AN INDEPENDENT RECORD OF EVERY PROMISE MADE IN THE STATES OF JERSEY
Visit the Guernsey edition →Jersey · Quality of life
16 indicators, each tagged by the kind of evidence behind it. Where the honest answer is that nobody measures it, that is what this page prints.
Some measures moved the right way. Avoidable mortality fell to 155.9 per 100,000 in 2024 from 189.5 in 2021, though it ticked up from 152.6 the year before, on a genuinely annual series with no gaps. Housing took 17.4% of net household income in 2021/22, down from 20.0% in 2009/10 - the opposite direction to Guernsey’s rising housing burden. Loneliness on JOLS’s own repeated question eased to 25% in 2023 from 30% in 2022.
Some moved the other way. Relative poverty was 24% in 2021/22, up from a low of 21% in 2009/10, even after easing back from 27% in 2019/20 - and inequality (Gini, after housing costs) rose from 0.39 to 0.43 over the same period. On a different, related measure, the share of islanders who rarely or never socialise rose from 6% to 12% between 2018 and 2025. The under-40 share of the population has fallen every year on record, from 48.3% in 2011 to 42.8% in 2024.
And some cannot be answered at all. There is no official food-bank statistic, and no published indicator asks whether cost deters anyone from treatment. Every figure on this page is dated by its reference period rather than by the year of the publication that carried it, which is why several of them are older than they look.
Economic
Income, housing costs and food prices. Prices are measured quarterly and published on time. Household income has four comparable points since 2009/10, roughly one every five years rather than annually - and unlike Guernsey, housing’s share of net income has eased rather than risen since the series began.
£710/wk
2021/22, after housing costs
Median equivalised household income after housing costs: £520/wk (2009/10), £560/wk (2014/15), £690/wk (2019/20), £710/wk (2021/22). Four waves, roughly 5-yearly, not annual.
Not yet deflated to a real-terms % change the way Guernsey’s -10.0% figure is - Jersey’s RPI series exists but Bridgehead has not computed a matching real-terms series against these specific survey dates.
17.4%
2021/22, housing’s share of net income
Housing costs as a share of net household income: 20.0% (2009/10), 17.6% (2014/15), 12.7% (2019/20, likely a rounding artefact of £10-banded survey data), 17.4% (2021/22). Not a pre-published headline - computed here from the before/after-housing income columns in the same survey as #1.
211.9
Q2 2026, Private Rental Index
Quarterly Private Rental Index (2002 Q1 base ≈100.9): 219.7 (2026 Q1), 211.9 (2026 Q2). An index, not an absolute £/month figure like Guernsey’s £2,138 - Jersey’s open-data portal carries the index only.
Check Statistics Jersey’s own "House prices — average cost of buying and renting" bulletin PDF for an absolute £ figure before concluding none exists.
~10.5×
Q2 2026, 2-bed house vs mean earnings
2-bed house Q2 2026: £601,000. All-sectors mean weekly earnings 2026: £1,100/wk (£57,200/yr). No pre-computed ratio is published (unlike Guernsey’s Table 9.2.1) - this is a Bridgehead construction from two separately-published series.
+3.5%
June 2026, RPI Food group, year on year
Food group index (Mar 2000 base): 232.7 (Jun 2025), 240.8 (Jun 2026) - +3.5% y/y, the same June-dated quarter Guernsey’s own +3.2% figure uses. Full quarterly run from March 2000.
33%
2025, unable to afford a £1,400 unexpected expense
30% of households found it difficult to cope financially (2025), down from 35% (2024). Among households with children specifically, 51% (2023 and 2024) found it difficult, up from 41% (2022) and 42% (2019) - a narrower cohort than the headline figure.
Not the same instrument as Guernsey’s "hold no savings / less than a month’s income" question - these are the closest published Jersey proxies, not a direct match.
Health
Avoidable mortality is down since 2021 on a genuinely annual, gap-free series, though it ticked back up in the latest year. Whether cost deters anyone from treatment is a question Jersey’s own statistics do not currently answer.
155.9 / 100k
2024, age-standardised
Annual series 2012-2024 (13 points, no gaps): 189.5 (2021), 167.6 (2022), 152.6 (2023), 155.9 (2024). A genuinely live, annual official series - unlike Guernsey’s rolling 3-year figure with wide confidence intervals.
10%
2025, low life satisfaction (ONS4 measure)
ONS4 wellbeing measure, 16+ persons, 2025: low life satisfaction 10%, low happiness 11%, low worthwhile-feeling 9%, high anxiety 29%.
Different scale to Guernsey’s sWEMWBS (ONS4 vs Warwick-Edinburgh) - domain and cadence match closely, not the underlying instrument. More current than Guernsey’s (2025 vs 2023).
No matching indicator found
checked Public Health Data Explorer (142 indicators) and JOLS 2025
No PHOF indicator or JOLS question matches "cost/afford/deterred + health service use" the way Guernsey’s Wellbeing Survey question does.
