Households Below Average Income - Individual Dataset statistics

Dataset: Households Below Average Income (Individual)

Description

The Households Below Average Income (HBAI) dataset provides information on living standards in the United Kingdom based on household income measures for a financial year.

The HBAI dataset is on an individual level and uses the net, weekly income of their household. Breakdowns allow analysis of individual, family (benefit unit) and household characteristics of the individual.

Data is taken from the Family Resources Survey (FRS), whose focus is capturing information on incomes, as well as a lot of contextual information on household and individual's circumstances.

This dataset provides estimates for single financial years, from 1994/95 to 2001/02 for Great Britain and 2002/03 to 2023/24 for the United Kingdom.

Please note:

Updated 2023/24 questions for material deprivation items for children, working-age adults and pensioners were introduced into the 2023/24 FRS and asked to 75% of households. The remaining 25% of households were asked the old questions (2010/11 questions for children and working-age adults and 2009/10 questions for pensioners). To provide responses and reasons for households asked the old questions for the updated measure, imputation included using responses and reasons where old questions were similar. Estimates using the old questions and old methodology and 2023/24 questions and updated methodology are not comparable. Further information can be found in the Technical report: update to measures using material deprivation for households below average income FYE 2024, which accompanies the release of the HBAI 2023/24 statistics.
2022/23 data has been revised in the 2023/24 release to correct a Cost of Living payment omission in the underlying Family Resources dataset. Data for this year may be different to that published within the 2022/23 release. Further details can be found in the 2023/24 Main Report.
Data collection during 2022/23 and 2023/24 was mixed mode, with most of the achieved sample responding to the FRS via a return to face-to-face interviewing. For the two-year period spanning the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, interviewing was conducted via telephone only. Changes in estimates since 2019/20 and between subsequent years should be interpreted being mindful of the differences in data collection approaches across the period and the effect this had on sample composition.
All estimates of material deprivation for 2022/23 should only be directly compared with periods up to and including 2019/20. During 2020/21 (not included in this dataset) and 2021/22, several of the questions asked as part of the material deprivation measure were affected by government restrictions introduced in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Further details can be found in the technical report which accompanies the annual release of these statistics.
Data collection during the financial years 2020/21 and 2021/22 was via telephone interviewing as opposed to the established face to face method used prior to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. While the achieved FRS sample was larger and more representative than in 2020/21, there remains some residual bias in the data resulting from the change in mode and therefore 2021/22 estimates may not be strictly comparable with the pre-pandemic period. Further details can be found in the technical report which accompanies the release of the 2021/22 statistics.
Data relating to 2020/21 is not available in Stat Xplore due to data quality concerns affecting many of the HBAI estimates calculated below UK (headline) level for that year. Further details can be found in the technical report which accompanied the release of the 2020/21 statistics. This report details the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on the size and composition of the FRS sample.

While this dataset displays estimates for single financial years, please ensure that HBAI estimates for regional, country and ethnicity estimates are calculated using three-year averages. This method helps smooth erratic series and so give more robust estimates as the FRS sample size and coverage issues mean that single year results broken down below the level of UK region are unlikely to be reliable. For alternative sub-regional sources, please see Annex 2: Other Relevant Statistics of the HBAI Quality and Methodology Information Report.

All rolling three-year averages calculated and published for any period including 2020/21 are based on the remaining two available data points only. Therefore:

When calculating 2018/19 to 2020/21 estimates, please calculate a two-year average using 2018/19 and 2019/20 estimates.
When calculating 2019/20 to 2021/22 estimates, please calculate a two-year average using 2019/20 and 2021/22 estimates.
When calculating 2020/21 to 2022/23 estimates, please calculate a two-year average using 2021/22 and 2022/23 estimates.

See the HBAI on Stat-Xplore User Guide and the information pages for these breakdowns for guidance on how to calculate them.

As estimates are unrounded and based on survey data, users must use the following rounding conventions:

Percentages must be rounded to the nearest whole percent.
Numbers must be rounded to the nearest 0.1 million (or 100,000 individuals).
Amounts must be rounded to the nearest £1 (weekly) and nearest £100 (annual).

These rounding conventions have been set to reflect that HBAI estimates are based on the Family Resources Survey (FRS) and not actual records of individuals in the UK. Where tabulations result in a number of rows or columns with zero numbers or percentages when rounded, we recommend combining groups.

When comparing year-on-year changes, users are advised to refer to the suite of data tables, uncertainty-hbai-2023-24-tables, providing confidence intervals around the key HBAI estimates on the latest HBAI home page. These confidence intervals present how estimates might have varied if a different FRS sample had been created and to help the user to understand where some differences seen in the estimates do represent a true change (and not a result of variation from sampling different people in the UK over time). A new methodology to measure uncertainty around key HBAI estimates was implemented from the 2015/16 HBAI publication onwards. Further information can be found in the Statistical Notice published in February 2017 and in Annex 4: Communicating Uncertainty of the HBAI Quality and Methodology Information Report.

For the 2023/24 (latest) commentary on HBAI estimates, see our HBAI: An analysis of the income distribution FYE 1995 to FYE 2024 report.

To learn about how HBAI estimates are produced, see our latest HBAI Quality and Methodology Information Report.

For Family Resources Survey releases, visit the FRS collection page.

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