Poverty at the end of life Understanding the number of people who die in poverty

In 2021 End-of-Life charity Marie Curie commissioned CRSP to examine the number of people who die in poverty in the UK each year and how the risk of being in poverty at the end of life varies for different groups of the population.

  • More than 90,000 people a year experience poverty during the last year of their lives, using the Social Metrics Commission’s definition of poverty.
  • 1 in 4 terminally ill people of working age spend the last year of their lives in poverty and working age people at the end of life are twice as likely to be in poverty than those of pension age.
  • The findings form the backbone of Marie Curie’s Nobody should die in poverty campaign, lobbying the UK Government to give terminally ill people early access to their State Pension as well as support with domestic energy and childcare costs.
  • More than 166,000 people signed the campaign petition which was delivered to Downing Street by Marie Curie ambassador Chris Kamara MBE on 23 February 2023.