One in four British children faces poverty by 2020

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Nearly 25% of the children in Britain are forecasted to be in relative poverty by 2020, according to a report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).

Data shows that Britain has increasing rates of destitution, which are calculated to reach nearly 41 billion euros by the end of the decade.

Donald Hirsch, an academic at Loughborough University, says that around 3.4 million children – one million more that today – in Britain will face relative poverty by 2020, with the government expenses for them forecast at levels of 3% of the country’s GDP.

At the same time, charities are quite concerned that working age benefits will be cut off in order for the government’s “annually managed expediture” to be limited. As they claim, such a move would simply store up costs for the future.

A child is considered to be in relative poverty if she or he is living in a household whose income is below 60% of the average in that year. The report uses figures from the Institute for Fiscal Studies to show that child poverty will rise by 6% between 2010-11 and 2020-21.

Child poverty in numbers

- Well over half of the parents in poverty admitted that they had to cut back on food, while over a quarter skipped meals in the past year.

- Nearly 20% of parents in poverty say they can not afford to buy new shoes for their children

- One in five children in poverty are missing out on things that other children their age take for granted. For example, going on a school trip or being able to wear a warm coat during the winter.

For more information on child poverty in Britain see the research of EndChildrenPoverty organization.

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