Secure Futures for Children and Families will ask the question: What does a social security system that provides a secure future for children and families look like? This launch paper sets out where the social security system is now and what needs to change.
Our annual Cost of a Child report this year finds that the overall cost of a child up to age 18 (including rent and childcare) is £185,000 for lone parents (up 19% since 2012) and £151,000 for couples (up 5.5% since 2012). The gap between lone parents’ actual income and what they need to meet family needs has grown sharply: lone parents working full time for the so-called national living wage ('NLW') are 21% (£80 a week) short of what they need – after paying for rent, childcare and council tax - a gap that has more than doubled from 10% since 2012.
Living Hand to Mouth, by Rebecca O’Connell, Abigail Knight and Julia Brannen, brings the latest research on food poverty together with the voices of children and young people experiencing food poverty first hand.
CPAG in Scotland responded to the Scottish Government's consultation on improving temporary accommodation standards to highlight the need to incorporate the impact of social security changes into guidance on the standards.
Universal credit: what needs to change to reduce child poverty and make it fit for families? calls for design and funding changes to improve claimants’ experience of universal credit and to reduce child poverty.
This report presents the findings of a small-scale, local study of the costs of education in secondary schools in Oxford, from the viewpoint of parents. The research was conducted by the Oxford and District Action on Child Poverty group, whose goals were: to assess the costs of education for children in secondary schools in Oxford; to find out how families perceived these costs and their impact, and if and how they managed to cover them; and to learn what schools had done to respond to the impact of these costs on families and the outcomes of their responses. The focus was on pupils in year 7 in secondary school.
The overall cost of a child over 18 years (including rent and childcare) is £150, 753 for a couple and £183,335 for a lone parent. But work doesn’t pay low-income families enough to meet a no-frills standard of living, new research from Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) shows.
Our Cost of a Child in 2017 report calculates the cost of raising a child in the UK based on the minimum income standard (MIS). MIS is the income needed to give children an acceptable minimum living standard as defined by the public. It is calculated with reference to a basket of goods and services that the general public specifies as necessary to meet family needs. Years of austerity have reduced public expectations of what constitutes essential spending, but the report shows many families still face a big gap between what they need for a no-frills living standard and their income.
How much does it cost to raise a child in 2016? This annual research from CPAG and Professor Donald Hirsch, Director of the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University, finds that parents working on the new higher minimum wage still cannot earn enough to provide an acceptable minimum standard of living for their children. Families with two parents working full time on the ‘national living wage’ are 12% short of the basic amount needed for a minimum standard of living – as defined by the public.
This report shows parents struggled more than ever to provide a decent standard of living for their families in 2013. This is the second in a series of annual reports on the cost of bringing up a child in the UK.