North East has highest rates of working-age people dying in poverty
A new report has been released by Marie Curie
We're hearing the North East has the highest rates of working-age people dying in poverty across the UK.
The figures come from a new report by Marie Curie, which reveals over 300 people died in poverty every day in the UK last year, an increase of almost a fifth in four years.
Middlesbrough topped the list with 45 percent of people who died being in poverty, Newcastle came second with 39 percent, Hartlepool third with 38 percent, South Tyneside 37 percent and Sunderland 25 percent.
The Dying in Poverty 2024 report from Marie Curie, which is based on research from Loughborough University, comes as the end of life charity calls on the Government to guarantee a pension-level income for working-age individuals with less than 12 months to live, and to implement a social tariff to reduce energy bills for people nearing the end of life.
The report also highlights alarming figures on fuel poverty, with this being the case for 128,000 dying people in 2022—over one in five of all deaths that year. Of these, 110,000 were aged 65 and over, representing 86% of those affected.
The report also shows that people who die before reaching retirement age are at a much higher risk of dying in poverty than pensioners (28% vs 16%).
This is partly because dying people of working age often experience a “double impact” of lost income and rising costs, particularly energy bills. And partly because the State Pension is significantly more generous than working-age benefits.
Calculations within the report show that a social tariff that halves energy bills could lift as many as 54,000 (45%) dying people out of fuel poverty.
Victoria Wharton, Associate Director for Strategic Partnerships and Services in the North East and Yorkshire at Marie Curie, said: "I think the rise in the North East was surprising. I think previously the highest rate had been in London. I don't think we're shocked though because of the existing poverty within the North East, you would expect to see that.
"We've gone through very difficult times in the last few years. People are facing huge strain on existing incomes but also I think there are more people dying, so we're seeing that the rates of people, particularly people dying young increasing, the benefit system doesn't help people.
"We know that people of working-age are significantly risk of dying in poverty and that's because there's usually an impact or a double impact of a loss of income, sometimes two incomes. People are having to give up work to care alongside the increasing living costs associated with terminal illness.
"In the North East, poverty rates in the last year were 34 percent, which is a full 50 percent higher than the rates with the lowest rates of poverty at the end of life. I think that pre-existing poverty plays a massive, massive factor but I do think that people impacted on having to give up work is a huge factor.
"We believe our demands are realistic. We believe that the cost of actually giving people pension-level support in the last year of life would have a really minimal impact, as low as 0.1 percent of current spending on state pension."
Simona’s husband, David, died in June 2024 from a stage four glioblastoma, six months after he was diagnosed. She said:
“David had to stop working straight away after his diagnosis, because he couldn’t walk or move. And I had to stop work to be his full time carer. The amount of money we had through state benefits was barely enough to get us to the end of the month.
“His condition meant that he was constantly cold, so we had to keep the heating on all the time. We discussed this with our energy companies, and the only things they provided was an electric blanket and a discount of £200 – it wasn’t enough.
“All the medical equipment David needed was electric. It really raised the cost of our energy bills, and I still have an outstanding bill of £5,000 from the energy company.
“When David was on oxygen towards the end of his life, I spoke to the provider as the oxygen machine needed to be on all the time. They told me they would refund the cost of running the equipment, and later I had a cheque through the post from them for £13.”