New report finds families struggling with costs of raising children
The cost of bringing up children has soared in the last year, leaving families on the minimum wage 18 per cent short of the basic amount needed to live on.
In a new report published today, The Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) finds childcare costs are soaring past the ability of minimum wage owners to afford them.
Written by Donald Hirsch from the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University, ‘The Cost of a Child in 2014’ finds that year on year, the cost of a child has been rising faster than inflation while support families receive from the state is falling.
The report draws on the Minimum Income Standard project (MIS) to establish how much families need to cover their basic needs like food, clothes and shelter, and to participate in society.
Families where both parents are working full time at the national minimum wage are now 18 per cent shy of the income required to support two children at a minimum level.
Breaking down the figures, the research shows – excluding childcare, rent and council tax costs – that the basic cost of raising a child for a couple is £88.84 per week, a 4.3 per cent rise since 2012.
For a lone parent, the basic cost of raising a child is £103.53 a week, a 9.7 per cent rise since 2012.
Including childcare, rent and council tax costs, the amount rises to £164.19 per week for a couple, a 7.7 per cent rise since 2012.
For a lone parent, the figure is £184.50 per week, an increase of 11.4 per cent since 2012.
The cost of childcare alone jumped by 42 per cent between 2008-2014, over twice the rate of inflation.
Donald Hirsch, director of the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University, said: “This evidence shows unequivocally that families have found it progressively harder to make ends meet.
“The forecast increase in wages in the next few years should help, but may not reverse this trend for the worst-off working families. This is because the support they get from the state will continue to decline in real terms.”
