Nearly a quarter of children born in Britain since the 2010s have faced poverty for at least half of their childhoods due to sweeping ‘austerity era’ benefit cuts, stark new research has found.
The University of Oxford study found the proportion of children born after 2013 spending at least six of their first 11 years in hardship surged to 23 per cent after ministers froze working-age benefits and imposed policies like the two-child limit.
These austerity measures drastically shrank annual welfare spending by tens of billions and took thousands of pounds from low-income family budgets, it finds, effectively pushing hundreds of thousands more children into sustained poverty.
This prolonged childhood poverty is a “significant social problem” causing long-term harm to health, education, and life chances, study co-author Selçuk Bedük writes.
Mr Bedük commented: “For nearly a quarter of children in Britain today, poverty is long-term and defines much of their childhood.”
“Our study shows that policy matters; when support for families on low incomes is stronger, long-term childhood poverty falls. When that support is reduced, more children are pushed into long-term poverty.”
Spearheaded by the coalition government under David Cameron, policy changes in the 2010s included the benefit cap, bedroom tax, two-child benefit limit, universal credit cuts, and freezes to benefit rates. Together, they removed around £37bn from welfare spending by 2021.
Minimum wage levels also increased over this period, but the study notes that the impact of these was counteracted by the sweeping benefit cuts, meaning relative poverty did not improve.
The authors contrast this with the anti-poverty measures led by former chancellor Gordon Brown during the Blair administration, which saw child benefits and tax credits increase by 60 per cent. Under the last Labour government, long-term childhood poverty for children born in 1991 fell from 25 per cent to 13 per cent for the 1998-99 cohort – its lowest in three decades.
The announcement by the current Labour government to abolish the two-child benefit cap is expected to lift 450,000 children out of poverty by 2030. Ministers have also announced an increase in the minimum wage and expansion of free school meal eligibility.
However, many campaigners have urged them to go further, and also commit to removing the benefit cap, the bedroom tax, and the freeze on the amount of housing-related benefit that can be claimed.
Study co-author Anna Yong, UCL, said: “The longer children spend in poverty, the deeper the harm. Our study shows long-term poverty is not inevitable; it is the result of policy choices that can be reversed. The recent removal of the two-child limit could be an important step in the right direction, but restoring the wider safety net is equally urgent.”
Pat McFadden, work and pensions secretary, said: “One of the finest achievements of the last Labour government was lifting hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty and improving their life chances.
“The policies pursued by the Conservative Party in their time in power saw too many children and families suffer. We can’t turn back the clock on that period, but this Labour government is turning the tide on these Tory decisions.
“That’s why Labour is rolling out free breakfast clubs, extending free school meals, and ending the two-child benefit cap – policies which will pull nearly half a million kids out of poverty. There’s lots done, but far more to do as we make sure poverty does not hold children back from achieving their full potential.”
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