44% of all children living in poverty are living in a household where someone is disabled. 72% of poor children live in working families. Poor families have fallen deeper into poverty.
'Stealth social security cuts bring neither stability nor security to struggling families and will push child poverty even higher. Growth and better living standards are not achieved by taking money from families with the least. Government must invest in social security support - not cut it - for the most vulnerable, or risk being remembered as the Labour administration under whose watch child poverty continued to rise.'
The package of reforms set out yesterday will result in a net reduction in social security expenditure of £5 billion by 2029/30. This is the biggest cut to disability benefits in a generation, and will push children and families into poverty, and reduce living standards for many.
The Bill includes practical and tangible policy reforms which will reduce the cost of the school day for all families but make the biggest difference to the 4.3 million children that are currently growing up in poverty.
Reported cuts to disability payments risk undermining wider government efforts to reduce child poverty, new analysis by Child Poverty Action Group shows.
Child Poverty Action Group is warning that the government’s child poverty strategy will most likely fail to reduce child poverty unless it scraps the two-child limit and has binding targets.
What is the evidence on the impact of the benefit cap on children and families in poverty? In particular, how do high housing costs affect experiences of the cap and people's ability to escape it? And why is it so important that the government scraps the policy?
There are 4.3 million children living in poverty in the UK today. These are record numbers, and without government action, child poverty is set to rise further over the coming years. The government has been clear about its commitment to drive down child poverty, and the commitment to developing a UK-wide child poverty strategy is a hugely positive step. It creates an opportunity to realise some of the change that children, families and the communities they live in so desperately need. However, a well-intentioned strategy will do little to effectively tackle child poverty if sufficient resources are not allocated. Increasing social security is the most cost-effective way to raise living standards and lift families out of poverty, and this means the priority for investment in the strategy must be the social security system.
