Cuts ‘set to threaten 1m UK children’
BENEFIT cuts could throw at least a million children into poverty in the next five years, a report warns.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies says the freeze in welfare payments and changes to Universal Credit will leave 7.5 million low income households £500 a year worse off. Some could lose £2,700.
It means children in relative poverty – the minimum income needed for the average standard of living – will rise from four million in 2016 to 5.2 million by 2021-22.
Campbell Robb, of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation charity, said: “The UK’s proud record of reducing child poverty is at risk of unravelling.”