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Britain is one of the richest countries. So why do children live in poverty?
- IncreasePosts 11mo agoIf you're getting the paywall on cnn, you can either disable javascript, or replace "www." in the url with "lite." https://lite.cnn.com/2025/11/24/uk/britain-child-poverty-intl-scli https://lite.cnn.com/2025/11/24/uk/britain-child-poverty-int...
- llamasushi 11mo agoThis is amazing. Thank you for this.
- pluralmonad 11mo agoI prefer the paywall.
- baal80spam 11mo ago[flagged]
- smallmancontrov 11mo agoBecause markets are best at concentrating wealth.
- whimsicalism 11mo agoExactly, there is a reason the pre-market feudal period is known as the ‘great flattening’ of wealth and hierarchy.
- smallmancontrov 11mo agoThe Kuznets Curve is 50 years past its "use-by" date, but surely it will turn around any decade now!
- whimsicalism 11mo agoBecause ‘poverty’ is a moving waterline generally pretty divorced from material circumstance in developed countries. > Around one-third of Britain’s children – about 4.5 million – now live in relative poverty, often measured as living in a household that earns below 60% of the national median income after housing costs, a government report published in April found. It makes no sense for poverty to be a fully relative measure, it should be against a basket of goods.
- kurthr 11mo agoIt's interesting, because I read that and the following comment, “Most of the increase in child poverty has occurred in large families,” as almost getting the point. The point should be, "how to we forestall demographic collapse?" Well, one way was immigration, but they're doing the opposite of that, so better make it easy to have lots of kids!
- telotortium 11mo agoJust another example of why the Tories have completely collapsed in support, even among their erstwhile base.
- whimsicalism 11mo agoif you want to nudge people to have kids that they can’t support to solve some fertility crisis (despite automation proceeding at breakneck speed), then just ban abortion.
- mothballed 11mo agoAnd also provide incentives for marriage, which is associated with higher fertility rates. Recently after dropping no-fault divorce, more onerous child support laws, "red flag" and other temporary protection orders that can be obtained on little more than a mere one-sided claim (David Letterman famously had one against him for "sending coded [abusive] messages through the television"), alimony that relies on old timey presumptions a divorced partner can't work, etc, the calculus is looking ever more desperate. Nowadays marriage still has most the downsides, but the upsides are looking less and less. And even more, the contract can totally change out from under you, you are basically agreeing to a vague contract that society can arbitrarily change at any moment and all the meanwhile scream "you agreed to this" no matter that it was unilaterally changed by a 3rd party to the contract and the playout of the actual terms of the contract hidden within places like family court where it's literally illegal to release the proceedings that allow one to make a rational decision upon ("think of the privacy of the children").
- rwmj 11mo agoThe answer is buried 2/3rds of the way through the article.
- input_sh 11mo agoYes, that's how articles work.
- rwmj 11mo agoIt's actually not how it works in good journalism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_pyramid_(journalism) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_pyramid_(journalism)
- actionfromafar 11mo agoWe all decided we want to have free journalism (A.K.A. paid by ads), there's a conflict there. Keep the reader scrolling past more ads.
- zahlman 11mo ago>We all decided When exactly were we given a choice?
- curtisblaine 11mo agoArticle perfectly timed to justify the UK Budget in two days, where they will raise taxes.
- justincormack 11mo agoThere were rumours they would remove the 2 child cap on child benefit
- hexbin010 11mo agoThat became more than just rumours yesterday but we shall see. I'd say it's very very likely personally
- curtisblaine 11mo agoBy raising taxes to everybody else
- bluescrn 11mo agoIf only they'd encourage working people to have kids (via tax breaks etc) rather than out-of-work people to have more.
- curtisblaine 11mo agoThat wouldn't be Labour.
- ndsipa_pomu 11mo agoHowever, out-of-work people have far more time to devote to parenting.
- hexbin010 11mo agoYup. And the other side has put out "A quarter of a million 11-year-olds overweight - including almost half of the poorest kids" at the same time ! Hah.
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- dweinus 11mo ago[flagged]
- lucozade 11mo ago> Capitalism That'll definitely help. But you need a certain amount of forced re-distribution to reduce relative poverty significantly below 30% because it's defined as 60% of median. Either that or find a way to significantly reduce the number of children that people in the bottom 30% are sprogging.
- dweinus 11mo agoSo, I am saying Capitalism is the cause, not the solution. Capitalism concentrates wealth and you need a redistribution system if you want that to not result in child poverty. It's not rocket science. And no, eugenics is not the solution.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- kazinator 11mo agoAlso, nobody was gay during communism in the Soviet Union, and the disabled were invisible.
- neilv 11mo agoChildren are in poverty because some people grab vastly more than their share of the world's wealth, and then they buy legislation and elections, to take even more. A challenge is that usually, within an attempt at a fair and equitable society, some TPOS will try to be a king or billionaire, or to ride the coattails of one. The society needs to tell those people no, and get them mental health care, to heal whatever makes them act like a TPOS.
- bluescrn 11mo agoThe UK government spends £1.3 trillion per year. The total wealth owned by UK billionaires is estimated at a small fraction of that (£300b?). Even seizing all of it isn't going to solve anything long-term (but will create new long-term problems) Billionaires are a symbol of unfairness, but eliminating them won't make a significant long-term difference to those at the bottom. Unless they're put out of work as all that wealth, mostly tied up in companies, is liquidated.
- graemep 11mo agoBillionaires are a very small group. There is far more wealth held by people with assets of, say, over £100m, or even £10m? > Unless they're put out of work as all that wealth, mostly tied up in companies, is liquidated. No one is going to close down profitable businesses because they have to pay more tax. The value of shares might fall a bit, that is all. I do not even think that, because money will just shift around, not disappear. > but will create new long-term problem I do not think it will. IMO it would be a net benefit.
