UK faces huge rise in poverty: IFS

The British government's tough spending cuts will push 600,000 more children into “absolute poverty,” peaking at 3.1 million by 2013, Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned.


IFS, Britain's chief public finance think-tank, revealed that in 2010, 2.5 million children and 2.1 million working-age parents were living in absolute poverty, warning more people would find themselves in poverty in the next two years.

By 2013, 3.1 million children together with 2.5 million working-age parents and four million adults with no children would live in absolute poverty, IFS predicted.

The report, which was funded by Joseph Rowntree Foundation, also forecasted that by 2020 child poverty would be record high.

"Absolute and relative child poverty are forecast to be 23% and 24% in 2020-21 respectively. These compare with the targets of 5% and 10%, set out in the Child Poverty Act (2010).

"This would be the highest rate of absolute child poverty since 2001/02 and the highest rate of relative child poverty since 1999/2000," IFS report read.

Furthermore, the think-tank also reported that by 2013, the "squeezed middle" with middle incomes would fall by 7%, which would be “the largest three-year fall in median income since 1974-77.”

Alison Garnham, Chief Executive of Child Poverty Action Group, accused the coalition ministers of being in denial, as their legacy threatens to be the worst poverty record of any government for a generation.

"They risk damaging childhoods and children's life chances, as well as our national economic wellbeing from wasted potential and social costs spiral. It would be a catastrophic failure in public policy and political leadership," Garnham said.

Liam Bryne, Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, said, "David Cameron promised us he would not increase child poverty. Now we have the truth. The Tory-led Government's decision to cut too far and too fast this year will condemn hundreds of thousands more children to grow up poor."

Universities Minister David Willetts blamed the former government for the country's economic crisis, insisting Britain is not as well as we thought.

"We have tried to do the things that help, but you can't ignore the basic rules of economics that when you inherit a situation where the economy has shrunk by 7% there isn't the money there."