UK Child Poverty To Rise By 1.1 Million By End Of Decade: Report
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Nearly one in four British children – 3.4 million – could be living in relative poverty by 2020, warned an independent think-tank on Tuesday, taking the nation’s child poverty levels back to the turn of the century when then-Prime Minister Tony Blair first announced plans to “eradicate” it.
Nearly one in four British children – 3.4 million – could be living in relative poverty by 2020, warned an independent think-tank on Tuesday, taking the nation’s child poverty levels back to the turn of the century when then-Prime Minister Tony Blair first announced plans to “eradicate” it.
The new projections, done by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), found that child poverty rates in the U.K. had actually seen an improvement from 2000-2010, but, since April 2010, welfare changes made by the Coalition government had effectively reversed all the positive gains.
Consequently, the IFS estimated that relative child poverty was now rising at a rate of 6 percent from 2010–11 to 2020–21 – leading to 3.4 million young people in poverty by 2020, an increase of 1.1 million from 2010.
“Tax and benefit reforms introduced since April 2010 can account for almost all of the increases in child poverty projected over the next few years,” said the IFS, in its report.
[quote]“An important factor affecting household incomes at the moment is the large post-recession fiscal consolidation, designed to help reduce an unsustainable budget deficit,” they added. “This inevitably involves ‘takeaways’ from households, including tax rises and welfare cuts amounting to 2.6 percent of national income.”[/quote]“It seems impossible the targets set out in the Child Poverty Act (in 2010) could be met”, the IFS further warned.
“We recommend that the UK Government either reveal a credible plan for meeting the targets it has signed up to; or that it sets different objectives, which reflect its view of what is both desirable and achievable,” the IFS added.
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A child is considered to be in relative poverty if he or she lives in a household whose income is below 60 percent of the average in that year, and in absolute poverty if he or she lives in a household whose real-terms income is below 60 percent of the 2010-11 average – a period set as a benchmark for the Child Poverty Act.
Despite a pledge by the government to reduce relative child poverty and absolute child poverty to 10 percent and 5 percent respectively, the IFS predicted that the rates would climb to 24 percent and 27.2 percent instead.
Opposition leaders from the Labour Party immediately held up the IFS figures as a sign that the Coalition was “undoing” its “good work” from the past and failing children.
“The IFS verdict is clear – by both internationally recognised measures, this government is set to plunge over a million children into poverty by the end of this decade, undoing all the good work of the last Labour government,” said Liam Byrne, the shadow work and pensions secretary from the Labour Party, as cited by The Telegraph.
[quote]“Children are paying the price for a flat lining economy, falling living standards and soaring unemployment…yet instead of giving working families a hand ministers have slapped them in the face by slashing their tax credits whilst handing a massive tax cut to the richest people in the country,” he added.[/quote]Related: Rich Nations, Poor People: The Cause For Rising Poverty In The Western World
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However, the government’s Department for Work and Pensions criticised the report for underestimating the impact of an upcoming Coalition’s benefits overhaul that will get parents off benefit and into work.
[quote]A DWP spokesman said: “Despite paying out £170 billion in tax credits alone, the previous government failed to meet their target to halve child poverty by 2010 and far too many children were left behind. That is why we want to take a new approach by tackling the root causes of poverty including worklessness, educational failure and family breakdown.[/quote]“The IFS analysis does not fully take into account the dynamic and behavioural changes that will result from our welfare reforms. In fact, the changes under Universal Credit (to be introduced in 2013) will make three million households better off and lift up to 250,000 children out of poverty,” they claimed.
According to the IFS, the Universal Credit scheme may alone be able to reduce relative child poverty by 2.7 percentage points in the U.K. “However, the poverty-reducing effect of Universal Credit is outweighed by the impact of other tax and benefit changes that act to increase poverty,” they said.
