london
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Thea Jaffe never expected to use a baby bank. In fact, she was responsible for introducing other single parents from local community groups to the charity Little Village. From strollers and cribs to clothing, diapers, toys and books, Little Village provides new parents with essentials they can’t buy otherwise.
But when Ms. Jaffe, who lives in London, unexpectedly became pregnant with her second child, she could no longer afford everything she needed. “It’s very difficult having to take care of a baby when you don’t have a budget,” she told CNN.
“I was already struggling financially…but I didn’t know how bad things would get…Now I’m working full time and in a situation where I can’t pay my bills.”
Child poverty in the UK has reached an all-time high as the cost of living soars and the social security safety net weakens after years of government austerity. With public services severely weakened, charities like Little Village have stepped in.
The issue has been firmly in the spotlight this week, with campaign groups calling on Britain’s Labor government to prioritize measures to reduce child poverty in its annual budget, due out on Wednesday.
Around a third of children in the UK – around 4.5 million children – currently live in relative poverty, often in households that make less than 60% of the national median income, excluding housing costs, a government report published in April found.
One million of these children are living in poverty, with their most basic needs of being warm, dry, clothed and fed unmet, according to a 2023 study by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which researches poverty and develops policies to tackle it.
“We met a family who was living on nothing but cornflakes and rice,” Little Village CEO Sophie Livingston told CNN.
“We have a lot of families living in the same room, a lot of mold, and a lot of housing that is of very poor quality even when people are living in it,” she added.
Even for families who are able to meet the basic needs of their children, without financial security, life is a monthly struggle.
Leah, a single mother of 7-year-old twin girls, connected through the Changing Realities Project, which documents parents living on low incomes, told CNN, “You’re just living in fear all the time, and your kids are depending on you, and it’s not a fun place to be.” She asked that a pseudonym be used to protect her family’s privacy.
“They want to do all the same things their colleagues are doing…but the budget won’t allow it,” she said. After paying for her necessities each month, she has no money left.
“Every time you go out, you have to be careful and careful to make sure you’re not overspending. It’s a really anxiety-provoking situation.”
Leah, a law graduate from Hampshire in south-east England, said she initially returned to work, but was often called in mid-visit by her childcare worker to report that one of her daughters, who has complex needs, motor problems and global developmental delay, was having a “tantrum or meltdown”. She eventually had to quit her job.
“I go into survival mode,” she said. “I grew up in the (foster) care system, so I remember feeling a lot of conflict and anxiety, thinking, ‘If I can just get through this, I’ll be fine.'” Still, the situation hasn’t changed. I know I have a lot to offer and I try to be a good member of society, but it feels like there are challenges everywhere I go. ”
And even for families earning well above the poverty line, housing and childcare costs are so high, especially in London, that they may not have any money to spend on anything else. Approximately 70% of children living in poverty have at least one parent working.
Figures published in 2022 by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a think tank, show childcare costs in the UK are higher than in most other wealthy countries, amounting to around 25% of net household income for married couples and around 60% of net household income for single parents.
Little Village Baby Bank mother Jaffe works full-time in customer solutions and says she earns £45,000 ($59,000) a year to support herself and her three children, which is far above the UK average. Still, she says, “I struggle to make sure I pay all my bills every month, and I can’t save anything or do anything for my children.”
After paying for essentials such as rent, childcare, food and household bills, she is left with £192 (about $250) a month for emergencies and to save for the next month in case there is a mistake on her next social security payment, which she says is common.
Child poverty has always existed in the UK, but rates are rising much faster than in other rich countries. Between 2012 and 2021, that proportion rose by almost 20%, according to a UNICEF study. According to the Resolution Foundation, a living standards think tank, in 2025 the child poverty rate in the UK will be higher than that in any European Union country except Greece.
The organization estimates that 300,000 more children will fall into poverty by 2030 if nothing changes.
Current poverty rates reflect the inequalities that exist elsewhere in society. Almost half of children in black and Asian communities live in poverty, compared with 24% of white children.Children living in single-parent households or households where someone has a disability are also more likely to live in poverty, figures from the Child Poverty Action Group show.
Part of this rise is due to the same economic conditions that afflict the rest of the Western world: slowing growth, jobs no longer providing the same economic security, and stubborn inflation that disproportionately affects essential goods and, by extension, low-income earners.
But scholars and advocates say policy decisions are also at play. Britain’s public services were cut by a centre-right Conservative Party-led coalition government from 2010 to 2024 and by subsequent Conservative governments.
And as part of an austerity program aimed at cutting public spending in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the Conservatives introduced three policies that “are largely responsible for today’s rise in child poverty,” said Jonathan Bradshaw, emeritus professor of social policy at York University and one of the academic advisers to the current government’s next child poverty strategy.
These limited the amount of welfare people could claim. One is an overall cap on the benefits a household can receive, another is a housing benefit limit, and the third is a two child benefit cap, which means parents can’t claim anything for a third or subsequent child born after 2017.
Charities and academics say the cap on benefits for these two children in particular is a key cause of the UK’s rising child poverty rate.
“Most of the increase in child poverty is occurring in large families,” Bradshaw told CNN.
Peter Matejic, chief analyst at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said all of this points to “a flaw in the benefits system”.
“If you add up the amount of money needed for food, energy, all of these things and look at how much (benefits) there are… it’s below that level,” he told CNN.
When UN special envoys Philippe Alston and Olivier de Schutter visited the UK in 2018 and 2023 respectively, they both denounced the poverty they saw in the UK, although de Schutter noted that the country was following a pattern of increasing inequality seen in other wealthy countries.
A spokesperson for the current Labor government, which has been in power since July last year, told CNN: “Every child, regardless of their background, deserves the best start in life.”
“We are investing £500m in children’s development through the rollout of Beststart Family Hubs, extending free school meals and ensuring the poorest don’t go hungry over the holidays through a new £1bn crisis support package.”
Tackling child poverty is both a priority for the centre-left government and an issue that highlights fault lines within its ranks.
Since Labor came to power, it has struggled to balance its elected mandate for change with its traditional inclination to invest in public services, against the backdrop of scarce available funds and a manifesto promise not to raise taxes on working people.
The country’s plans to reduce child poverty have so far been hampered by this challenge. Details of the government’s spending and tax plans are expected to be announced on Wednesday, with UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves expected to mention the two-child allowance cap, a policy the government has wavered between keeping and scrapping over the past year.
But for parents who already make a living, household finances have been stretched too thin for too long.
“People don’t have any resilience left,” Livingston says. When she first began her role as mayor of Little Village, “we were talking about there being a lot of holes in the safety net,” she recalls.
“The truth is, I don’t know if there’s enough of a safety net anymore,” she says.
