The Minimum Income Standard: what a decent living costs

The Minimum Income Standard (MIS) is the income that people need in order to reach a minimum socially acceptable standard of living in the UK today, based on what members of the public think¹. It is not a government benefit rate or a statutory pay floor. It is a research benchmark, built by asking groups of ordinary people what households like theirs need in order to live with dignity and take part in society, and then pricing those needs in real shops.

The definition the research uses goes beyond survival. As the standard itself puts it:

The headline figure for 2026 is that a single working-age adult needs to earn £31,500 a year to reach MIS³. A couple with two children needs £77,400 a year between them, and a lone parent with two children needs £67,600³. The research is carried out by the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University and funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), and it has been monitoring living standards in the UK since 2008⁴.

What the Minimum Income Standard measures

The Minimum Income Standard is a measure of what incomes different households require to reach a minimum socially acceptable living standard⁷. Since 2008, the research has identified what different household types need for a minimum, based on what goods and services members of the public say are needed⁶. The study then calculates how much people have to earn, after tax, to afford that basket of goods and services⁸.

The households it covers are specific case studies rather than averages: a single working-age person, a couple, a lone parent with one child, a couple with two children, and pensioner singles and couples. Children are defined as individuals aged under 16, or aged 16 to 19, not married or living with a partner, living with a parent or responsible adult, and in full-time non-advanced education or unwaged government training². Pensioners are defined as all those adults above state pension age².

A companion strand of research monitors how many people fall below the standard. It tracks the number of people living below the MIS threshold, as well as how many are well above and how many are well below it⁹. This is what makes MIS useful as a living standards benchmark: it gives a threshold against which the whole income distribution can be measured, not just a poverty count. The way poverty itself is officially measured is covered separately in how poverty and low income are measured in the UK.

How the budgets are set: members of the public decide what is needed

The distinctive feature of MIS is that members of the public, not experts, decide what goes into the budgets. The research asks members of the public what goods and services they think different types of households need to live to an adequate level¹⁰. Groups typically comprise 7 to 10 people from a mixture of socioeconomic backgrounds, though all participants within each group share the relevant characteristics of the household type being discussed⁶.

The process runs through several stages. The first-stage orientation groups are 2 hours long. The task groups each spend 6 hours discussing the needs of a case study individual. Two sets of checkback groups, each 3 hours, test the emerging lists, and final groups, also 3 hours, settle what goes into the budget⁶. The 2024 rebase drew on more than 130 hours of discussion with members of the public held throughout the UK from May 2023 to March 2024⁶. The 2026 review comprised 13 groups, each with between 7 and 9 participants, with fieldwork between October 2025 and February 2026³.

Once the groups have agreed the basket, researchers price it. Food and drink budgets are priced at Tesco, which the groups have repeatedly agreed is appropriate because it is the largest UK supermarket chain, so the whole list can be bought in one shop³. Most household goods are costed at relatively inexpensive retailers such as supermarkets, Argos, B&M and The Range, and beds and sofas at retailers such as DFS, Dreams and IKEA⁶. In the 2024 rebase, all items were priced in April 2024⁶.

The standard is updated annually, following a cycle of rebase, inflation uprating and review³. In 2024, all household types were rebased, meaning budgets were developed from scratch with groups of members of the public, for the first time since MIS was introduced in 2008⁶. In odd-numbered years, budgets are uprated by inflation, applying changes in broad categories of the budget using the Consumer Prices Index⁶. The 2025 update was based largely on price changes as captured through the CPI⁴, and the 2023 update used the same method¹¹. Comprehensive new research across all household types now takes place every two years⁶, and each household type is fully refreshed every four years¹².

What a single adult needs to earn: £31,500 a year

A single working-age adult needs to earn £31,500 a year to reach MIS in 2026³. That figure has climbed steeply over the life of the research. In 2025 the figure was £30,500⁴, in 2024 it was £28,000⁶, in 2023 it was £29,500¹¹, and in April 2022 it was £25,500¹³. Going further back, single people needed £17,100 a year before tax in 2015¹⁰ and the same in 2014⁸, £16,400 in 2012¹⁴, £15,000 in 2011¹⁵ and £13,900 in 2009¹⁶.

The earnings a single working-age adult needs, from the first years of the research to 2026.

