Inside the UK’s ‘stressful’ cost of living crisis Burnham hopes to tackle
On those days, she goes to a food bank instead, or borrows money to get by. The 54-year-old, who has four children, started relying on food banks, nonprofit initiatives that collect and provide free emergency food to those in need, after her son and his girlfriend moved out following the birth of their baby in February. They had been contributing to the household bills, and losing that income tipped things over the edge.
“Mentally, it’s just stressful and it’s embarrassing having to go to the food bank, utterly embarrassing,” she says. “I hate asking people for help. I hate borrowing money.” The stress compounds an already precarious situation.
O’Hara has multiple myeloma, a blood cancer, and has been hospitalised three times since October on life-saving antibiotics after infections forced her to pause chemotherapy. Her cancer is in remission, but doctors have told her it is likely to return before she can resume treatment. Her husband died of lung cancer last year.
Two of her children are on Universal Credit, the UK’s main working-age welfare monthly payment, including support for housing, children and low income or unemployment. After paying child maintenance, her son is left with 340 pounds ($460) a month to live on after the payment. He cannot work because he is waiting for gallbladder surgery.
“Who can live on 340 pounds a month?” O’Hara said. “And because I’m always helping him out, that cuts into my money.”
Her own housing benefit payment is 1,800 pounds ($2,440) a month, against rent of 2,500 pounds ($3,390) for a private property with the downstairs toilet she and her late husband both needed because of their cancer treatment. She has fallen behind, and expects to be evicted.
“The day the bailiffs come round, I must be packed and ready to go into the housing they put me in,” she said. “Who knows where I’m going to end up?”
The UK has been in an acute cost of living crisis since inflation surged from late 2021, driven initially by pandemic disruption and then by the spike in energy prices following Russia’s