New research from Child Poverty Action Group shows child poverty’s heavy toll on children’s physical and mental health, their education and how they feel about themselves and their futures.
On the sixth anniversary of the two-child limit, a Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) survey finds widespread suffering and hardship among families affected by the policy with parents across the UK struggling to meet children’s basic needs as living costs soar.
New DWP figures out today show 107,000 families are facing escalating costs as winter bites with their benefits capped. 56,000 have kids aged under five. And more than 32,000 of these capped families (over 110,000 children) are also subject to the two-child limit policy.
It’s a relief that benefits and the benefit cap will rise with inflation. But this is only the fourth time benefits have risen by inflation in the last ten years and as a result of austerity - that today the chancellor praised - there are almost 4 million kids living in poverty in the UK. Today’s package will not stop the ice from cracking under struggling families.
DWP figures out today show 4 million children are in households on universal credit facing big income cuts if benefits are not uprated with inflation in Thursday’s Autumn Statement. Twenty-nine per cent (1.15m) of these children are aged four or younger.
Cost of a child reaches almost £160,000 for couples, £200,000 for lone parents. 2021-2022 saw the biggest annual deterioration in living standards since 2012. The government must increase benefits with inflation at the Autumn Statement.
Lower-paid jobs – nursery assistants, street cleaners, van drivers – gain less from the NI cut so will see a bigger cumulative loss to income if benefits increase with earnings instead of inflation.
Two hundred thousand more children will be pushed into poverty if benefits are uprated by wages rather than inflation, new analysis from Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) finds. Almost all these children will be in families where at least one parent is working.
"Despite his rhetoric about supporting families, this was in reality a statement for the 1 per cent, saying more about bankers’ bonuses than helping hungry kids..."