According to the latest numbers released Wednesday, more than a million children in the UK received food aid in last year. An increase of 300,000 from the previous year, as the country grapples with a cost-of-living problem.
Trussell Trust charity, which supports 1,200 food banks across the UK says, more than 1.1 million of the over three million food aid supplied in the year ending March 2023 went to children.
According to the report, over 800,000 emergency supplies were distributed to youngsters the previous year. In 2017-18, it was less than 500,000.
The findings come as the UK, a G7 member and one of the world’s richest countries, faces the greatest price increase in decades. With gasoline, heating, food, and housing costs all skyrocketing.
Food banks have grown commonplace as rising expenses and salary stagnation have forced many people. Including those who work, to seek assistance for the first time.
“We are experiencing an unprecedented rise in the number of people coming to the food bank. Particularly employed people who are no longer able to balance a low income against rising living costs,” said Brian Thomas, chief executive of the South Tyneside food bank in northeast England.
“We’re also seeing an increase in the number of families in need of assistance as people struggle to afford basic necessities.”
Stressed
In the past year, the cost-of-living crisis has caused strikes in industries ranging from doctors, nurses, and teachers to dock workers and lawyers.
Thomas said that the crisis had impacted donations as more people battled to satisfy their own basic needs.
“Food donation levels are not keeping up with the significant increase in need, and this is putting us under a lot of strain,” he continued.
According to Emma Revie, chief executive of the Trussell Trust, food banks were established to provide short-term assistance to people in need, but they have now become the norm for low-wage workers and people receiving welfare benefits.
“They are not a long-term solution to hunger and poverty, and over three-quarters of the UK population agrees with us that they should not exist,” she said.
The Trussell Trust is encouraging the Conservative administration to raise welfare payments to a more realistic level that covers basic expenses.
Lee Anderson, the current chairman of the Conservative Party, provoked uproar when he said that individuals dealing with rising prices should budget better and questioned whether food poverty existed.
According to the charity’s statistics, over 760,000 people utilised a food bank for the first time in the previous year, a 38 percent rise from the previous year.