[UK] Think-tanks devise solutions for tackling poverty

from Money News

Woman should be paid Child Benefit during pregnancy, according to a new report.

Other suggestions made in the Overcoming Disadvantage report include raising the government's new Child Tax Credit and simplifying benefits for pensioners and families with children.

Five leading think-tanks from across the political spectrum were quizzed by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation on possible cures for poverty over the next 20 years.

The report also calls for higher benefit payments and an improved social fund to help disabled people back into work and criticises the government for failing two-parent families and for introducing stealth taxes.

The Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR), Social Market Foundation, Policy Exchange, Scottish Council Foundation and the Institute of Welsh Affairs each delivered reports on poverty for the start of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's centenary year.

Authors Sue Regan and Peter Robinson, of the IPPR, called for stronger regional policies to boost jobs in disadvantaged areas, and more early-years help for disadvantaged parents.

Roger Wicks, of the Social Market Foundation, called for more help for large families, given that "half of all poor children live in families with three or more children".

The Policy Exchange was heavily critical of means testing and called for the government to raise some benefits by more than inflation.

At the launch of the report in central London, Des Browne, minister for work at the Department for Work and Pensions, said the Government's commitment to tackling child poverty was re-affirmed before Christmas when the Chancellor increased the Child Tax Credit.

The UK has a higher percentage of its population in poverty than any other major western economy, apart from Italy and the United States and the gap between rich and poor has not narrowed since Labour came to power.

The government has set itself the goal of halving child poverty by 2010.