1. An appalling 3.6 million children across the UK live in poverty. That’s almost one in three children. This is unacceptable in one of the world’s richest countries.
2. With just £349 a week this family are on the poverty line. This has to cover all their food, gas, electricity, water, clothes, transport, and rent. Inevitably their children will have to go without some of these basic things, and miss out on ‘luxuries’ such as birthday and Christmas presents. Often, they’re forced into taking out expensive and inappropriate credit. In reality, four million children scrape by on even less.
3. We spend £25 billion a year trying to mitigate the impact of child poverty through services and interventions. The sooner child poverty ends, the sooner all of society can benefit. This is the equivalent of £800 per taxpayer.
4. 58% of poor children have at