Child Poverty and Welfare

31% of children in the UK live in poverty, rising to 44% among children in families with three or more children (HBAI, 2025).

Evidence suggests this is driven in part by welfare policies (e.g. Stewart et al., 2023), including the Two Child Limit and the Benefit Cap, which has weakened the historical link between family size, need and state support.

This REFLECTure examines the quantitative evidence on the impact of these policies.

Soozy discusses emerging findings (Nesom et al., 2025) on the extent to which cash transfers, such as the Scottish Child Payment, can reduce poverty without creating work disincentives often claimed in policy debates.