UK to record highest levels of child poverty by 2022: Report
A new report published by a think-tank focused on living standards in the United Kingdom has shown that levels of child poverty in the country will reach a historic high of 37 percent in few years time.
The Resolution Foundation said in its report on Wednesday that stagnating wage growth and government cuts to social aid will help child poverty increase in the UK to above a 1990s-record of 34 percent and to affect some five million children in 2022 when the terms of the current Conservative-dominated parliament and government end.
The report, dubbed Living Standards Outlook, said the poorest in the UK were being continuously affected by various economic factors, including lower benefit payments and weak wage growth.
The government has boasted of a series of new economic reports showing that unemployment in the UK have reached the lowest levels since 1975. However, estimates suggest that wage growth would be around levels seen before the economic recession of 2008, nearly 4 percent, in the upcoming years.
The government has also been accused of leaving many worse off through its special social care program which seeks to cut benefits and replace them with monthly payments to special groups of people. The program, known as the Universal Credit, has reportedly left many previous benefit claimants homeless as they have been denied advance payments until the new system approves their application for aid.
Current estimates suggest that some 14 million people, including four million children, are living in poverty in the UK, a country of more than 65 million whose economy is the fifth in the world in terms of wealth creation.
The United Nations said in a report last summer that austerity programs introduced by the Conservative-led governments since 2010 have been mostly to blame for increase in poverty in the country.
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