Larger families have been disproportionately affected by the worsening cost of living (Picture: PA)
A leading charity has warned that Britain’s poorest families are forced to pay thousands of pounds more for the same services compared to pre-pandemic times.
Save the Children commissioned a report into the poorest third of families whose incomes are around £24,000 a year or less to find out they are struggling to buy the goods they could afford before the pandemic.
Carried out by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), it discovered they are forking out between £3,000 and £5,600 more this year.
Because there have not been proportionate benefit increases to match new costs, and cost-of-living payments have not been tailored to family size, larger families have been disproportionately affected, the charity warned.
Becca Lyon, head of child poverty at the charity said: ‘This is the most significant research we have ever done on family budgets and the results are worse than we had imagined.
‘For years, parents told us that raising a child was more expensive than it used to be, but we had no idea of the scale of the crisis.
‘For single parents and those with three or more children, their shortfall in just a few years has increased substantially.’
A single parent with one child on average needs to spend an additional £3,100 in 2023/24 to get the same basket of goods and services they would have bought in 2019/20, the report said.
This rises to almost £5,600 – or more than £100 per week – for a couple with three children.
Taking housing costs into account, the analysis shows that a large family renting privately on Universal Credit ‘could be out of pocket by thousands of pounds per year’.
It gave the example of a five-person family in Salford, where a shortfall of £2,400 per year was identified.
As a result, Save the Children is urging the government to come up with a child poverty strategy and to abolish the two-child limit – where families do not get additional benefits for more than two children unless particular circumstances apply – as well as the benefit cap.
The charity also said housing reforms must have children and families’ needs in mind.
The report read: ‘The government needs to do more to protect families from poverty and provide a level of support that matches families’ circumstances.
‘Children have not been adequately considered by successive governments, who have implemented policies which unfairly penalise children, like the two-child limit and the benefit cap.
‘The last few years have seen two major national crises which have pushed families to the brink.
‘Coupled with years of underfunding and cuts to social security levels, this means that parents are struggling to provide their children with the things they need for a happy, full childhood.’
A DWP spokesperson stressed it is providing ‘record’ financial support worth around £3,300 per household.
‘Our actions have helped nearly two million people, including 400,000 children, out of absolute poverty after housing costs since 2010,’ a statement added.
‘We have also raised benefits, including Universal Credit, by 10.1%, increased the National Living Wage, are introducing the largest ever expansion of free childcare in England, and are helping families with food, energy and other essential costs through the Household Support Fund.’
It is ‘worse than we had imagined’.