy programmes.