Thousands of West Sussex children living in poverty
There's been a rise in the last five years, according to new research
Thousands of children are living in poverty in West Sussex, new analysis reveals.
The End Child Poverty coalition, which commissioned the report showing almost a third of children across the UK live below the breadline, said families were already on a "cliff edge" before the coronavirus pandemic.
The research combined recent figures from the Department for Work and Pensions with local housing costs to produce new estimates for low-income families – those earning less than 60% of the median income.
The analysis shows 37,504 children aged 16 and under living in low-income families in West Sussex in 2018-19.
That's just under 3,000 more than the total of 34,635 recorded in 2014/15.
Crawley had the highest rate of the county's eight Parliamentary constituencies with a rate of 29.8%, closely followed by Bognor and Littlehampton on 29.7% - which has seen a 5.5% increase from figures recorded in 2014/15.
The report is based on DWP data from March, and estimates of the effect of housing costs on poverty rates by Loughborough University's Centre for Research in Social Policy.
The figures show no improvement in child poverty rates across the South East since 2014-15, with last year's highest rate in Hastings (37.8%).
Across the whole of the region, the average rate was 25%.
In Worthing, the number of children in low-income families rose from 5,234 in 2014-15, to 5,321 last year.
The coalition is calling on the Government to recognise the scale of the problem and its impact on children’s lives.
Buttle UK – which provides financial support direct to families and young people in crisis – has increased its spending by 145% across the South of England since lockdown started compared with the same period the previous year.
Joseph Howes, CEO of Buttle UK, said: “These new figures allow us to understand the true picture and unacceptably high levels of child poverty at the start of lockdown in the South.
"With the Government putting in new measures to control Covid-19, we need to brace ourselves for further bad news and what could be a massive increase in child poverty and ultimately a lost generation.
“Not all families were the same going into this crisis and they will certainly not be the same coming out. As we attempt a recovery from the crisis, there are going to be some very big challenges facing the most vulnerable sectors in society."
A DWP spokesman said there are 100,000 fewer children in absolute poverty than in 2009-10, which is a measure against median income in 2011 rather than the current level.
He added: "Making sure every child gets the best start in life is central to our efforts to level up opportunity across the country.
“We have already taken significant steps to do this by raising the living wage, ending the benefit freeze and injecting more than £9.3 billion into the welfare system to help those in most need.”