Two independent checks (keyword scan of all 142 PHOF indicators; direct read of the JOLS 2025 publication page) found nothing - a real gap, though PDF text extraction issues mean this is not 100% exhaustively ruled out.
77.9%
April 2026, A&E patients seen within 4 hours
The same A&E four-hour figure already sourced and shown on the Healthcare page’s "Jersey vs Guernsey" panel (see JERSEY_ED_PERFORMANCE in server/guernsey/healthcare-history.ts), rather than a separately re-derived number: published monthly from January 2024, bi-monthly from mid-2025, in Health and Care Jersey’s own Quality and Performance Report. Directly analogous to Guernsey’s MSG contract KPIs, and a currently-live series where Guernsey’s equivalent is not.
One KPI out of the several the Quality and Performance Report tracks (waiting lists, delayed transfers, etc. are not charted here) - re-confirm against gov.je/Health/WaitingLists before publishing if the healthcare page’s own figure has since moved.
Demographic
One indicator, same as Guernsey - but where Guernsey’s equivalent has published no figure since December 2023, Jersey’s is a live annual series with no gap, and it shows a steady decline in the under-40 share.
42.8%
2024, annual series from 2011
Under-40 share: 48.3% (2011), 46.9% (2016), 45.5% (2019), 42.8% (2024) - a steady annual decline, no gap. Total population 104,500 (2024). Unlike Guernsey’s frozen-since-Dec-2023 census, this series is CURRENT and updates annually - the strongest positive contrast on this page.
How to read this page
The tier is part of the finding. A live series can be argued about. An indicator with no series cannot be argued about at all, because there is nothing to argue with.
Regular official series, updates at least annually
7 of 16 indicators
Real official data on a multi-year survey cycle
3 of 16 indicators
Built by Bridgehead from published series, or needs constructing
3 of 16 indicators
Nothing usable is published
3 of 16 indicators
Sources, all Government of Jersey / Statistics Jersey unless noted Income Distribution Survey; House Price Statistics; Retail Prices Index; Jersey Opinions and Lifestyle Survey; Public Health Data Explorer; Health and Care Jersey, Quality and Performance Report; Annual population estimates. 2 of the 16 indicators carry no link, because their source is not published as a standalone page or is a genuine gap in the published record. Every figure is dated by its reference period rather than by publication year, which is the most common way this evidence base misleads. A recently badged report can be carrying data several years old.
Social
Poverty, housing insecurity and connection
Homelessness is tracked quarterly here, a newer and more frequent official series than Guernsey’s annual one. Two of the five indicators below have no matching Jersey instrument at all.
Relative poverty
24%
2021/22, below 60% of median income, after housing costs
Four-wave series: 21% (2009/10), 26% (2014/15), 27% (2019/20), 24% (2021/22) - roughly 5-yearly, not Guernsey’s 9 straight annual years. Gini (after housing) rose from 0.39 (2009/10) to 0.43 (2021/22) - inequality rising, the opposite direction to Guernsey’s falling Gini.
Food insecurity
No Food Foundation 3-item instrument published
checked JOLS 2018, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025
JOLS carries a different, adjacent "material deprivation / going without" battery instead: gone without ≥1 item, 34% (2017 and 2022), 43% (2023), 41% (2025); unable to have a cooked main meal daily, 13% (2023) rising to 15% (2025).
A genuinely different instrument (EU-SILC-style deprivation, not the skip-meals/hunger framing Guernsey’s Food Foundation instrument uses) - shown for context, not as a like-for-like figure.
Food-bank usage
No official statistic
charity figures only, incompatible units
Salvation Army food parcels: 1,040 (2021) → 3,802 (2024). Pantry Store sign-ups: ~300 (Apr 2025) → 600+ (Dec 2025). St Vincent de Paul/Caritas Jersey: ~200 families (early 2022) → 640+ families (2025). JOLS 2023 charity-support module: 2% of all households, 12% of single-parent households.
The same genuine gap Guernsey’s page reports for this indicator - units shift between parcels, sign-ups, families and survey %, none reconcilable into one series.
Homelessness
304 people
Q1 2025, quarterly since Q3 2024
Q3 2024: 246 Islanders, 201 in temporary shelter. Q1 2025: 304 people, 253 "houseless", 32 "insecure housing". A newer, MORE frequent official series than Guernsey’s annual one - started October 2024, pooling Housing Advice Service, Shelter Trust, FREEDA, Sanctuary Trust and JAYF data.
The Minister’s own reports caution against reading a quarter-on-quarter trend this early in the series.
Loneliness
25%
2023, "often or some of the time"
Single-item question (not Guernsey’s multi-item De Jong Gierveld scale): 30% (2022) → 25% (2023), only asked in those two waves. Direction is the OPPOSITE of Guernsey’s: Jersey worsened since 2018 on a related "rarely/never socialise" measure (6% → 12%, 2018-2025) while Guernsey improved.
A one-item proxy, not the same instrument as Guernsey’s scale - genuinely less comparable than most indicators on this page.