Government misses child poverty targets

The government has failed to achieve its target of reducing child poverty by 25% between 1998/99 and 2004/05, according to the Households Below Average Income (HBAI) data published today by the Department for Work and Pensions. This is despite having increased tax credits sufficiently in 2004 to persuade most experts inside and outside Whitehall that it had probably done enough to achieve its goal.

The target defines child poverty as the number of children living in households with equivalised household income (after deducting direct taxes and adding tax credits and benefit payments) below 60% of the median. If individuals were lined up in order of income from the richest to the poorest, adjusted for family size, median equivalised household income would be that of the person in the middle. The target is assessed both on incomes after housing costs (AHC) and before housing costs (BHC).