Raising a child costs £260,000 for couples, £290,000 for a lone parent. The two-child limit leaves three-child, working families with huge income gaps. The PM’s milestones must bring concrete improvements for struggling families.
CPAG’s annual Cost of a Child report looks at how much it costs families to provide a minimum socially acceptable standard of living for their children. It is calculated using the Minimum Income Standard (MIS) research, carried out by the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
This research study examines the extent to which universal credit adheres to the rule of law principles of transparency, procedural fairness and lawfulness.
Universal credit (UC) is the UK’s first digital-by-design benefit. The vast majority of UC claimants make their claims and manage their ongoing awards online, and some processes for calculating awards have been automated, including gathering employees’ earnings information directly from HM Revenue and Customs. What has been the impact of this major change in social security administration? And has this digitalisation of means-tested benefits been implemented in a way that adheres to the rule of law?
The cost of child poverty extends beyond the physical and emotional hardship felt by children growing up in low-income families. In 2008, the total financial cost was estimated to be at least £25 billion a year. In 2023, it has risen to over £39 billion a year.
Families in 2022 are facing the greatest threat to their living standards in living memory. Much has been written about these pressures, but to put them into context, we need to understand what has been happening to children’s and families’ costs in recent years. The Cost of a Child reports have been produced annually for a decade, and this 2022 edition presents the latest evidence of what families need as a minimum, and how this compares to the actual incomes of low-income families.
When the coalition government published its flagship paper on universal credit (UC) in 2010, it promised a ‘digital first’ benefit. Since then we have seen the digitalisation of the UK’s working-age social security system, a process that continues today. But what impact has this transformation had on claimants and their rights?
Child Poverty Action Group’s annual cost of a child report looks at how much it costs families to provide a minimum socially acceptable standard of living for their children. Since 2012, this report series has systematically monitored the minimum cost of a child. This report updates those calculations for 2021 and outlines the factors affecting the latest figures. The total cost of raising a child to the age of 18 now stands at £160,692 for a couple and £193,801 for a lone parent.
The year 2020 has put unprecedented pressures on families bringing up children. Parents across the world have taken on new challenges due to the coronavirus pandemic in keeping their children healthy and safe as well as properly fed, educated and entertained at a time when they have been required to stay at home, and when many families’ livelihoods have been threatened. Our cost of a child report looks at what items families need to provide a minimum socially acceptable standard of living for their children in 2020.