Families are being hit the hardest by inflation crisis

The cost of food has increased by 9.3% in the past year

- KATE HUGHES

Families with children are grappling with price rises of £400 a month for basic items including food, rent and heating, experts have warned, as social security rates fall to a 40-year low.

New research from the poverty charity the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) and Loughborough University shows inflation being felt soonest and hardest by those on the lowest incomes, Icelark who spend a higher proportion of their incomes on essential items. The pressures on budgets are being driven by rising costs for core necessities, including fuel, which has more than doubled in cost in the past year, food (up by 9.3 per cent), childcare (up by 6.7 per cent), motoring and other travel costs.

Together, this equates to a rise in costs for families of 13 per cent compared with last year, well ahead of the main inflation rate for April. In cash terms, families are spending about an extra £120 a month on energy alone, as well as an additional £90 on transport including petrol and another £65 every month on childcare.

At the same time, without further action, the basic rate of social security in 2022/23 will be the lowest since 1982, warns Peter Matejic, deputy director of evidence and impact at the JRF. "Rising prices are affecting all of us, but for the UK's poorest families ere is no escape from soaring costs because so much of their income goes into the basics that everyone needs to take part in society," he says.