UK Poverty Line: the 60% of Median Low-Income Threshold

The detail

The Department for Work and Pensions measures low income in its Households Below Average Income (HBAI) statistics, which are accredited official statistics. The latest release, published on 26 March 2026, covers FYE 2025 (April 2024 to March 2025). Someone is in relative low income if their household's net equivalised disposable income is below 60% of that year's median. HBAI publishes its measures both before housing costs (BHC) and after housing costs (AHC).

In FYE 2025 the weekly median household income was £719 before housing costs and £623 after housing costs. Incomes are equivalised - adjusted for household size - and expressed for a couple with no children, the reference household. 60% of those medians gives the low-income lines of £431.40 a week BHC (about £22,400 a year) and £373.80 a week AHC (about £19,400 a year). A larger household has a higher line and a single adult a lower one.

On those lines, 16% of individuals were in relative low income before housing costs in FYE 2025 and 20% after housing costs. For children the rates were 21% BHC and 27% AHC; for working-age adults 14% and 19%; and for pensioners 16% and 14%. DWP reports that none of the year-on-year changes in the relative and absolute measures was statistically significant.

Absolute low income compares incomes with 60% of the median of a fixed reference year, uprated for inflation, rather than the current year. In the FYE 2025 release DWP moved that reference year from FYE 2011 to FYE 2025 for the years where its new administrative data linking applies, so for FYE 2025 the absolute and relative rates are the same (16% BHC, 20% AHC). Absolute-poverty figures quoted against the old 2010/11 baseline are therefore on a different basis.

Median household income rose 5% in real terms between FYE 2024 and FYE 2025, similarly before and after housing costs. Because the line is set at 60% of the median, a rising median moves the relative line up with it; a household whose income kept pace with inflation but not with the median can fall below it.