300,000 more UK children fell into absolute poverty at height of cost-of-living crisis
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Nearly a fifth of the population struggled with basic needs, it emerges, as charities accuse Government of failing poorest.
By Patrick Butler, Social policy editor
About 300,000 more children were plunged into absolute poverty in a single year at the height of the cost-of-living crisis amid soaring levels of hunger and food bank use, official figures show, prompting calls for an overhaul of the UK’s creaking welfare safety net.
Campaigners accused the Government of failing to protect the UK’s poorest families as the latest poverty statistics showed 600,000 more people fell into absolute poverty – ministers’ preferred poverty measure – in 2022–23 when inflation was at its 10% peak.
Overall, during the year 12 million people were in absolute poverty – equivalent to 18% of the population, including 3.6 million children – levels of hardship last seen in 2011–12 after the financial crash.
Ministers and opposition politicians faced calls to get a grip on rising poverty levels, with charit...
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