It found that a quarter of workers across health and social care are struggling to feed their families and experienced food insecurity in January this year, when the charity’s survey was carried out.
The proportion rises to 27.9 per cent among social care workers.
More than a fifth of households where education workers live are also struggling. This is particularly prevalent among teaching assistants, with 21 per cent experiencing food insecurity, compared with 17.8 percent of teachers.
Food Foundation warns that almost two in five households living with food insecurity are in employment “indicating that being in work is not necessarily sufficient to prevent families from falling into food insecurity”.
Almost half of households receiving universal credit also experienced food insecurity in January this year.
Among all households just under a fifth are struggling to buy food. This equates to 9.3m adults.
Food Foundation also found that one in four households with children experienced food insecurity during January this year, amounting to four million young people.
📊 New data shows essential workers across the UK such as nurses, teachers and food sector workers are facing devastating levels of food insecurity.
— The Food Foundation (@Food_Foundation) March 23, 2023
Findings show, many wages and benefits are simply not providing enough to live on.
Read more here: https://t.co/dGmZ1eZf76 pic.twitter.com/ZUbVFGQkcc
“Struggling to afford food is by no means confined to those out of work,” said Food Foundation executive director Anna Taylor.
“Many people doing important jobs are also suffering the stress and indignity of not knowing if their pay cheque will allow them to buy the bare essentials.
“Businesses must pull out all the stops to help their lower paid staff and the government needs to seriously scrutinise why their policies are failing to protect struggling families from affording the basics and start setting some targets for reducing food insecurity levels, particularly amongst benefit claimants.”
The charity also points out that the figures arrive amid pay disputes among health and education sectors “as frontline workers delivering essential services continue to struggle with the cost-of-living crisis”.
The Food Foundation’s online survey was carried out by YouGov and included the views of more than 10,000 people.
National Education Union deputy general secretary Niamh Sweeney added: “Pay is a serious issue across the education sector. It is one of the reasons why teachers and support staff are leaving the profession and why many decide not to enter it.
“Support staff and special needs support assistants are leaving for jobs with higher pay, less hours and less stress. Some of our most vulnerable pupils are losing out.
‘We need fair pay to recruit more to the profession and for the sake of children and young people’s education.”
