* 45 percent of families with children have bought less food or less healthy food in the last six months.
* One in ten parents say they have skipped meals because they cannot afford it.
This shows figures from the Salvation Army’s poverty barometer for the third quarter. The survey was carried out in weeks 34 and 35 in a nationally representative sample of 1,000 people over the age of 18.
The food budget for Sifo’s example family – two adults, a five-year-old boy and an eleven-year-old girl – increased by NOK 3,700 a month from July 2021 to July 2024. The family must now spend well over NOK 44,000 more on food and drink than three years ago since – without it having made any changes in consumption. This is an increase of 33 per cent, according to calculations made by the Consumer Research Institute Sifo for NTB.
The growth in expenditure on food and drink was significantly higher than in other categories, such as “clothing and shoes”, “personal care” and “play and media use”. Overall, the reference budget for Sifo’s example family has increased by around 12 per cent in the period.
The performances do not keep pace
The Salvation Army believes that social assistance rates must rise to a level that covers a reasonable living.
– They don’t do that today. This is what the Consumer Research Institute Sifo has also concluded, says assistant social manager Elin Herikstad in the Salvation Army.
Sifo confirms that she is right in that the current rates are insufficient to cover the recipients’ basic needs. In order to ensure a reasonable livelihood for all user groups, the rates must be increased, Sifo recommends in one investigation :
* Over 40 per cent state that they cannot afford to eat in line with dietary advice, and almost half state that they cannot afford to replace worn-out clothes and shoes.
* One in three has not been able to afford to eat a full dinner every day, and around half have skipped meals or eaten less than desired.
– Worse than we thought
– The new calculations from Sifo show that the situation is actually worse than we had thought. Because first here, consideration has been given to people eating proper food, and the food they need, says Nettverk mot familiefatigdom in a joint statement about the findings in NTB’s article.
The network consists of the Single Parents’ Association, the Salvation Army, the Church’s City Mission, Norwegian Women’s Sanitary Association, Redd Barna, Unicef Norway and Adults For Children.
They believe it is obvious that social benefits and child benefit lag far behind the price and expenditure growth in recent years.
– Then we see that the proposal for the state budget does not hold. There must be more funds for basic needs. Because today they cannot live on, and we the seven organizations cannot live with that, says the statement.
Frp: The bragging rights are bursting
During question time in the Storting on Wednesday, the Progress Party came out hard against the government and Finance Minister Trygve Slagsvold Vedum (Sp).
– The finance minister’s boast is that a family has saved NOK 60,000 since 2021, but not everyone commutes, is unionised, has two children in after-school or kindergarten, as he assumes. But even such a family now comes out significantly worse off, said financial policy spokesperson Hans Andreas Limi in the FRP.
– When you look at the increase in food prices plus more expensive mortgages and increased electricity costs, it shows how many people are struggling, Limi pointed out when he confronted Vedum with the problem.
The Minister of Finance has highlighted precisely the focus on, among other things, families with children in this year’s and next year’s state budget.
– We have taken a number of measures that have been aimed particularly at the families with children, because we have seen that they have been hit hard. This year, fortunately, purchasing power is increasing – that is important – and unemployment is low, and that is the most important thing, replied Vedum.
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