Guernsey Community Foundation has published its Quality of Life Report 2025 – a year-long research project looking at local life, where it found an island rife with inequality.
‘There are two worlds here, and one world very much does not want to see that the other one exists,’ said Alex Lemon, its policy and research lead.
‘And it’s very easy, if you’re in the richer world, to stay that way and not to confront that.’
While the report said that nearly a third of islanders scored their life satisfaction at eight out of ten or better, and almost four out of ten could cover £1,000 unexpected expense with no problem at all, the bottom 5% of the population often went without basic essentials like food and heating nearly one in 10 could not find £100 for an emergency.
‘For context, that’s less than the cost of a GP appointment and a blood test,’ said Miss Lemon.
‘So if you have a health problem that comes up, you probably won’t be able to afford treatment.’
And the authors said this was not just about the unemployed or pensioners, but described Guernsey as an island of the ‘working poor’.
‘97% of poor households with children are working, and 95% of poor households with working age adults in them are working too,’ she said.
‘You’ve got a vast proportion of people working and this sort of continuing myth that it’s because they’re not working is just simply not true.’
In 2022 – the most recent year for which data is available – almost half of the income in the island went to the top 20% of households.
By contrast, the households in the bottom quintile, the poorest fifth, received just 6% of the cash.
Miss Lemon said that 30% of islanders told the researchers that they cannot afford luxuries.
‘In an island of 64,000 that’s almost 20,000 people, the same number of people who came to St Peter Port for Liberation Day.’
The timing of the report was not accidental as the authors hope to promote debate about the island’s future before the election. It has been presented to election candidates.
‘The thrust of the report is to set the facts out there, it’s for others to find the solutions,’ said Jim Roberts, the Foundation’s chief executive.
‘This isn’t about reinventing the wheel. If we’re talking anti-poverty, then crudely put, as a government you can increases benefit rates, so more money is paid to those that need it through a means-tested system, or you widen access to services that are free at the point of delivery or subsidised, so that people’s basic needs are met in other ways. As to how you generate the cash to to distribute, that is a deeply political question.’
Miss Lemon added: ‘We hear a lot of talk about the economy and finance, but often it’s not centred around what do people want from their island? What is the vision of the island we’re trying to be?
‘Why start with the end game of “we must grow the economy”, when we haven’t even yet decided what we’re growing it for?’
You need to be logged in to comment. If you had an account on our previous site, you can migrate your old account and comment profile to this site by visiting this page and entering the email address for your old account. We'll then send you an email with a link to follow to complete the process.