Living standards in the UK are plummeting. For instance, 28 per cent (up from 9 per cent pre-COVID) of UK adults said that they could not afford to eat balanced meals. Absolute poverty is set to rise from 17.2 per cent in 2021-22 to 18.3 per cent in 2023-24, pushing an additional 800,000 people into poverty. In England, 100,000 children have been frozen out of free school meals. In the US, around 30 million low-income people are on the edge of a 'hunger cliff' as a portion of their federal food assistance is taken away. In 2021, it was estimated that one in eight children were going hungry in the US.