Paying the price of child poverty

Action for Children commissioned Public First to model policy scenarios for reaching a set of ambitious poverty reduction goals, including:

1. Lifting at least a million children out of poverty by the end of the decade and;
2. Halving the child poverty rate in the long-term.

In this report, we include a range of interventions to support incomes through the social security system, improve opportunities for income from employment, and reduce household costs. We also present new estimates of the long-term benefits to society and the economy from reducing child poverty.

1. Transformational change is possible, but requires ambitious thinking backed by short, medium and long-term goals.
2. Scrapping the caps is the single most cost-effective action government can take, but won’t be enough by itself.
3. We can’t deliver sustained reductions in child poverty over time without above-inflation increases to child-related benefits.
4. Improving benefit take-up and new social homes could be particularly powerful levers.
5. Employment measures have a part to play, but are less targeted, less cost-effective and their impacts more modest and uncertain.
6. The strategy cannot succeed without increased spending, but we should better recognise the long-term social and economic benefits of reducing poverty.