**NEW**
Child Poverty statistics published for 2019-20
As always, look at the trend too 1. PAST - child poverty has risen sharply since 2012 2. FUTURE - @resfoundation projected before Budget that child poverty would rise after the pandemic
1. Child Poverty has risen to 4.3m (31% of all children)
Since 2012, that's a 19% rise in the number of children and a 14% rise in the percentage of children in poverty.
2. On absolute poverty, progress continues to be historically slow.
Remember, this measure looks at how many people are below the poverty threshold from 2010-11 *a decade ago*
As a society gets richer, this should fall rapidly. The latest year again sees only a small fall
3. Low income and material deprivation
Bad news here too. Rises on both indicators of low income and material deprivation
4. 75% of children in poverty are in working families
In-work child poverty has risen to 75% (it was 58% in 2010)
Working families face two threats to their living standards this winter: [1] unemployment will peak then [2[ Universal Credit will be cut by £20 a week
5. Govt in denial - it needs to act
The government is in denial over child poverty which continues to rise and threatens to torpedo its flagship plans for levelling up.
Improving support for children and the low paid in Universal Credit is part of the answer.
ENDS
Really disappointed to hear a @BBCr4today programme interviewer talk about 'illegal asylum seekers'. No such thing.
On such a big issue, how is it possible to get basic terms wrong? @omrgriffiths
#r4today was getting this wrong 20 years ago when I used to work for a refugee charity - and when we had Straw and Blunkett thinking the answer to the asylum system was tough-talking not smart-acting
Years ago. The now defunct Press Complaints Commission issued editorial guidelines on the correct terms to use on asylum & immigration- overseen by @StigAbell
On #Marr yesterday, the Labour leader repeated his call for the plans to cut Universal Credit by £20 pw to be scrapped - something @actnforchildren called for after examining the evidence from our Coronavirus crisis grants scheme actionforchildren.org.uk/our-work-and-i…
THREAD: Is the Govt changing its cherrypicking strategy on child poverty claims?
SPOT THE DIFFERENCE
1. What PM wrongly claimed on child poverty in 2019, earning @StatsRegulation rebuke
2. What PM claimed on child poverty at PMQs on 18 Nov 20
In the first statement, the PM used 2010 as a baseline. At the time, relative poverty was rising and absolute poverty was historically weak - we could not see where the 400,000 claim had come from.
Today, @EndChildPoverty coalition hosted by @CPAGUK & chaired by @AnnaFeuchtwang published estimates of child poverty broken down by LA, constituency and ward levels.
LETTER in the Times, in response to @jennirsl column on early intervention
Would be dangerously irresponsible to have an NHS with only A&E depts but no primary care or public health – yet this kind of short-sightedness is what we’re facing in children’s services.
We set up our crisis fund in direct response to frontline staff telling us our services were seeing families with children struggling to pay for their living needs.
The Emergency Fund was funded through generous donations from the pubic and by firms
CASE STUDIES
The report includes some examples of how the Emergency Fund helped families