Protest at change to child poverty stats

Anti-poverty campaigners are protesting  about government plans
to wipe a million children from the official poverty statistics by
ignoring housing costs.

The coalition End Child Poverty is urging the government to drop
a proposal to change the way they measure family poverty from one
based on income after housing costs, to before housing costs.

ECP says today’s official child poverty count of 3.8
million would be immediately cut to 2.7 million if housing costs
were ignored.

According to the campaign the government is developing more
detailed measure of child poverty but claims it is making the
change to before housing costs to bring UK figures in line with
Europe. But housing costs tend to be higher in the UK and ignoring
the high cost of housing will also ignore a major cause of child
poverty.

ECP director Jonathan Stearn commented, ‘To avoid any
suggestion that the government is moving the goalposts the
secretary of state should today commit to including housing costs
in all top line figures on child poverty both now and in the
future”.