Poverty Journal articles

Many of us have been irritated by the splintering of the notion of poverty in recent years. Food poverty, fuel poverty, water poverty, digital poverty, transport poverty, period poverty: surely they are all just poverty we have cried! With ‘poverty’ defined as a relative lack of income, is there any merit in looking at different poverties?

By Jonathan Bradshaw

The government faced significant opposition to cutting the £20 which had been added to the UC standard allowance as the pandemic struck but went ahead anyway. The October 2021 budget then offered significant improvements to UC for those in work. What do the UK government’s crucial decisions about universal credit (UC) in 2021 tell us about social security policy?

By Donald Hirsch

Every child death is a tragedy. With child poverty rising and deepening, what role does deprivation have in child mortality? What does the National Child Mortality Database in England tell us about what we can do to reduce the number of child deaths?

By Vicky Sleap

The social security system has been a central feature of the pandemic response. As we move out of the emergency phase, however, the future direction of social security policy has rarely seemed more uncertain. How can we ensure we are campaigning for ambitious change, and how can we ensure people with lived experience of the system can bring their expertise to it?

By Jim Kaufman and Ruth Patrick

There is increasing focus in research and policy making on the importance of the expertise brought by those with lived experience of poverty. What happens when experts by experience and experts through study and practice come together to merge their knowledge on poverty? And what implications does such a merging of knowledge have for research and policy?

By Elena Lasida

The US is in the early stages of repurposing an old policy tool – a national child allowance – to a new end: cutting child poverty during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. How does this compare to the past and present situation for children and child benefits in the UK?

By Megan A Curran

Reducing poverty-related stigma to improve the uptake of free school meals is critical. The COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated how millions of families rely on school food to help make ends meet. How are free school meals delivered in different schools and what impact does that have on children? What can be done to reduce shame and stigma for children?

By Ellie Harwood

In-work poverty has been on the rise in the UK. Just before the pandemic hit, three-quarters of children living in poverty had at least one parent in work. What role does the social security system, and in particular universal credit, play in helping or hindering low-income working families?

By Hannah Aldridge

Outlining the key issues for children’s rights in the UK, CRAE’s report warns that a child’s right to an adequate standard of living has regressed since 2016. What progress has been made in protecting and promoting children’s rights, and how is the UK government falling short?

By Natalie Williams

How have changes to the benefits system affected low-income families over the last decade and what does this mean for their exposure to the economic fallout of COVID-19? What has happened to depth of poverty, particularly for the poorest BAME children? And what reform agenda does this set for social security beyond the pandemic?

By Daniel Edmiston and Siddharth Thakkar