Child poverty: We need to rethink our 2020 target

This morning the IFS published its latest projections for poverty. The stats have been widely reported, with most coverage focusing on the ‘unprecedented’ seven percent squeeze on middle incomes. But perhaps the more surprising figures are those for long-term trends in child poverty. On our current path, 800,000 more children will fall into poverty by 2020, a rise in the child poverty rate from 19.2 percent today to 24.4 percent. That’s the kind of sustained increase in child poverty not seen since the 1980s – and an almost complete reversal of the 900,000 children lifted out of poverty under Labour. It’s a wake-up call for both parties and a chance to seriously rethink our approach to the 2020 target to abolish child poverty.

You might say that, given the current crisis, these gloomy figures aren’t surprising – things will take time to recover and we shouldn’t overreact. But this story, of an economy knocked down and slowly getting back on its feet, simply doesn’t fit the reality. On the contrary, relative poverty is perversely set to fall in the short-term because those in the middle are fairing so badly. Instead, it’s from 2015 onwards that the really sustained increases kick in, with child poverty rising by almost 100,000 a year. These are the supposedly sunny economic uplands we’re all desperately awaiting – Britain is now a country in which poverty rises when the economy grows.

Labour, of course, will crow that these facts are simply the result of decisions by this government – that under them things would be different. In a limited sense they’ll be right. George Osborne has turned the boat around, and is now paddling with the tide of poverty rather than against it. According to the IFS, choices made by the Chancellor will increase child poverty by around 200,000 – the opposite of Labour’s desperate, if slow, struggles upstream. In particular, Osborne’s decision to shift tax credit and benefit calculations from the RPI to the lower CPI measure of inflation is corrosive. As I argued last month, it’s an £11 billion stealth cut for low-income people and will be one of his most shameful legacies as Chancellor.

But as the IFS makes pretty clear, Labour too would have missed their 2020 target to abolish child poverty by a country mile. For years they managed to stay on the treadmill, but in the end they just couldn’t keep up. That’s why today’s report is a wake-up call for both parties to think seriously about our approach to child poverty. The IFS makes the point in unusually plain language: the government’s 2020 target is now literally ‘incredible’. That’s not to say it’s not important; far from it – we wouldn’t be having discussions like these if it didn’t exist. But it does mean it’s time to ask: when we miss the target, how do we want to miss?

This is important because there are options. Should we just try to get as close as possible? Should we start by abolishing poverty among children under five? Should we move away from a purely income-based measure of poverty altogether, to focus more on things like childcare? Of course the risk is that the government would use any such discussion to wriggle out its obligations. But the reality is that these are important decisions that, if we don’t talk about them, will simply be made by default. If we want to deliver for children in poverty, it’s time to get our heads out of the sand.

This post originally appeared on the Independent blog