Median Income
The three strongest relationships are found to be:
Figure 20, below, shows the relationship between unit cost and median income. This demonstrates that geographies with a higher median income can expect to pay more for care. For every additional £5,000 per year of median income in a place, the unit cost of care increases by 5%, if all other variables are held constant. This is likely due to a requirement to pay a higher salary to care staff living locally, which increases costs and, in adult social care, a higher proportion of people paying for their own care, which can also drive up unit costs of care.
Level of deprivation of the population.
Median household income.
Local authority size (as a proxy for purchasing power).
It is important to understand each of these three relationships in turn, and how they may interact with each other.
Figure 20: Impact of median income on unit cost of care
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