10 worst areas for child poverty in the UK

The 10 areas most affected by child poverty have been named by a charity in a shocking report which highlights a growing problem affecting parts of the UK.

The End Child Poverty Coalition, made up of 101 organisations, has called for urgent action after new research shows that 4.2 million children were living in poverty in the UK in 2021-22.

Tower Hamlets in London had the highest percentage of children living in poverty, followed by Birmingham in the West Midlands, Manchester in the North East and Sandwell, also in the West Midlands.

The West Midlands region has the highest proportion of children in poverty of any UK region, followed by the North East, North West and London.

Together with the Center for Social Policy Research at Loughborough University, the End Poverty Coalition has published data on the number of children living in poverty in the UK.

The report also looked at which families are most likely to experience child poverty.

They found that 71 percent of children who were in poverty after housing costs, and 67 percent of those who were in poverty before housing costs, were in a family where at least one adult worked.

The 10 UK local authorities with the highest rates of child poverty were:

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The overall rate of child poverty in the UK is currently estimated at 29%, but it varies widely between regions and is also affected by factors such as family structure and ethnicity.

The report found that 44 percent of children in single-parent families are in poverty after housing costs, compared to 25 percent of children in two-parent families.

The poverty rate for children in families with three or more children was 42 percent, compared to 23 percent and 22 percent among children in families with one or two children, respectively.

Children living in families where someone is disabled had a poverty rate of 36 percent after housing costs, compared to 25 percent for children living in families where no one is disabled. And disabled children statistics and regional figures showed that the highest rate of poverty for disabled children is in the West Midlands, where 40.8% of disabled children live in poverty.

After looking at ethnicity as a factor, the report revealed persistent ethnic inequalities in UK child poverty. Some 47% of children in Asian or British Asian households and 53% of those in black households were in poverty after housing costs, compared to just 25% of white-headed households.

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Joseph Howes, chairman of the End Child Poverty Coalition, told Yahoo News UK that the lingering effects of the COVID lockdowns, along with the current cost of living crisis, have fueled the rise in child poverty in the UK. He called on people to write to their local MP and join the campaign to abolish the two-child limit for people claiming Universal Credit.

He said: “The pandemic and the cost of living crisis have left more and more children without food and a warm home. These statistics show that trends in child poverty are particularly worrying in parts of the UK, such as the North East and Midlands.

“There is one policy change that we know would make a direct and immediate difference, which is the removal of the two-child limit for those claiming Universal Credit. The policy is unfair in its indiscriminate impact on children and there is no evidence that it has achieved its objectives. Abolishing the two-child limit would immediately lift 250,000 children out of poverty, and the government could make that change now.”

Howes said the coalition was “encouraged” to hear in January that Labor was reviewing the two-child limit, but added: “They must commit to scrapping it completely before the next election if they are to successfully deliver on their commitment to to lead an attack on child poverty”.

The report concluded that because the data presented does not yet cover the current cost-of-living crisis and persistently high inflation, as it only covers up to the end of 2022, researchers expect that in next year’s data the situation will almost certainly have worsened rather . than better.