The Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s recurrent poverty research programme examined the extent and causes of cycles of poverty. These causes stem from the circumstances of the individual and their families, the support they receive to increase their incomes and the current economic climate.

Supply and demand in the labour market are crucial factors and the issue of low-paid, insecure work is particularly pressing in the context of the recession and high levels of short- and longer-term unemployment. The downturn has decreased the security of employment and depressed wages, which is likely to make cycling between low pay and welfare more acute and widespread for those able to find work at all. In the midst of the recession, the first phase of the ‘Flexible New Deal’, outsourcing employment support for longer-term worklessness, began and other changes outlined in the Welfare Reform Act, such as greater use of benefit sanctions and the ‘Work for your Benefits’ pilot, are imminent. The future direction of welfare-to-work policy in the UK remains uncertain in the light of political instability and the longer term social and economic impacts of the recession.