- bluescrn 11mo ago> Billionaires are a very small group. There is far more wealth held by people with assets of, say, over £100m, or even £10m? Which is precisely why we can't 'eliminate billionaires'. Because before long it's a push for full-on communism, and even owning £100k is too much. And unless you can destroy capitalism on a global scale, there'll always be countries eager to take in very wealthy people.
- HPsquared 11mo agoIt's nothing new. Regardless, today's conditions aren't nearly as bad as they used to be. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condition-of-England_question https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condition-of-England_question
- Tade0 11mo agoBut are they better than in, say, 2007?
- samiv 11mo agoDon't worry we (the people in the political west) are quickly reverting back to the historical norm that was also in effect during the Victorian era. Few rich people, minimal middle class and lots of poor working class people. After all capitalism is the same as system as slavery or feudalism. Only the names of the roles are different but the dynamics in society in terms who owns capital and who own the means/result of production and who don't, are the same in every system. (Small minority who own everything)
- Bang2Bay 11mo agoIts a misnomer to say British kids live in poverty. Poverty is living without access to food and education. these are guaranteed for them. If they are worried of going under dressed to school then that is not poverty.
- lordnacho 11mo agoIn the UK most kids have to buy a uniform for school. I'd rather not have kids be so poor that they can't afford things that the school deems to be a requirement.
- andsoitis 11mo agoHow many kids aren’t able to attend school because they don’t have school uniforms?
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- Bang2Bay 11mo agoI donot want them under dressed too. But calling kids who have access to good (probably the best?) education and very good food, poor is unacceptable to me. May be its just me.
- tremon 11mo ago> One million of these children are destitute, going without their most basic needs of staying warm, dry, clothed and fed being met
- amelius 11mo agoBecause resources are finite, and already divided amongst older generations. It's a basic flaw in economy that the older folks don't want to talk about.
- andsoitis 11mo ago> Because resources are finite Would you agree that civilization has more resources today than 50 years ago, 500 years ago, 5000 years ago?
- bluescrn 11mo agoDepends whether you're considering the total useful resources of Earth (diminishing, e.g. fossil fuels), or total accessible resources (increased by technology). Or either of the above per-capita...
- andsoitis 11mo agoHumans create resources that are more than the sum of their parts (i.e. inputs that we get from nature) all the time. We transform raw materials and come up with ideas and combine things in new ways that are more than what earth provides. We create wealth.
- matthewkayin 11mo agoExcept our resources are not so finite. At least in the first world, we have plenty of food for everyone. Grocery stores throw away millions of tons of food a year. We could use that food to feed people instead of letting it go bad, but instead children will go hungry "because a profit cannot be taken from an orange." You're right though that there is a basic flaw in the economy that older folks don't want to talk about.
- samiv 11mo agoBecause the wealth is not distributed evenly. You could ask the same question, why are the kings/emperors/despots and their rich oligarch friends of any given country XYZ wealthy and living luxurious lavish lives in palaces and private yachts etc while the common folks live in slums?
- hexator 11mo agoYou can debate the exact statistics all you want, but to anyone not well off right now, both in the US and the UK, it's pretty clear there's a growing cost of living crisis and governments are failing to address it. Frankly a lot of people here have no idea what living in poverty means.
- rvz 11mo ago"Richest" means nothing in 2025, given the UK has a great track record of not understanding what they have and selling off their prized companies and assets overseas. This decline has only accelerated since then, beyond poverty. It's gotten to the point where this Labour government is considering an IMF loan given the dire state of the countries finances. I predict that the UK will become a third world country by the end of 2038 if they don't reverse this urgently. The advancement of AI, the UK is again behind and "AGI" or "ASI" will make their decline 1000x even worse before at least 2030.
- josefritzishere 11mo agoI find it interesting to read the threads on this topic. There is little discussion of how to fix the problem, mostly conservatives trying to disengenuously argue that the problem is somehow exagerated. This is absurd of course. What's the point of living in a developed nation if we still have large numbers of people living in poverty? The ideal outcome is that there aren't any.
- ed_blackburn 11mo agoAfter 2008, others pressed Keynesian stimulus. The UK chose Hayek. Austerity. Councils took the hit. Services vanished. Early-years centres. Youth work. Local welfare. The safety net thinned, then tore. Families slipped through. Then Covid. Then Ukraine. Prices surged. Wages didn’t. A decade of inflation stacked up while pay stood still. For many, that was a silent pay cut. Truss turned strain into crisis. Unfunded tax cuts. Markets panicked. Gilt yields spiked. Mortgage costs jumped overnight. Another blow to households already on the edge. So we end up where CNN reports: record child poverty, even among full-time workers; parents unable to cover the basics as the social architecture collapses. Into that anger steps Reform UK. They offer a protest vote. But their plan is the same old mix: deep cuts, a smaller state, and migration as the scapegoat. The very recipe that helped bring us here. Send help :-(
- card_zero 11mo agoHuh? There were stimulus packages under Gordon Brown, up until 2010. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7745340.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7745340.stm Then until 2012 the Bank of England did a lot of "quantitative easing", hundreds of billions of pounds of it, supposedly a kind of stimulus.
- munksbeer 11mo ago> After 2008, others pressed Keynesian stimulus. The UK chose Hayek. Austerity. The UK chose both. Vast amounts of QE and correlated ZIRP. Additionally austerity.
- miohtama 11mo agoBritain is a poor country with London attached to it
- otikik 11mo agoWell it's because there's 1000 coins for 10 people but one guy has 800 coins.