Policy Hub
On 18 February 2009, the Institute for Fiscal Studies published a report (Micro-simulating child poverty in 2010 and 2020) commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation to demonstrate the effect current policies are likely to have on child poverty by 2010 and 2020.
Taking account of the recession, the report estimates that the cost of meeting the 2010 target will be £4.2 billion a year. It forecasts that child poverty will fall from 2.9 million to 2.3 million by 2010, 600,000 short of the government’s target.
The report contends that two effects of the recession are likely to cancel each other out to an appreciable degree. Some children will enter poverty as their parents lose their jobs. Others, with low-paid parents, could move out of relative poverty, as child benefit and tax credits rise faster than average earnings.
The report suggests that in a recession planned welfare-to-work measures may not bring about the previously projected large increase in the number of lone parents with jobs. Children are also more likely to experience severe poverty, making it more costly per child to cut poverty.
By 2020, without new policies to help low-income families, the report predicts that child poverty is likely to rise to 3.1 million. While the recession brings an increased short-term need for financial support, getting people back into sustainable jobs is central to the longer-term strategy. The report concludes that policies need to take account of job quality and sustainability in order to provide a satisfactory and enduring solution to child poverty.