How Austerity and the Cost of Living is Continuing to Drive Poverty and Destitution in Stoke- on-Trent

In this report we update the position in relation to poverty and hardship in Stoke-on-Trent. We seek to capture the continuing impact of recent economic changes, including an assessment of the impact of austerity in the form of cuts to public services as well as the ‘cost-of-living crisis.’ The report follows a series of joint reports undertaken with Citizens Advice Staffordshire North and Stoke-on-Trent (CASNS) in collaboration with the University of Staffordshire on the poverty crisis in the city.
Austerity policies essentially involve cutting welfare and social security, deregulating labour markets, downgrading employment rights and union representation at work, and the erosion of the welfare state more broadly. We demonstrate in this report that austerity directly impacts on poverty in terms of its extent and intensity and in so doing constitutes a form of violence against individuals, communities and areas. Academics Vicky Cooper and David Whyte explain what is meant by the ‘violence of austerity’.
It is precisely because this violence pervades people’s lives over long periods of time that the violence of austerity carries an ever present threat of physical/and or psychological harm. The various forms of violence… (destitution, eviction, the seizure of possessions, homelessness, deportations, going without a meal, or having electricity or gas cut off) have now become a real possibility for a fast-growing section of the population.
Under the Government’s November (2025) Budget changes, the 2-child tax cap has been abolished, which is welcomed and will ameliorate some of the extreme child poverty affecting families. This said, an earlier commitment to abolish what is seen an extremely regressive piece of social legislation, would have prevented more children experiencing poverty. At this current time much of the previous welfare policies inherited by the Labour Government are still in place. The uprating of benefits is not at a level that provides most families and individuals a sustainable income that meets basic needs. Only a radical overhaul of social security that meets minimum income standards will address the current poverty crisis.