‘MORE and more’ Islanders are moving away due to unaffordable living and housing costs, the chair of Jersey’s Consumer Council has said as the latest Statistics Jersey report revealed that average household income is decreasing while costs are rising.
JCC chair Carl Walker said that the latest data was ‘potentially embarrassing and concerning’ at a time when Jersey was trying to attract more people to its workforce.
The report revealed that the mean household income was £930 per week after housing costs, representing a decrease of 4% since 2019-2020 after adjusting for inflation.
However, the rise in food prices over the past 12 months to March 2023 was 15.8%.
Mr Walker said: ‘This report gives us the data that demonstrates we have been in a cost-of-living crisis for some time. It shows us that income has not been keeping pace with expenditure. We didn’t need this report to tell us that, however, it does show the actual impact the cost-of-living crisis is having on Island homes, and particularly on the elderly, who are really struggling.
‘It’s essential this report doesn’t sit on the shelf and gather dust. What this will allow the government and other agencies to do is to come up with the fine details and work out how they can target their help even better, because this current situation isn’t going away overnight.’
He added that he had heard ‘more and more about Islanders moving away because they can’t afford to live here’.
Mr Walker said: ‘This report also demonstrates that housing in particular is a massive cost for Islanders, and this is what people have been claiming as their reason for leaving.
‘I know the Island is trying to attract a workforce, so this report is potentially embarrassing and concerning that Jersey is ranked so low in some aspects.’
In a table showing the percentage of pensioners living in households in relative low income before housing costs, Jersey ranked 30th out of 38 OECD countries. The Island’s figure for this metric was 23%. Countries such as Slovenia (18.9%) and Romania (19.5%) fared better.
‘Jersey has long been known for being an affluent community,’ Mr Walker said. ‘But now it seems that this takes us right back.
‘This report gives us a better idea of who needs help, who needs help now and how we can help them to ride out the storm.’
He said there was a ‘glimmer of hope’ as the JCC hoped food prices had peaked and would begin to fall in autumn.
‘But we’ve seen oil prices jump up when the [Wagner Group] mercenaries decided to turn on Moscow for 24 hours, so there’s no crystal ball for what can happen going forward. It’s a difficult one to predict.
‘Food banks see a particular type of Islander turning up for help now, which is no longer only the unemployed. It’s the couple who are both in work and still struggling to make ends meet.
‘These are the stats behind the struggle.’
