Ending Child Poverty: why and how

In this comprehensive guide the authors set out the evidence of the extent of child poverty and its impact on children. They explore how our social security system can help families on low incomes, and learn from what other countries have done to tackle child poverty. They then detail the priorities for action: the steps the government must take to help reduce child poverty. The book finishes by imagining a society without child poverty, and the opportunities that would unleash for all our children.

The average class of 30 pupils now has nine children living in poverty. But this is not inevitable. Poverty is a political choice. We can stop it, and this book sets out how. Poverty means a lack of healthy food and homes that stay cold in winter. If children arrive at school cold and hungry, they are less able to respond to even the best efforts to improve their education.

Poverty means parents forgoing essentials while debts increase, creating anxiety and stress which profoundly affects family wellbeing. All these factors impede children’s progress at school and cause their physical and mental health to fall steadily below that of children in better-off families.

This has to stop. It has to reverse.