How many children are in poverty due to the two-child benefit cap?

In a post shared on X (formerly Twitter) last weekend Green Party deputy leader and London Assembly Member Zack Polanski claimed that the two-child benefit cap “kept 1.8 million children in poverty last year”.

This isn’t correct. While a charity estimated earlier this year that 1.8 million children were affected by the cap, not all of these children were in poverty, and the number estimated to be in poverty specifically due to the cap was much lower. Moreover, the 1.8 million figure has since been updated.

As of April 2024 the two-child benefit cap affected an estimated 1.6 million children. Of these, it’s estimated approximately one million are in poverty and would see a “significant difference” if the cap were removed, while 300,000 would be taken out of poverty altogether.

If a politician makes an inaccurate claim on social media, they should correct this quickly in a clear and transparent manner, including on the same platform where the claim was made. We’ve contacted Mr Polanski for comment and will update this article if we receive a response.

What is the two-child benefit cap?

The two-child benefit cap is a government policy which prevents parents from claiming Universal Credit or Child Tax Credit for any third or subsequent child born after 6 April 2017, except in specific special circumstances.

The Labour party has been criticised by campaigners and other parties, including the Green Party, as well as by some of its own MPs, for refusing to commit to ending this policy, which was implemented by the Conservative government in 2017.

Asked about the policy this week Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner said she accepted that people were “frustrated and want to … change a lot of things”, but added: “We said before we were elected that our number one priority is that if we cannot say where the money is coming from, we will not make unfunded spending commitments.”

How many children are impacted by the cap?

It’s possible that Mr Polanski was referring to a briefing published by the charity Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) ahead of the Budget in March, which stated: “In April 2024 almost 500,000 families (1.8 million children) will be affected by the policy.”

However, this figure for the children ‘affected’ refers to the number living in a household receiving less than it would otherwise have done had the cap not been in place. Not all of the 1.8 million children were in poverty—the briefing went on to state that removing the cap would “lift 300,000 children out of poverty and mean 800,000 children are in less deep poverty”. So this estimate does not support Mr Polanski’s claim that the cap itself has “kept” 1.8 million children in poverty.

These figures have also since been updated: statistics published by the government earlier this month found almost 1.6 million children, in 440,000 households, were affected by the two-child benefit cap in April 2024.

CPAG now estimates abolishing the two-child benefit cap would “lift 300,000 children out of poverty and mean 700,000 children are in less deep poverty, making a significant difference to the lives of over a million children”.

CPAG appears to be referring to relative poverty after housing costs as its measure of child poverty, given that’s the metric it’s used elsewhere. We’ve written previously about the different ways of measuring child poverty.

While the figures outlined above are the most recent available, it’s worth noting Mr Polanski’s post referred to “last year”.

As at April 2023, 1.5 million children were affected by the policy, of which an estimated 1.1 million were in poverty, and 250,000 would have been taken out of poverty were the cap to have been removed, according to CPAG.