An extra 250,000 children will be hit by the two-child benefit cap next year, rising to an extra half a million by 2029, a leading thinktank has warned.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said the number of children who will fall under the cap – which limits child benefits for the first two children in most households – will reach 670,000 by the end of the next parliament if the policy is not reformed.
The two-child benefit cap, which restricts Child Tax Credit and Universal Credit to the first two children, was brought in by the Conservative government in 2017.
Campaigners have long called for it to be abolished on the grounds it would lift thousands of children out of poverty.
It comes as a separate study from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) found 40% of people who work in primary schools and GP surgeries have considered quitting their job because of a “shameful” level of hardship among the population.
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The JRF found the service providers were “staggering under the weight of hardship” by having to provide extra support to the nearly four million people struggling to pay for essentials including food, heating and clothing.
The IFS said the two-child cap has helped drive up the share of children in large families who are in relative poverty from 35% in 2014-15 to 46% in 2022 – a period when poverty for families with one or two children fell.
The Labour Party has faced pressure to drop the cap – including from former prime minister Gordon Brown – but has so far refused to commit to ending it, citing the current state of the country’s finances.
