Press Release

Joseph Rowntree Foundation response to HBAI figures announced on 10 June 2008

10 June 2008

JRF poverty adviser Donald Hirsch said:

“Disappointingly, after a six year period of falling, child poverty rose in the two years to April 2007, wiping out some of the previous gains. More recently, the government has taken some significant measures which should help turn the tide once again in a positive direction, and this does not yet show up in the figures. But the rise in child poverty makes it even tougher to meet the stated target of halving child poverty by 2010. The Treasury estimates that the £2 billion made available in the last two Budgets will take half a million children out of poverty. But to meet the target, a total of 1.2 million will need to benefit, and this requires even greater efforts in the next two Budgets.

“Joseph Rowntree Foundation research earlier this year showed that turning the tide decisively against child poverty is particularly difficult with our present system for uprating benefits and tax credits. Without ad hoc budget announcements giving them more money year by year, families on the lowest incomes will fall behind. A more automatic system of uprating incomes to keep pace with rising earnings would tackle child poverty in a more systematic manner.”

Background information

In 1998/9 the number of children in poverty was 3.4m. The deadline for it to go down by a quarter (to 2.55m) was 2004-5, the first target period.

In fact it went down to 2.7m, so 700,000 children were taken out of poverty rather than 850,000.

In the second target period (lasting to 2010-11) it would need to drop another 1m to 1.7m in order to meet the target of halving child poverty.

However, in 2005-6 it rose again to 2.8m, reducing the drop since 1998-9 to 600,000.

The number of children living in poverty rose by 100,000 in 2006-2007 to a total of 2.9 million.

More information is available at:

http://www.jrf.org.uk/child-poverty/updates.asp
For interviews please contact Nasreen Memon, Head of Media Relations, on 020 7278 9665 / 01904 615 919 / nasreen.memon@jrf.org.uk