Here we look at poverty from a quantitative viewpoint to examine trends over time as well as highlighting the social and demographic groups who are most disadvantaged. This reveals a section of society that faces the hardship of life on reduced resources and that lack the necessities for daily living. It also shows the central role that poverty plays in the notion of social exclusion, particularly in exclusion from social activities. Since the 1970s there has been an increase in poverty in the UK, alongside an increase in the cost of key necessities such as energy and housing costs. unstable and under-employment, problem debt. and financial instability, alongside stringent reforms of the social security system, all of which have disproportionately affected those on low incomes. Associated with these has been an increase in material deprivation and the dramatic rise in foodbanks, and we see increasingly precarious and risky lives lived by significant sections of the population. This changing social and economic environment has implications both for the quality of life of people living with mental health conditions as well as the health and well-being of significant numbers of the general population.