Poverty in the Headlines: Why Language Matters

How poverty is framed in the media matters. It shapes public opinion, political debate, and the way people in poverty are treated in everyday life.

Too often, headlines reduce families to stereotypes: “benefit scroungers,” “sink estates,” or “trapped on welfare.” This language is not neutral. It embeds harmful myths that poverty is the result of individual failings rather than systemic inequality. It generates resentment rather than solidarity, and it feeds into the stigma people face when they ask for help.

As part of Making it Work for Families' Toolkit, the team developed an exercise called “Read all about it”. Families and practitioners sat together and examined real headlines, asking questions such as:

• What assumptions are being made here?

• Whose voices are being amplified, and whose are missing?

• What impact might this have on how people in poverty are seen and treated?

  
  

Working through these activities highlighted how stigma is created and reinforced not just by individuals, but by systems of power, culture, and history. The media plays a central role in shaping those narratives. When families analysed these stories, they recognised how headlines trickle down into everyday life, influencing the way they are spoken to, judged, and treated.

Families told us the reality behind the headlines: working long hours on low pay, skipping meals so their children can eat, and navigating barriers stacked against them. What is labelled “dependency” is often resilience under immense strain.

Download the Change the Story Toolkit and try the “Read all about it” activity with your team. It’s a powerful way to surface the assumptions we all absorb from the media, and to start rewriting the story with dignity and respect at its heart.