The cost of living crisis across the devolved nations

Wales, which has some of the lowest average incomes across the whole of the UK, persistently ranks at the top of surveys that have sought to capture how hard different people and regions have been hit by the cost of living crisis. [...] CPP’s ongoing programme on the cost of living crisis has sought to highlight the varied, and often under-recognised, geographical dimension of the crisis, outlining the nature of vulnerabilities to rising prices across different local authority areas in England.3 But to date, our work has centred entirely on areas in England (largely for data reasons), while the different experiences of this crisi. [...] Mind, the mental health charity, found that the majority (53%) of people in Wales have seen their mental health worsen due to the financial impacts of the cost of living crisis.7 Public Health Wales has recently highlighted the vast drop off in the number of people in Wales claiming they were ‘not at all’ worried about their finances from 60% in January 2022 to just 27% in January 2023.8 Relative. [...] 17% of local Jobs are low paid across the Isle of Anglesey, Powys and Pembrokeshire The cost of living crisis across the devolved nations: how rising costs are hitting different places 14 Figure 5: Prevalence of fuel poverty (2017-18) across the five Welsh local authorities with the highest rates, and rates of low paid employment (2022) 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% Gwynedd Ceredigion Isle of Anglesey Pow. [...] The commission has particular concerns over high levels of food insecurity across the country, citing the significant increases in reliance on charitable food provision between 2008-2020, while data from the Trussell Trust suggests that the number of food parcels it has distributed in Scotland rose by 30% between 2021/22 – 2022/23.19 And despite the introduction of the Fuel Poverty (Targets, Defin.