A dozen years into austerity, statistical warning lights are flashing to suggest a return to types of deprivation that we once imagined we had consigned to the history books. The official count of rough sleepers has doubled, recorded malnutrition in hospital patients has tripled and dependence on foodbanks has rocketed by an order of magnitude. Amid rising prices and falling confidence, all the forecasts are for such numbers getting even worse. And yet it has never been statistics but rather individual human stories – from the fictionalised accounts of Dickens to the faithful reporting of Orwell and Priestley – that have seared the reality of hard times into the imagination. In Broke, Tom Clark assembles today’s masters of social reportage, including Dani Garavelli, Samira Shackle and Daniel Trilling, and tasks each with bringing us face-to-face with those at the hardest end of the cost-of-living crisis. With Joel Goodman’s bespoke photography bringing the characters to life, and several of the writers having had first-hand experience of the issues raised, this urgent collection restores some badly needed empathy to the public discussion. Moreover, by setting out possible reforms and highlighting the fortitude and resistance with which so many destitute Britons are answering their plight, it encourages hopes of a future in which the spectres of hunger, cold and homelessness are finally laid to rest.