Poverty will increase most rapidly among children over the next few years, an expert on social policy at the University has predicted.
Commenting on a report from a leading thinktank that poorer Britons face three years of income stagnation, Professor Peter Taylor-Gooby says the impact of this will affect children the most.
He comments: ‘Almost all experts agree that living standards for the poor will fall during the next few years. However, they disagree on how long the fall will last.
‘The big picture on incomes – apart for those right at the top – has three highlights. First we saw a fall, caused by the Great Recession and the 2010 government’s response of austerity plus tax cuts directed at better-off groups. This was accompanied by a return to sluggish growth. Then, following the devaluation of sterling after the Brexit vote, we saw a further decline in incomes.
‘Now in 2018, although wage increases may outpace inflation to produce weak real growth for some, those at the bottom will see living standards continue to fall. This is because increases in the ‘national living wage’ are insufficient to combat inflation and, more importantly, increases in most benefits are being held below inflation and further cuts and restrictions are being introduced for tax credits as well as in rent and child benefit.
‘There is little doubt that poverty will increase most rapidly among children. The authoritative Institute of Fiscal Studies predicts that 37 per cent of children will be in poverty by 2021 and I believe this is a very accurate assessment of the situation this nation faces over the next few years.’
Thinktank the Resolution Foundation’s latest annual report has warned that the UK faces ‘the first sustained rise in income inequality since the 1980s’.
Peter Taylor-Gooby is Professor of Social Policy at the University’s School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research.