The most recent child poverty figures for the UK were published today as part of the DWP publication Households Below Average Incomes 2011/12 (HBAI). Although the figures are mixed the overall picture shows that progress on tackling child poverty has ground to a halt as families across the country feel the impact of falling incomes.
The Child Poverty Act 2010 sets out four income related targets that the government must meet by 2020, the figures for three of which are included on the HBAI release. The first measure, of relative child poverty, shows the number of children living in households below 60% of the median household income in the UK. In 2010/11 the number of children living in relative poverty in the UK was 2.3 million, or 18% of all children. Although this figure has remained the same for 2011/12 this does not indicate that the incomes of poorer families have not fallen in the past year. Instead, real incomes for households near the bottom of the income distribution fell by roughly the same rate as real incomes for households at the average, so everyone is getting poorer!
The other measures show a mixed picture. The absolute low income measure increased by 2%, taking 300,000 further children into absolute poverty. However at the same time the third measure, of material deprivation, fell by 1% over the past year.
The government will no doubt seize on the small fall in material deprivation in an attempt to argue that welfare reform and austerity isn’t hurting low income families, however this would be misleading. The data used for these figures lags by two years and as such does not show the cumulative impact of most recent welfare cuts, including the 1% uprating cap, the bedroom tax and the overall benefit cap. What is clear from these figures is that even before the effect of these vicious cuts are felt incomes are falling across the board and this is always most painful for those at the bottom.
Indeed, the latest Institute for Fiscal Studies projections strongly suggest that child poverty is rising on all measures primarily as a result of tax and benefit changes. They estimate that by 2020, relative child poverty will have increased to 3.4 million while absolute child poverty will have increased to 3.9 million. Meaning if the government continues on the same road they will fail to meet their commitments in the Child Poverty Act.
Although the government may think that welfare reform is popular it’s impact on child poverty is not. A recent End Child Poverty poll shows that 82 per cent of people think that tackling child poverty should be a priority, and 64 per cent say that the Government aren’t doing enough to address it. If the government is serious about tackling child poverty it need to take urgent measures to address the structural issues of low pay and lack of secure affordable housing, not driving low income families further into poverty.