How has the Child Poverty Rate and Composition Changed?

This note is designed to draw attention to how the pattern of child poverty has changed since the Labour Government started to take an interest in the issue with the Prime Minister’s pledge in 1999. The analysis is entirely based on published data - the Households Below Average Incomes analysis by the Department for Work and Pensions. This analysis is based on data in the reports since 1999/00 because that is the first year that the DWP began to publish breakdowns of the poverty rates and characteristics of children in poverty. Even so the breakdowns employed in the analysis have changed over the years which make comparisons over time somewhat problematic. It could be possible to go back to the original data from each survey to undertake a similar analysis. However there are probably advantages in following the DWP statisticians' methodology and it is worth using the data to tell us something about what had been achieved and which groups have benefited most from the changes in demography, labour market and policy that have influenced trends in child poverty.