If there was one single policy change that might improve the lives of the poor, it would be something to help people avoid spending a lifetime in the icy embrace of the high-cost credit industry. Money can’t buy happiness, but the absence of purse-draining, anxiety-inducing and hard-to-escape excess debt can help. More than 11 million people have less than £100 in precautionary savings, according to the Money and Pensions Service. They are just one broken boiler away from a descent into that dismal world of penal interest rates, repayment demands and bailiffs’ threats. The debt charity StepChange found that a rainy-day savings pot of £1,000 was enough to halve the chances of getting sucked into a spiral of problem debt.

Source: The Times July 12, 2021 15:56 UTC