The 2026 figure includes a broader additional healthcare budget of £200 per year for each parent and working-age adult without children, and for pensioners³. That reflects a change in what the public considers necessary: items that once counted as extras are now part of the minimum.

The long-run rise is not just inflation. By 2018, minimum household budgets had risen by about a third since 2008 for most household types, and by a half for pensioners, compared with a 25 per cent rise in the Consumer Prices Index over the same period¹⁷. In other words, what people need, in the public's own judgement, has grown as well as become more expensive. How inflation itself is measured is explained in CPI and CPIH.

What families need: couples, lone parents and the cost of children

Families with children need substantially more, and the cost of children is a large part of the gap. In 2026, a couple with two children needs to earn £77,400 a year between them, and a lone parent with two children needs £67,600³. In 2023, a couple with two children needed £50,000 between them¹¹.

Earlier years show the same shape. In 2013, couples with two children needed to earn at least £19,400 each, working full time, and the combined annual earnings requirement for a couple with two children was £38,759¹⁸. In 2012, two parents needed to earn at least £18,400 each to support themselves and two children¹⁴. A lone parent with one child needed £25,586 in April 2013¹⁸, £23,861 in April 2012¹⁴ and £18,243 in April 2011¹⁵.

Childcare is treated as a necessary cost where parents work. Since 2016, the consensus in the research has been that nurseries are the necessary minimum to budget for, to allow parents of toddlers and preschool children to work⁶. Back in 2011, making up the childcare shortfall for a lone parent would have required an extra £1,000 a year in disposable income¹⁵.

Out-of-work benefits fall far short of these budgets. In 2026, out-of-work support provides 24% of the income required for working-age households without children, 28% for couple parents and 36% for lone parents, after housing costs³. Even in 2022, with the cost-of-living support payments added, a couple with two children on out-of-work benefits had just over 52% of MIS¹³.

Pensioners and the Minimum Income Standard

The pensioner budgets define how much income pensioners need for a minimum socially acceptable standard of living in the UK today¹⁹. They are based on the needs of hypothetical households, singles and couples, aged 72 and without significant health problems¹⁹.

That reference age matters. An MIS based on a relatively healthy person in their early 70s may be of limited relevance to a pensioner a decade or so older, whose needs, and often costs, are different¹⁹. The standard is a benchmark for pensioner households in general, not a forecast of any individual's spending.

Pensioner budgets have risen faster than most. Between 2008 and 2018, minimum budgets for pensioners rose by about a half, against about a third for most other household types¹⁷. Earlier, between 2008 and 2012, the pensioner couple's budget had risen 15% while the Consumer Prices Index rose 14%¹⁴.

The pensions industry uses a related set of figures. The PLSA Retirement Living Standards set a minimum standard of £10,900 a year for a single person in 2021/22, produced through ongoing research funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation on Minimum Income Standards²⁰. At the moderate standard, the assumed food shop is Tesco with 50% branded goods, and at the minimum standard, Tesco mainly with Tesco brands²⁰.

Policy attention has been growing. The Work and Pensions Committee has recommended that the Government should decide on and ensure a minimum level of retirement income²¹, and MPs have called for a national strategy to tackle pensioner poverty²².

London costs more: the separate MIS for London

London has its own Minimum Income Standard, maintained with the anti-poverty charity Trust for London. The Trust's 2026 thresholds are based on the MIS for London in April 2025 prices⁷. The main UK figures, by contrast, track living standards for people living in urban UK outside London³.

The London weekly budgets for 2026 show how much more the capital costs⁷:

The gap between London and the statutory pay floors has been wide for years. In 2017, the difference between the Living Wage Foundation's real Living Wage and the National Minimum Wage or National Living Wage was between £2.37 and £4.30 per hour in London²³. The difference between the real Living Wage and the government minimums, and what each is based on, is explained in National Living Wage or real Living Wage: what each is.

Remote rural and island areas: budgets up to 31% higher

Households in remote rural, remote small town and island areas need more than the urban UK standard, sometimes much more. Research for these areas, in 2022 prices, found the following uplifts over the urban UK MIS⁵:

The 90% thresholds used in some official tests are also published: £13,658.85 for a single working-age person at 90% of the remote rural mainland standard, £14,089.05 at 90% of the island standard, £23,155.20 for a working-age couple at 90% of the mainland standard and £24,059.70 at 90% of the island standard, and £11,612.16 and £17,296.65 for a single pensioner and pensioner couple at 90% of the remote rural mainland standard⁵.

