Gaps in the social security safety net are a key reason why people are turning to food banks, according to the first in-depth study into the personal experiences of recipients of emergency food aid in the UK.
Today’s new child poverty figures confirm that while the ambitious target for 2010 was not reached, it drove forward major progress reducing child poverty across all measures: absolute poverty reduced by more than half (from 3.4 million children to 1.4 million children since 1999); relative poverty reduced by 1.1 million children (from 3.4 million to 2.3 million since 1999); material deprivation reduced by 300,000 children (from 2.2 million to 1.9 million since 2005).
