According to the charity the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), a family with two children needs to earn £37,000 a year to be "socially acceptable".

But Dr Eamonn Butler, director of the think tank the Adam Smith Institute (ASI), dismisses the report as "mostly rubbish", telling the Today programme that he methodology of it is questionable.

Donald Hirsch, author of the report, defends it as "significant", explaining that it helps to identify the point "where there is a concern" over families' living wages.

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