Responding to the Households Below Average Income figures, Meghan Meek-O'Connor, senior child poverty policy adviser at Save the Children UK, said: 

“Today 4.3 million children are being failed. It is an outrage that 100,000 more children are in poverty – they are being forgotten. 

“These shocking figures should be an urgent wake up call to all of us, especially the UK Government: we cannot go on like this. There is no reason children should be going without food, heating, toys, or beds.

“Families need an adequate social security system that keeps children out of poverty, and provides them with a basic level of safety and security. The UK Government must scrap the unfair two-child-limit, and introduce a ‘child lock’ on children’s social security to protect children from hardship and suffering.”

Notes:

2022/23 - 4.2m children in relative poverty after housing costs

2023/24 stats:

• 4.3 million children in relative poverty after housing costs (30% of all children in the UK), 100,000 more than last year

• 826,000 children live in households that have used foodbanks in the last year

• 34% children in poverty live in lone parent households

• 43% of children in poverty live in a household where someone has a disability

• 35% of children in poverty live in a household headed by someone from an ethnic minority (defined as non White British)

• 50% of children in poverty live in a household with 3 or more children – affected by the sibling tax (two child limit)

• Absolute poverty has also risen. There are now 3.6 million children in absolute poverty compared to 3.3 last year.

Figures from:

Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), released 21 March 2024, GOV.UK website, statistical release, Households below average income: for financial years ending 1995 to 2023.