Research by Action for Children found that one in five homes with children, a total of 1.5 million households, are struggling with ‘serious financial difficulties’.
The charity’s analysis of data from 5,000 UK households over six months to May 2023 reveals the heightened impact of the cost-of-living crisis on people with children.
Households were categorised based on the extent to which they could meet financial obligations, with ‘serious financial difficulties’ indicating the most severe shortfalls.
Single parents fared the worst, with a quarter in serious financial difficulties.
Households with children were also six times more likely to have turned to informal lenders or loan sharks, an issue that affected 475,000 families.
These households were also twice as likely to have gone without food when hungry, something 1.2 million families with children said they had been forced to do.
Action for Children chief executive Paul Carberry said: ‘Our stark findings show the UK is in the midst of a cost-of-children crisis, where a parent penalty premium makes every day a battle for low-income families just to stay afloat.
'The Chancellor must act at the Autumn Statement to protect families with children from these intense and ongoing pressures on household finances. At the very least, we must see benefits rise with inflation and cost of living payments reformed to take family size into account.’
