Britain’s cost of living crisis is pushing millions to the brink

“Everything’s increasing,” she told CNN Business during a visit to The Boiler House, which provides discounted food, footwear and fuel vouchers from a red brick building on a public housing estate in east London. Begum’s energy bills for her one-bedroom apartment have shot up by about £70 ($92) in the past three months, even though she’s using similar amounts of fuel. She works at Tesco (TSCDF), a supermarket chain, where she has seen “every single product” rise in price.”Milk was 80p ($1.05). The smallest one, that’s gone to £1 ($1.31),” she said. “The bread — the cheapest bread that we used to do for £1 — has gone to £1.20 ($1.57).” Annual consumer price inflation hit 5.5% in January in the United Kingdom — its highest level since 1992 — fueled by product shortages and a sharp spike in demand as pandemic lockdowns were lifted. Wages aren’t keeping pace. Average worker pay suffered its biggest drop in more than seven years in the three months to January, falling by 1% over the same period a year ago once inflation is taken into account, the UK Office for National Statistics said on Tuesday. And the war in Ukraine has driven energy costs even higher — gasoline and diesel prices have soared to new record highs in recent days.Its three pop-up stores around the country aim to give “families a shopping experience,” she said. “So they can visit these shops and try on shoes and choose shoes and see a selection of shoes — but they don’t have to pay.”Sal’s Shoes has sent nearly 3 million pairs to 54 countries in its eight years, though more and more are being sent closer to home. The charity distributed 48,000 pairs around the United Kingdom in 2021, its highest number ever. Bowry said she receives calls every day from school principals asking for support.”We have headteachers who’ve done playground duty and then ring us because they’ve literally noticed children in their playground with the soles flapping off their shoes,” she said. ‘Hardship is harder’The Bank of England expects inflation to cool after peaking in April, but high prices will stick around. For people who have taken on new debts and fallen behind on their bills, there will be a scarring effect that could last for years. Research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation last year found that 4.4 million low income households began borrowing or added to existing debts during the pandemic. Of that number, more than two thirds are behind on their repayments. Joseph De-Ville, another member of Covid Realities, lives in Cornwall with his wife and three children. He got into debt a couple of years ago to pay for his mother’s funeral, and told CNN Business about the constant struggle to provide for his family. “This is the parts of life that people aren’t seeing,” he said. “We’re locking it up into credit cards so we can cope, and then we’re struggling to pay the debts because [of] the interest rates — because we’re having to take high interest rate credit cards just so we can get by.” For over a decade, real incomes and living standards for millions of Britons have dropped. For De-Ville, the rising cost of living is just the latest chapter of an extended crisis.”Hardship is harder,” he said.