Over the last decade, child poverty has been rising, and it’s projected to rise even further in coming years. This is according to the September 2019 paper from Child Poverty Action Group on our social security system.
This paper is part of their project, Secure Futures for Children and Families, that aims to tackle the following question: What does a social security system that provides a secure future for children and families look like?
The project will come up with a proposal, or a set of proposals, for what a truly effective social security system might look like.
The paper finds:
- Our social security system has suffered huge cuts in recent years. By 2021/22 £40 billion a year will have been taken out of the social security budget and families with children have been bearing the brunt of these cuts
- An increasingly means-tested system has been the primary vehicle for delivering these cuts, and benefits for children have been in the firing line
- The current system is failing in a number of different ways to provide this security to people. In times of crisis, such as the loss of a job, the system does not respond quickly enough.
