Child poverty rates as high as 40% in London

Tens of thousands of children that live in the city of London and outlying boroughs live in poverty. The rates vary widely from a low of 8% in Queens Gate to around 49% in Tower Hamlets. As many families know the city is very expensive to live in. As a result of that, as well as ongoing benefit changes, more families continue to struggle to buy the food and pay the bills for their families.

Child poverty is defined as the parents have a household income that is below 60% of median income. In total, over 2 million children are from these households in all areas from across the UK. Since London is the most populated city, tens of thousands of that number are from households that are local to the city. Though the exact poverty rates are much too high, the figures do vary by town and area.

The reasons for these high levels of poverty vary. Experts say there are several main reasons for this, ranging from jobs that do not pay a livable wage to the cost of living that continues to increase faster than most wages. Other reasons can be just one off events, such as an illness. For these and other reasons, parents are struggling, and the children are also facing hardships due to this.

There may not be relief in site. The conservatives continue to discuss reducing the safety nets that many people rely on. This welfare reform, even including roll out of the Universal Credit in the London area, continues to push more families in a hardship. This will continue to make the problem even worse.

Since the elections have been concluded, there is very little that people can do about this battle. There have been some recent protests and many studies continue to bring the problem to the attention of MPs and the public. But beyond that, there are no easy answers.

The growth of poverty is also shown in the demand for assistance from London charities and other government schemes. As an example, there is an increasing demand for social housing, even though most of what is available is in outlying borough. As another example, many families are turning to other resources for help, including food banks in London.

So the solutions to this are not easy. Experts would like to see the government continue to invest in job training and counselling, which will help the parents address the root cause. But until some of these steps are taking, the child poverty levels may not decrease very quickly, if at all.