Safety net is ‘inadequate’ say poverty campaigners
16.02.06

Benefit levels leave many families well below the poverty line, a leading charity said today as MPs voted to increase benefit payments by just the rate of inflation.

The Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) today published new figures showing the large gap between benefit levels and the ‘poverty line’ (measured as below 60 per cent of median income after housing costs).

From April 2006, for a couple with two children, benefit levels are 33 per cent per week less than the poverty line. For a lone parent with two children, the ‘poverty gap’ is around 20 per cent.

Kate Green, Chief Executive of CPAG, said:

“While we support the Government’s strategy of moving people off welfare and into work, for families who cannot work and rely on benefits the safety net remains inadequate.

“Despite recent increases in child benefit and the welcome introduction of tax credits families who, for whatever reason, are not able to work remain trapped in poverty.

“As Ministers look towards the goal of halving child poverty by 2010 and ending it by 2020, we urge them to look seriously at the inadequacy of benefits. As long as the value of the safety net remains below the poverty line, the Government will never be able to truly eradicate child poverty.”

Since 1998/99, 600,000 children have been lifted out of poverty, but 3.5 million or 28 per cent still live in poverty. However, three out of every four children whose parents are in receipt of income support live in poverty.

The Government is committed to halving child poverty by 2010 and ending it by 2020 and next month figures will be published showing whether or not the interim target of reducing child poverty by a quarter from 1998/99 to 2004/05 has been met.

For further information please contact:
Alex Belardinelli
CPAG Press Officer
Tel. 020 7812 5216 or 07816 909302
abelardinelli@cpag.org.uk

Notes to Editors
The table below shows CPAG’s estimated gap between benefit levels and the poverty line from April 2006.

To ensure the poverty line is concurrent with benefits the 2003/04 poverty line has been projected forward using earnings inflation from Sept. 2003 to April 2005, and with an assumed inflation (derived by averaging the previous 3 years) from April 2005 to April 2006 (suggesting a growth of 12.8 per cent over this period). It has been equivalised using the McClement scale and rounded in line with HBAI practice.

The benefit rate is the sum of Income Support, child benefit and child tax credit

The ‘poverty gap’ is the difference between the first two columns, expressed in the last column as a percentage of the poverty line. The figures do not necessarily tally precisely here because of rounding errors.