There are 4.5 million children living in poverty according to new proposed independent measure

Currently there is no agreed UK government measure of poverty and the Social Metrics Commission (SMC) was founded in 2016 in a bid to develop a definitive measure.

Its report, published on Monday (September 17), outlines a measure which takes into account a family’s net income, other available resources, any debt and so-called “inescapable” costs – such as disability, childcare and rents/mortgages.

From this, it creates a figure of the total resources available (TRA) and its poverty threshold is 55 per cent of the three-year average of the median TRA.

Under the new measure, the SMC concludes that 14.2 million people in the UK population are in poverty – 4.5 million children, 8.4 million working-age adults and 1.4 million pensioners. Of these, 7.7 million are living in “persistent poverty” – meaning they have been in poverty for at least two of the previous three years. Persistent poverty is highest in families more than 10 per cent below the poverty line, in workless families and families where someone is disabled.