Has child poverty fallen since 2010?

At Prime Minister’s Questions today, Rishi Sunak claimed the government has “overseen a fall in poverty, but particularly child poverty, since 2010”.

As we’ve explained before, there are different ways of measuring poverty. There has been a fall in child poverty according to one measure at least, but other measures show a different picture.

When politicians talk about poverty statistics, they’re often referring to figures published by the Department for Work and Pensions on relative low income and absolute low income:

• Relative low income measures the number of people in households where the income is below 60% of the national median average that year.
• Absolute low income measures the number of people in households where the income is below 60% of the average median level in 2010/11, adjusted for inflation.

The latest data shows the number of children in absolute poverty after housing costs fell from 3.7 million in 2009/10 to 3.6 million in 2022/23. 

But the equivalent figure before housing costs shows an increase since 2009/10, from 2.5 million to 2.6 million. 

The number of children in relative poverty after housing costs has increased since 2009/10, from 3.9 million to 4.3 million.

It’s also increased before housing costs, from 2.6 million to 3.2 million in 2022/23. 

As well as looking at the numerical total of children, there is also data on the proportion of children in low income households.

The proportion of children living in relative poverty has increased from 20% in 2009/10 (before housing costs) to 22% in 2022/23, and from 29% (after housing costs) to 30% over the same period. 

The proportion of children in absolute poverty before housing costs was 19% in 2009/10 and this fell to 18% in 2022/23. After housing costs are taken into account, it’s fallen from 28% to 25%.