The 90% figure is not arbitrary. Scotland's official fuel poverty definition uses a test of whether a household's remaining adjusted net income is at least 90% of the UK Minimum Income Standard, after housing, fuel and childcare costs, to be considered an acceptable standard of living²⁴. So the Minimum Income Standard directly shapes who counts as fuel poor in Scotland. Similar modelled estimates are produced for Wales²⁴.

How far benefits and the National Living Wage fall short

The National Living Wage is the statutory minimum wage for workers aged 21 and over²⁵. From April 2026 it rises by 4.1 per cent to £12.71 per hour²⁵. The Government asks the Low Pay Commission to ensure the rate does not drop below two-thirds of UK median earnings for workers in the National Living Wage population²⁶. That target is about median earnings, not about the Minimum Income Standard, and the two can diverge sharply.

In 2026, a lone parent with two children working full-time on the National Living Wage reaches 67% of MIS, and a couple with two children where both parents work full-time on the NLW reaches 80%³. In 2022, a couple with two children with one parent working full-time on the National Living Wage reached 79% of MIS even with the cost-of-living support payments¹³.

For self-employed people on Universal Credit, there is a different connection. The minimum income floor, which can apply to gainfully self-employed claimants, is based on what an employed person on minimum wage would expect to earn in similar circumstances²⁷. So the statutory minimum feeds directly into benefit assessments for the self-employed.

The picture for out-of-work benefits is starker still. In 2026, out-of-work support provides 24% of the income required for working-age households without children, 28% for couple parents and 36% for lone parents, after housing costs³. The 2021 report looked at whether people can reach current levels of MIS based on benefits, Universal Credit and the National Living Wage¹³, and the answer for most households without earnings was no. How the pay floors themselves are set and uprated is covered in National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage.

How MIS compares with poverty lines and median income

MIS sits above the official relative poverty line. In the original 2008 study, over 96 per cent of individuals classified as being in poverty, in the households covered by the study, were below MIS⁹. In other words, the official poverty measure and MIS identify almost the same people as poor, but MIS sets the income needed for a decent standard considerably higher than the poverty threshold.

The standard can also be expressed relative to median income. In 2009/10, the income required for MIS, after housing costs, was 74% of median income for a single working-age person, 54% for a pensioner couple and 73% for a lone parent with one child¹⁵. By 2010/11, the lone parent figure was 77%¹⁴ and the pensioner couple figure 57%¹⁴. A household at MIS is therefore not rich: it is living on something like half to three-quarters of what the typical household has, but with enough, in the public's judgement, to participate in society.

The relationship between these measures matters for how poverty statistics are read. The official measures are explained in how poverty and low income are measured in the UK, and the wider income distribution in household incomes across the four nations.

What MIS leaves out: housing, childcare and other limits

The headline earnings figures need careful reading. The original 2008 amounts were after income tax and did not include housing or childcare costs⁹, and later budget comparisons for Northern Ireland likewise excluded housing and childcare²⁸. The earnings figures are what a household must earn so that, after tax and after its housing and childcare costs as modelled, it can afford the minimum basket.

Housing costs are modelled rather than taken from any individual's actual bills. Rents are based on private rents for relevant property sizes in the East Midlands, which is a median to low rent area³. For homeowners, the model takes mortgage payments into account, but not the cost of maintaining the home². For tenants, it is based on what the public thinks tenants would need to spend as a minimum². Anyone whose rent or mortgage costs more than the model assumes needs more than the headline figure to reach the same standard.

There are other limits to bear in mind:

• The budgets are for specific case-study households, not for every family shape and size.
• The pensioner budgets assume a healthy person aged 72, and may be of limited relevance to pensioners a decade or so older¹⁹.
• Percentages in the reports are rounded to the nearest 0.1%².
• The main UK figures cover urban UK outside London; London has its own standard³, and remote rural and island areas have separate, higher budgets⁵.

The standard applies to the whole of the UK⁴, and there has been dedicated Minimum Income Standard research for Northern Ireland, where the standard was updated in July 2009 to reflect changes in prices²⁸. But a national figure is a benchmark, not a personal budget: anyone wanting to check their own household can use the Minimum Income Calculator, which the research team publishes to work out whether a household earns enough for a decent standard of living²⁹.