Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Five million British children ‘sentenced to life of poverty thanks to welfare reforms’



‘Children in working families, rather than beggars and vagrants, are the face of modern poverty in Britain today – a country which is one of the “most unfair in the developed world.” For five million children face being “sentenced to a lifetime of poverty” by 2020, according to shocking new research from Save The Children.

Cuts to benefits, the rising cost of living and years of flat wages have created a “triple whammy” for the country’s children, warned the charity. Policies such as the so-called bedroom tax combined with the slashing of tax credits and council tax relief mean “the social safety net no longer acts as a sufficient backstop for poor families,” claims the Save The Children report. Recent changes to social security have cut the incomes of the poorest by between eight and nine per cent, it calculated.’

Read more: The real cost-of-living-crisis: Five million British children 'sentenced to life of poverty thanks to welfare reforms'