# UK Facts — The Unequal Squeeze

Created 1 November 2026. Editorial advert based on the requested development page, https://dev.uk-statpack.co.uk/cost-of-living. The public call to action is https://www.uk-statpack.co.uk/. The video does not deploy changes to either site.

## Evidence used

1. Household spending: ONS Family Spending, April 2024–March 2025, Workbook 1, Table 3.1E5. Downloaded and recalculated from original cells. Food plus housing (net), fuel and power divided by total expenditure: 40.879%, 35.354%, 30.948%, 26.430%, 20.229% across the five income groups. Display rounds lowest, middle and highest to 41%, 31%, 20%. Groups use household income after taxes and benefits adjusted for household size. These are shares of expenditure, not shares of income, and do not measure spare cash. Housing excludes mortgage payments and Council Tax. Survey estimates, not administrative counts.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/expenditure/datasets/familyspendingworkbook1detailedexpenditureandtrends

2. Recent prices and pay: 2021–2025 annual price indices versus April gross median full-time adult weekly earnings, Great Britain. ONS food CPI D7BU and gas CPI D7DU cover the UK. Pay approximately +26%, food +36%, gas +74%; exact observations and calculations in source/data.json. The line chart uses all five annual observations, including the energy peak and subsequent decline. These are cash changes, not changes in net income or a modelled household budget. The pay source has methodological changes in 2023; the national comparison is approximate. A household's gas bill also depends on its usage.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/timeseries/d7bu/mm23
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/timeseries/d7du/mm23
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/datasets/earningstimeseriesofmediangrossweeklyearningsfrom1968to2022

3. Lived experience: JRF / Savanta, 17 October–7 November 2025, 4,037 adults in UK households with incomes in the lowest 40%. 58% heated homes less than needed to reduce energy bills; 51% reduced food spending due to rising costs. These are separate responses with unknown overlap. They are not the share of all UK residents choosing heating over food. Charity survey, not an ONS statistic.
https://www.jrf.org.uk/cost-of-living/jrfs-cost-of-living-tracker-winter-2025

The question “What do you cut when there's nothing left to cut?” is an editorial hook, not a claim that every household has no possible reductions. No unsupported claim that every item has risen faster than pay, or that everyone is poorer, is made. The advert deliberately omits the site's long-run modelled rent/buying comparison, avoiding a misleading presentation as a measured population average.

## Real people and rights

The photographs show real people in stock photography. They are illustrative, not interviewees, research participants, named case studies, endorsements, or evidence about those individuals' incomes or circumstances. An on-screen label makes this explicit. No AI-generated human photograph is used.

- Couple reviewing papers: Mikhail Nilov, Pexels, photo 6964358. https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-couple-people-woman-6964358/
- Shopper: Andrea Bova, Pexels, photo 6488896. https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-man-walking-on-a-grocery-store-6488896/
- Licence checked 1 November 2026: https://www.pexels.com/license/ — free use and modification, no endorsement implied. The original stock files remain production sources, not stock for redistribution.

Voice: ElevenLabs Eastend Steve, eleven_v4, one generated narration, with concerned/soft/earnest delivery. Native speed preserved. Original procedural music generated locally, reduced beneath speech. UK Facts existing icon and tagline, no Facts Count logo or identity.

## Deliverable and checks

Vertical 1080 × 1920, 24 fps, 70 seconds. H.264/AAC, fast start. Burned-in captions plus separate SRT. Source labels, dates and relevant limitations appear with each comparison. Decoder check and automated horizontal text bounds checks; sampled frames visually reviewed. This is builder verification, not independent analytical assurance or AQuA certification. Nothing posted to social media.