Coronavirus: Perilous future for children stuck in the poverty trap

Working with researchers at Loughborough University, the End Child Poverty coalition has published a new analysis of Government data that documents how child poverty rates in different areas across Britain have swelled over the last four years.

Even before the devastating impact of Covid-19 on household incomes, child poverty has been rising rapidly in some of the poorest communities in Britain.

The North of England and West Midlands have seen dramatic rises in the proportion of children living below the poverty line, with numbers rising by 6.5 percentage points in the North East over the past four years alone, in areas that were already among the most deprived. Diverse parts of the country have seen similar rises, with London and the South East only marginally behind the 3.5 percentage point increase seen in Scotland. 

The steady rise in child poverty has been felt particularly among working families, with London constituencies dominating the list of areas where growing numbers of poor children are from families in employment. Some parts of the capital have seen the proportion of children growing up in poverty from working families increase by 14 percentage points or more.

A recent ONS analysis, carried out between 17 to 27 April 2020, shows that just under one in four adults (23 percent) said the coronavirus was affecting their household finances. The most common impact in this group was reduced income (70 percent), with nearly half saying they had used savings or borrowed to cover living costs.

Tulip Siddiq MP, Labour’s shadow minister for children and early years, said, ‘This devastating report confirms that ten years of cuts to children’s services have left them in no state to cope with the impact of Covid-19.

‘Around two million children face increased risks in this crisis, from domestic abuse to online grooming, and we know that there will be a huge increase in demand for support when they return to school. Yet, as the report says, many of these children’s services have been decimated by over £2 billion of cuts.’

She added, ‘This must be a wake-up call that we cannot keep slashing away at essential services like children’s social care. It is a false economy that puts children in harm’s way and stores up huge problems for later.’

Campaigners are calling on the Government to immediately increase the amount of money in families’ pockets and set out an ambitious strategy to reverse the increases and make ending child poverty a priority for the nation’s future economic recovery.

Anna Feuchtwang, chair of End Child Poverty and chief executive of the National Children’s Bureau, said,‘Our country’s children are now at severe risk of being swept deeper into poverty as a result of the pandemic and lockdown. This is why we are asking the government to strengthen the social security system which is there to hold us steady during tough times, by immediately increasing household income for those least well-off.

She concluded, ‘Ending child poverty must be at the heart of the Government’s plan for economic recovery, so that when this crisis is over all children can enjoy a life free from poverty in which they are healthy, can thrive at school and have opportunities for the future.’

• The report is available at: www.endchildpoverty.org.uk