Chancellor leaves single parents to fend for themselves as recession tightens

Fiona Weir, Chief Executive of Gingerbread said:

“The Government made a promise to halve child poverty by 2010. Single parents will be angry to find that this promise is fading fast. 

“ Single parents, who care for  1.5 million poor children in the UK, were looking for the budget to provide “real world” action to keep them financially afloat, help them find work and come off benefits. The chancellor’s 1.7bn investment in Job Centre Plus, has the potential to help, but must be channelled into providing a specialised  one-to-one benefits service for single parents who struggle to balance the challenges of job-hunting with bringing up children alone.

“Today thousands of single parents – those working and those caring for children at home -  will simply carry on robbing Peter to pay Paul. They will continue to make stark choices between cutting back on food or paying their household bills. And many of them will not be able to spare the cash to buy a newspaper and find out how little this budget will help them.”

Contact: Miranda Yates, tel 020 7428 5416.

Case studies of single parents are available.

Notes for Editors

* 3.1 million children live with a  single parent and 1.5 million of those are poor children.  (ONS Social Trends and Households Below Average Income, DWP, 2008).

** [1] Raising the “earnings disregard” for single parents entering jobs of under 16 hour per week to permit them to earn over £20 per week before their benefits are cut before seeing their benefits cut, would have been a worthwhile incentive. 

Single parents and Employment / Economy Fact file:

 ·        83 per cent of single parents said it was harder to make ends meet this year than last year (Gingerbread online survey, February 2009).

·        70 per cent of single parents say they have had to go without something important make ends meet. (Gingerbread online survey, February 2009).

·        56.3 per cent of single parents are currently in work.