They have been less likely to receive a payment holiday on their rent, as opposed to those with a mortgage. This is largely driven by housing costs, which account for 29% of budgets for renting households and 21% for homeowners.Īccording to a survey by the Resolution Foundation, renters are more likely than homeowners to have fallen behind with their housing payments during the lockdown. Renting households spend 60% of their usual weekly budget on essentials, compared with 51% for households who own their home outright or with a mortgage. Renters spend a higher proportion of their budget on essential items that cannot be cut back More than one-fifth of usual household spending has been prevented by the lockdown Weekly household expenditure by category, UK, financial year ending March 2019 We estimate that 40% of household spending on essentials could be subject to a payment holiday, equivalent to £177 per week. To help households under increased financial pressure, some companies – including mortgage providers and gas, electricity and water suppliers – have offered payment holidays on regular bills. This could limit their ability to cut back on spending if their income were to fall. Younger households, those who are renting and those living in London spend a lot proportionally on essentials and relatively little on goods and services that have been unavailable under lockdown. We refer to this as spending on “essentials”. There is more detail on our categories in the Spending classifications section.Īcross all households, more than half (53%) of usual spending covers “non-discretionary” items such as food and housing costs. To estimate the potential impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) on spending, and the extent to which people might be able to cut back, we have categorised household spending from before the pandemic (based on lockdown measures introduced on 23 March 2020). This is equivalent to 22% of a usual weekly budget of £843, money that households could be saving, spending in other areas or using to cover any loss of income. In the financial year ending March 2019, UK households spent an average of £187 per week on activities that have since been largely prevented by government guidelines (such as travel, holidays and meals out). More than one-fifth of usual household spending has not been possible during the lockdown, Office for National Statistics (ONS) analysis reveals. Please contact Carla Kidd at for more information. We have corrected the affected values in this article. This has meant that although the interpretation of the statistics remains the same, the proportion of spending in each classification has been affected. To a lesser degree income (decrease of 2%) has also been affected. The biggest impact is on expenditure on transport (6% increase), specifically on loans or hire purchase of vehicles. As announced on 4 March 2021, an error occurred in the Living Cost and Food (LCF) Survey which was found to impact the Family Spending in the UK: April 2018 to March 2019 release and datasets that were the basis of this piece of analysis.
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