RESEARCH to identify minimum income standards for Jersey households to live comfortable is being commissioned following a decision by a ministerial group, according to the Treasury Minister.
Deputy Elaine Millar said that the research was expected to be complete by next summer.
The Cost of Living Ministerial Group was established last year, replacing a similar group set up under the previous government and an inflation strategy group formed in 2020.
Its remit includes monitoring of the cost of living pressures facing Islanders and developing policy options to help mitigate them.
During a quarterly hearing with the Corporate Services Scrutiny Panel yesterday [MONDAY] afternoon, Deputy Millar said that one of the pieces of work that the group had been discussing was the commissioning of research to develop minimum income standards.
Noting that she was “not entirely convinced”, Deputy Millar explained that the decision had been made by the group to commission research that will “try to identify the income needed by different types of households to achieve a minimum standard of living”.
The update follows comments made by Social Security Minister Lyndsay Feltham earlier this year, who said she was “keen” to ensure single-parent households were acknowledged within ongoing work to establish minimum income standards and identify potential gaps in Jersey’s benefits system.
Deputy Millar said: “We will go to a recognised body who will do the preparatory work and the research,” which she described as being in a commissioning and procurement phase.
She also stated that the research was expected to be finished “by summer of 2026”.
In the same hearing, Deputy Millar also discussed the recent ministerial response to a petition calling for the removal of GST on food.
The response contended that the rate was simpler to administer for businesses and government – and that removing the tax was unlikely to lead to “observable price reductions”.
Deputy Millar said: “It is better to target funding in the best way possible to make sure that people who need support are getting it, rather than a kind of broad brush measure that actually will have very little impact on anyone.”
