Resolve Poverty has today launched a major update to the North West Poverty Monitor, providing the most comprehensive and up-to-date picture of poverty and inequality across Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Cheshire, Lancashire and Cumbria.
Originally launched in 2024, the North West Poverty Monitor has been refreshed with the latest available data, enabling users to track changing trends and emerging challenges across the region.
The Poverty Monitor brings together data across six key themes: poverty and deprivation, education, fuel and food insecurity, housing and homelessness, the labour market, and socialsecurity and debt. It also contains national poverty data to support understanding of demographics at particular risk of poverty.
Through a combination of interactive maps, charts and data visualisations, the resource allows users to explore and compare indicators at local authority level and, where available, at neighbourhood and electoral ward level. Child poverty and deprivation data continue to be available for every ward across the North West.
The Poverty Monitor paints a picture of the stark inequalities across the North West and of how poverty is experienced by people in our communities, whether it is being paid a wage below the poverty line, or being charged rent that costs almost half the monthly pay packet, or not being able to heat the home or put a meal on the table due to prohibitive cost. The Monitor alights on the real risk that many children in our communities are locked into intergenerational disadvantage, and out of a future where they can realise their full potential.
The data highlights the close relationship between low incomes, high rates of benefit take-up, housing costs and fuel insecurity. Areas with higher rates of Universal Credit claims often experience higher child poverty and fuel insecurity, while high housing costs continue to place pressure on family budgets.
A social security system that fails to pay enough to lift people out of poverty, and places significant barriers on the ability of people to claim their full entitlements in the first place, only serve to compound financial hardship driven by wider systemic failures.
More than that, the Poverty Monitor reveals that poverty is not the preserve of the poorest areas, with places considered to be relatively more affluent, such as the Wirral, still facing significant pockets of deprivation.
The bottom line is that we must focus our collective efforts on increasing incomes and reducing costs for low-income families, if we are to support them to enjoy the full fruits of contemporarysociety.
The Poverty Monitor provides an essential evidence base for local and regional authorities, charities and community organisations, policymakers and researchers, working to that end.
Graham Whitham, CEO of Resolve Poverty, said:
“The data shows that poverty remains a significant challenge for communities across the North West. While the picture varies between places, too many people continue to experience financial insecurity, hardship and unequal life chances.”
“By making this evidence freely available, we hope to support better-informed decision making, encourage collaboration between organisations, and help ensure that action to tackle poverty is targeted where it is needed most. Understanding the scale and nature of poverty is a crucial step towards resolving it.”
The North West Poverty Monitor is freely available and can be accessed at
resolvepoverty.org/poverty-monitor/.
