Child poverty and food insecurity have been rising for three consecutive years 27 March 2025 The latest Households Below Average Income (HBAI) data for 2023-24 suggests that rates of relative child poverty, food insecurity and absolute poverty have all risen for the third year in a row – and puts further pressure on the Government to deliver an ambitious promised Child Poverty Strategy, the Resolution Foundation said today (Thursday). Almost one-in-three (31 per cent, or 4.5 million) children in Britain are now living in relative poverty, up from 27 per cent (3.9 million) in 2020-21. A total of 12 million people in Britain are living in absolute poverty, a slight increase from 2020-21 (from 17 to 18 per cent). Finally, the number of people living in food insecure households has increased by 3.3 million, from 4.2 million people in 2020-21 to 7.5 million in 2023-24. While the significance of year-to-year changes shouldn’t be overstated, the Foundation notes that the medium-term trends in key measures of poverty are all troubling. Meanwhile, separate data for Scotland shows that it has missed its interim child poverty targets, with 23 per cent of children in relative poverty in 2023-24, compared to a target of under 18 per cent – although the Foundation notes that there is considerable uncertainty around this data. While this will be bad news for Holyrood, the rates would be higher without the Scottish Government’s significant child poverty interventions. The worrying increase in rates of poverty and food insecurity in Britain should provide further impetus for the Government to think big as it puts together its Child Poverty Strategy. This will need to include abolishing the two-child limit and benefit cap, which would take around 500,000 children out of poverty in 2029-30, at a cost of £4.5 billion. The Government should also look at extending Free School Meal entitlement to all families on Universal Credit and repegging Local Housing Allowance to local rents. Adam Corlett, Principal Economist at the Resolution Foundation, said: “The latest HBAI data is a stark reminder of the scale of deprivation among families, with close to a third of children in Britain now living in poverty. This is before any additional impact from new benefit cuts and a weak living standards outlook, which are set to reduce incomes across the poorest half of working-age households by £500 over the next five years. “These figures only increase the need for the Government to deliver an ambitious new strategy to tackle child poverty, including removing the two-child limit and benefit cap and extending Free School Meals to far more families.”
