Wednesday, June 29, 2016

UK Poverty Rises

The number of UK children living in poverty jumps by 200,000 in a year. There were 3.9 million children living in “relative poverty” in 2014-15, up from 3.7 million a year earlier, the figures from the Department for Work and Pensions show. The number of people classed as living in “relative poverty” after housing costs increased to 13.5 million in 2014-15 from 13.2 million a year earlier (an individual is considered to be in relative poverty if their household income is less than 60% of median income).


Sam Royston, who chairs of the End Child Poverty Coalition, said the figures were “simply unacceptable… The government promised to ‘make work pay’ but this is not happening for the 66% of children in poverty who are in working families.”

Frances O’Grady, the general secretary of the TUC, said:  “Working families were unfairly made to pay the price of a financial crisis they did not cause. With the economy now facing trouble again from Brexit, working people should not be made to pay the price a second time.”