Families already living below the poverty line have been pushed deeper into destitution since 2012, new analysis reveals.
The poverty gap - that’s how far below the poverty line poor families are actually living - jumped 30% between 2012/13 and 2017/18, leaving those in hardship now an average £73 per week below that line.
In these households, which are living off incomes 60% below the median UK household income, children are going without the basics of a good childhood.
Almost 3million poor children have parents in some form of work. The number of children in poverty living in households where all parents work full-time - be they single or couple parents - has doubled from 200,000 to 400,000 since 2012.
Alison Garnham, chief executive at Child Poverty Action Group which carried out the analysis, said: “We know that the number of children in poverty is rising - and at risk of reaching a record high -but poor families are also deeper in poverty than they were just seven years ago.
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“That should sound alarm bells for a government committed to ‘levelling up’ because it means families in poverty are further away from escaping it.”
The group said the poverty gap for lone parents has increased by over a third since 2013 amid a real-terms cut in benefits.
The CPAG's said its analysis was based on Government figures, adding that relative poverty was measured as living on less than 60% of median income.
A Department for Work and Pensions spokesman said: "Tackling poverty will always be a priority for this government.
"Children growing up in working households five times less likely to be in relative poverty and we are supporting families to improve their lives through work.
"We do however recognise some families need more support, which is why we continue to spend more than £95 billion a year on working-age benefits."
The department said income inequality and absolute poverty rates are lower than in 2010, while a child growing up in a household where every adult is working is about five times less likely to be in poverty than a household where nobody works.
Margaret Greenwood, shadow secretary of state for work and pensions, said: "This study should act as a wake-up call to the Government about the impact that Universal Credit and Conservative cuts to social security such as the two-child limit have had on families over the last decade.
"Government ministers repeatedly say that work is the best route out of poverty, but according to its own figures, 70% of children growing up in poverty live in working families."
