The UK is one of the wealthiest nations in the world, but ‘since the 1980s there has been an unprecedented rise in poverty’ in Britain, ‘which has never been reversed’ and ‘current levels of poverty are around 50% higher than in the 1970s’ (JRF, 2024a).

These poverty statistics are shocking, shameful. Yet we know that poverty in the UK is a political choice. Poverty is an outcome of policies that have been deliberately designed. Alongside critically examining the political decisions and policies that have led us to the current crisis, we need to understand why such high and deep levels of poverty are deemed socially and politically acceptable. This includes scrutinizing the ways in which the stigmatisation of people living in poverty, and the associated stigmatisation of benefits and welfare systems that ostensibly exist to support people in hard times, helps make poverty palatable.1

 JRF’s current focus on poverty stigma (Campbell, 2023) has grown out of decades-long programmes of participation and advocacy work with organisations that are led by, and/or centre the voices and experiences of people and communities with lived experiences of poverty. In this work, themes of stigma and shame are repeatedly highlighted across all poverty areas. In short, listening to what people with current lived experience of poverty prioritise in terms of action, underscores the extent to which the stigma associated with poverty, and the lack of dignity, self-worth and feelings of shame it can give rise to, can be as devastating and debilitating as material want.