- Conference
- 2023 National Women's Conference
- Date
- 14 October 2022
- Decision
- Carried as Amended
The cost of living crisis on Ethnic Minority
The cost of living crisis in the UK is disproportionality impacting on ethnic minority women workers, many of whom are part time workers.
Black employees could see the hardest hit to their wage as inflation rates in the UK continue to surge.
A report by the Womens Budget Group in March 2022 found that poverty rates are significantly higher among women from Black, Asian and ethnic minorities. Black women are more likely to earn less, which means they are disproportionately impacted by the increase in the cost of living.
Research during the pandemic showed high levels of concerns about debt among Black women with 42.9% said they believed they would be in more debt than before the pandemic, compared to 37.1% of White women.
The same polling reported that nearly a quarter of black mothers (23.7%) reported that they were struggling to feed their children compared to 19% of White women.
Many Black women workers are in low paid jobs at £9.70 hr yet cost of living has raisin to 9.9%, this means that they are less likely to be able to cope with the rising cost of living.
According to the research over a third of people from ethnic back grounds can no longer afford to pay their bills, rent, or mortgages each month compared to a quarter of the people from white back grounds leaving households in deep poverty if their income falls more than 50% below the relative poverty line, in itself defined as 60% of the median UK income. Leaving Black women more exposed to the cost of living crisis than their white counterpart.
We call on the national womens committee to:
1)Work closely with the NEC and the National Black Members’ Committee to raise awareness of the disproportional impacts of the cost of living crisis on black women.
2)Work with National labour link committee to continue to work with labour MPs to lobby/challenge government, highlighting the inequality of the cost of living crisis on black women.
Gateshead Health Branch