{"id":23598,"date":"2023-04-25T23:06:57","date_gmt":"2023-04-25T23:06:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/uk-food-banks-give\/"},"modified":"2023-04-25T23:10:02","modified_gmt":"2023-04-25T23:10:02","slug":"uk-food-banks-give","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/uk-food-banks-give\/","title":{"rendered":"UK food banks give out record amount as rising living costs drive hardship"},"content":{"rendered":"

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s biggest food bank network said the amount of emergency food parcels it distributed rose 37% to a record 3 million in the year to March as more people faced hardship in a cost-of-living crisis that shows little sign of easing.<\/p>\n

The Trussell Trust, which supports a network of 1,300 food bank centres across the United Kingdom, said on Wednesday more than a million parcels were provided for children.<\/p>\n

It said over the year, 760,000 people used a food bank in its network for the first time, an increase of 38% year-on-year.<\/p>\n

This included an unprecedented rise in the number of employed people, who are no longer able to balance a low income against rising living costs.<\/p>\n

Britons have been pressured for more than a year by high inflation which has outstripped pay growth for almost all workers.<\/p>\n

Last month government forecasters estimated UK households were in the midst of the biggest two-year squeeze in living standards since comparable records started in the 1950s.<\/p>\n

Official UK data published last week showed overall consumer price inflation fell to 10.1% in March. However, prices of food and non-alcoholic drinks were 19.1% higher in March than a year earlier, the biggest such rise since August 1977.<\/p>\n

Grocery inflation in April was 17.3%, according to industry data.<\/p>\n

The Trussell Trust also noted that the number of parcels provided in the year to March was more than double the annual amount distributed by food banks five years ago.<\/p>\n

“The continued increase in parcel numbers over the last five years indicates that it is ongoing low levels of income and a social security system that isn\u2019t fit for purpose that are forcing more people to need food banks, rather than just the recent cost of living crisis or the COVID-19 pandemic,” Emma Revie, the trust’s chief executive, said.<\/p>\n

She called on the UK government to ensure the benefits system covers essential costs.<\/p>\n

\n

(Reporting by James Davey; editing by Jonathan Oatis)<\/p>\n

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LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s biggest food bank network said the amount of emergency food parcels it distributed rose 37% to a record 3 million in the year to March as more people faced hardship in a cost-of-living crisis that shows little sign of easing. The Trussell Trust, which supports a network of 1,300 food bank […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":23599,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1216],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-economy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportEconomy\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3O0ZB-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23598"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23600,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23598\/revisions\/23600"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}