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Child poverty policies 'discriminate against couples'

June 2007: Child poverty policies 'discriminate against couples'

The government will miss its ambitious goal of halving child poverty by 2010 partly because its strategy discriminates against two-parent families, according to a report today by former welfare minister Frank Field.

The report, Welfare isn't working: Child poverty, praises the government's "audacious" aim of abolishing child poverty by 2020. But it says using tax credits and benefits to do so discriminates against two-parent families.

This discrimination helps to explain why children in working two-parent families now make up the single most important group of poor children, according to Mr Field and co-author Ben Cackett.

The authors say that discriminatory policies mean the risk of poverty has hardly changed for children in two-parent families.

Half of all poor children are in working families, despite the government's belief that working is the best route out of poverty. The authors say the number of children in working poor households has dropped back to 1995 levels.

It was eight years ago that Tony Blair announced a historic mission to abolish child poverty within 20 years. Targets were set to reduce child poverty by a quarter by 2004-05, to halve it by 2010-11 and to eradicate it by 2020.

By 2009, the government will be spending £13bn a year extra on increased benefits and tax credits for families with children.

Despite the increased expenditure, it missed the 2004-05 target and last year child poverty increased.

Today's report, for thinktank Reform, says that to achieve the 2010-11 target the fall in the number of children in poverty would need to fall eight times faster than over the past five years.

Source: The Guardian

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