The child poverty gap between North East and the rest of the country has reached a 20-year high, a hard-hitting new report says.
Research by the North East Child Poverty Commission highlights a “growing chasm” between the Government’s declarations on levelling up and the reality of rising child poverty in the North East. The study comes just a few months after a national report found that child poverty had risen steadily in the North East over the last seven years and last year went against a national trend to become the highest in the country.
In some areas of the region, more than half of children are growing up in poverty, causing problems in education, health and wellbeing. The new report highlights a number of causes for the growing poverty rates, including a steeper increase of in-work poverty in the North East, as well as high numbers of parents who are unable to work because of disabilities, childcare costs or other factors.
