We expect children to have the best life situation and enjoy their childhood; they need to play, study, and live in the best condition. But do they want their lives in the UK?
Statistics show that 3,900,000 children are suffering from poverty in the UK. However, during the pandemic, before 2020&2021, child poverty was more than these days. Indeed, child poverty during the pandemic was about 4.3 million.
We can be optimistic about this slight decline. This rate of child poverty deduction shows that the government can control child poverty and prevents its increment.
The government can decrease child poverty in the UK by allocating more appropriate policies to children to create a better living situation.
So Changing children’s financial situation is possible for the government, and if it tries, it can prepare a better position for them.
Indeed, there are many reasons for child poverty in the UK. Children who are poor in the UK have working parents, but their parents don’t have a pleasant situation in their jobs.
They have part-time jobs with inadequate salaries that can’t fulfil their children’s essential needs.
Indeed, there is no balance between the cost of living crisis and parents’ salaries, even if there is no progression in their jobs to improve their children’s lives.
Furthermore, other reasons cause child poverty increment in the UK. Lack of social security, tax credits, and housing benefits are important reasons that cause poverty in the UK.
Moreover, the cost of housing, rent, and mortgage rate payments are other reasons that cause child poverty in the UK. Brexit is another reason that has expanded child poverty in the UK.
There are different households whose income is 60% less than the UK’s average income rate. So, due to this low income, families can’t support their children’s food and pay enough attention to their children’s health.
They need different food banks to fulfil their children’s needs. Even the energy crisis and the high energy bills have caused British families to suffer from the cold winter weather and darkness in their houses.
Not only can’t they afford their usual expenses but also they can’t pay the high energy bill prices, and this situation is annoying children in low-income families.
So the government is entirely responsible for the low-income families and children living in these families. It should support them, improve their skills, and create a situation where they can have more job promotions.
Rishi sunak’s policies and poverty increment in the UK.
Indeed, Rishi Sunak’s wrong two-child policy is another reason for the poverty increment in the UK that has caused a new hit in the UK financial situation.
Rishi Sunak has ordered that the British people can just have two children, and even he has said that the government will ignore the families who give birth to more than two children and deprive them of the general facilities.
Indeed, due to poverty in the UK, the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has ordered people to obey childbirth limitations.
As a result of Rishi Sunak’s decision about childbirth limitation, Kristen Oswald, the SNP MP, has asked Rishi Sunak to change his policy.
Indeed, according to Rishi Sunak’s childbirth limitation policy, households with more than two children can’t use the general facilities in the UK, such as receiving the additional fund.
However, women should disclose that they have been raped, and the government must investigate this matter to legislate some limitations for them.
If Rishi Sunak changes his two-child limit, families won’t face poverty, children will have a better situation, and their families will be sure about their future.
Millions of children are in poverty in the UK
From 2020 the poverty rate increased in the UK. Indeed, 12.1 per cent in December 2021 increased to 17 per cent in January 2022.
This increment was so shocking after 2020. And this increment happened after that time. Before that, children received child monthly tax credit payments, but after a while, the government expired the child monthly tax credit payments. This event had an important role in the child poverty increment in the UK.
Indeed, racism was another matter that involved child poverty; the black-skin children were the group who didn’t receive any facilities from the government, and the government ignored them because of the colour of their skin. So racism was a practical matter in the child poverty issue in the UK too.
Indeed, between July and December 2021, the internal revenue service paid out six months of advance Child Tax Credit payments worth up to $250 per child aged 6 to 17 and up to $300 per child aged under 6, reaching over 61 million children in over 36 million households.
By December, it was keeping 3.7 million children from poverty and reducing monthly child poverty by 30 per cent.
The government allocated child tax credit payments to children during the pandemic; in that period, children and their families didn’t have any problems related to poverty, but after a while, the government reduced child tax credit payments, and it was a great hit to the children and their families.
Child tax credit payments had an essential role in children’s lives in the past, and they helped them and their families to fulfil their needs and not feel poverty as much as today.
It could be an essential resource for children and their families to not feel poverty and be satisfied with their lives. But after stopping child tax credit payments, children and their families felt great poverty space.
Child tax credit payments expiration
In fact, during the pandemic, the government paid 35 million families payments ranging from $250 to $300; this amount of tax credit payments was helpful for the families and reduced their poverty.
But in July, the government decided to stop tax credit payments for children, and this decision had a significant role in child poverty.
Indeed, child tax credit payments had a significant role in low-income families, and it helped them not suffer from poverty as much as this time. Certainly, the child tax credit payments decision was taken in July.
So from the beginning of July, when the government stopped child tax credit payments, parents couldn’t fulfil their children’s needs.
In fact, after this event, vulnerable families were the groups that suffered more from this expiration because they did need this amount of monthly payments in their bank accounts.
But Dr Duncan Smith has said that there are some new efforts to change the current financial situation of British families.
They are doing some work to change children’s educational condition and improve their healthcare situations too.
Even he has said that they want to assess the households’ financial situation, provide for their employees, and improve their situation.
He insists on eliminating child poverty and changing their current poor situation. He has said: “what we need is not change to the definition of poverty, but a plan to deal with poverty, to boost productivity.”
Above all, some children in the UK are born outside of wedlock. There are significant numbers of children born in the UK out of marriage. And shortly, these children who are born out of marriage will involve in the statistics of child poverty in the UK.
Children born out of marriage are the groups to which the government won’t allocate any special facilities. These children born out of marriage will suffer from poverty more than the other groups of poor children because the government won’t accept any responsibility against them.
[1] thelancet.com
[2] bbc.co.uk
[3] russellsage.org
