Research, campaigns and opinion pieces on poverty, including how the benefits system, childcare system and high-quality jobs can reduce poverty.
JRF aims to bring about change by offering routes out of poverty for families and their children. We’re working to make sure everyone has access to:
Child poverty remains significantly higher than poverty rates for both working-age and pension-age adults, making it a critical issue to address in tackling poverty overall. Despite the UK being one of the richest countries in the world, around 4.5 million children (1 in 3) live in poverty. Children in lone-parent families face an even higher risk, with 43% living in poverty.
The impact of child poverty is severe, affecting children’s health, wellbeing, and future economic opportunities. Children in poverty are also more likely to experience deeper and more persistent hardship, with around 1 million children facing destitution, the most extreme form of poverty, in 2023.
In 2023/24, 7.9 million working-age adults, 4.5 million children, and 1.9 million pensioners were living in poverty. In 2023/24, among people in families receiving Universal Credit or equivalent benefits, poverty levels were alarmingly high at 44%. However, poverty is not limited to those receiving financial support. Many low-income households do not qualify for means-tested benefits yet still struggle. As of October 2025, over 4 in 10 (44%) of working-age households in the bottom fifth of incomes who are not on means-tested benefits are in arrears with at least one household bill. And around 7 in 10 (69%) are going without essential items or experiencing food insecurity as of May 2025.
JRF is calling for bold action in Scotland, where all parties agreed child poverty targets for 2030 but the 2024 interim goal was missed. While Scotland has made more progress than the rest of the UK, 1 in 4 children still live in poverty.
With only one parliamentary term left, meeting the 2030 targets requires urgent, sustained action.
The Department of Work and Pensions has improved the income data we use to measure poverty in the UK, which affects the Scottish Parliament’s child poverty reduction targets, and what you can say about child poverty in Scotland.
Measures in the Budget, especially removing the two-child limit, ease some pain and significantly reduce child poverty, but incomes are projected to fall more in this parliament than any on record.
The Government said its child poverty strategy will focus on severe and acute poverty, so it must prioritise large families, lone parents and disabled people.
