Overview
- The DWP’s annual Households Below Average Income report, released Thursday, estimates 13.40 million people lived below the poverty line in 2024/25, up from 12.93 million, using the standard measure of income under 60% of the national median after housing costs.
- Child poverty on this measure edged down to 4.03 million children, roughly 27% of all children, which is a slight fall from the previous year’s estimate.
- Material hardship remains high as 6.6% of children lived in households that relied on a food bank, 1.9 million children were in deep material poverty, and the share of children in material deprivation fell from 28% to 24%.
- The government will end the two‑child benefit limit in April, with officials projecting 450,000 to 550,000 fewer children in poverty by 2029/30, and major charities welcoming the step while urging faster, wider action.
- The DWP has overhauled its method to draw more on administrative records and the statistics run on a 12‑month lag, which both limits direct comparisons with older series and delays when policy changes show up in the published figures.