Deep poverty rates for children, pensioners and working-age adults (1994/95 - 2022/23)
Last updated: October 2024
Next estimated update: June 2025
What does this indicator show?
This indicator shows the proportion of people in London living in 'deep poverty', split into children, working age adults and pensioners.
Deep poverty goes beyond the standard poverty rate to show us how many people are experiencing the most severe poverty. People in deep poverty often face extreme hardship and struggle to afford even the basic essentials.
By looking at the deep poverty rate, we get a more nuanced picture of poverty levels in London, and are better able to understand how many people are in the most urgent need of help - and how this has changed over time.
For more detail about how we calculate ‘deep poverty’ levels, scroll to the bottom of the page.
What does it tell us?
18.3% of Londoners were in deep poverty in 2022/23, compared to 14.3% of people in the rest of England.
Over the last 26 years, the highest deep poverty rates in London were seen in children and the lowest in pensioners. The trend has been similar for the rest of England.
Deep poverty rates for children have dropped from 29.3% in 1996/97 to 24.0% in 2022/23. There was a slower decrease of almost 2 percentage points for working-age adults (from 18.9% to 17.1%) in the same time period. On the other hand, the deep poverty rate for pensioners slightly increased over this period - the rate in 1996/97 was 13.7%, rising to 14.4% in 2022/23.
This is in contrast to the rest of England, where deep poverty rates have shown only a slight decrease for children, have remained fairly constant for working-age adults and have dropped for pensioners.
How do we calculate deep poverty?
In the UK, the official poverty line is 60% of the median income. To calculate how many people are in deep poverty, we look at the number of people whose total income is 50%, or less, than the median income.
Want to know more?
If you want to explore this data in more depth, check the 'data source and notes' button on the above charts. This will tell you where the data comes from, where you may be able to dig deeper.