13 million Britons live below poverty line: CPAG

A report says one out of every five Britons is living below the poverty line in the country.

“As 2014 draws to a close there are 13 million people in poverty, including 27 percent of the 2.5 million children in the UK,” Child Poverty Action Group said in a report.

The Trussell Trust charity released a report showing one million people in the country are now relying on food banks run by charities.

The organization said that charities are expecting their busiest Christmas ever in providing emergency rations to poor families.

Charities warned that many families have so little that they are unable to afford basics such as food and housing.

“This is a real, stark two-nations Britain that we are talking about,” Trussell Trust chair Chris Mould told The Independent newspaper.

“At Christmas time, when people will be spending more than they have ever done before, we also have tens of thousands of people who haven’t got enough to buy food for themselves and their families,” Mould said, adding, “It’s not a tolerable situation. It’s got to be taken seriously. There is a consensus across the country that we can’t just accept this. We’ve got to take action.”

The housing charity Shelter also estimated that the number of British homeless children would exceed 93,000 this Christmas.

According to Oxfam, the five richest families are wealthier than the bottom 20 percent of the entire population in the UK.

In April, the Trussell Trust said that the number of people using emergency supplies from food banks in Britain increased by 163 percent over the past year.

The UK’s coalition government adopted austerity measures in order to tackle the country’s mounting debt and sluggish growth, but the policies have sparked public protests in recent years. Critics say the measures have resulted in a mismatch between stagnating wages and surging living costs.

The British government has promised to eradicate child poverty by 2020. Experts, however, believe that it is “inconceivable” for the government to achieve the stated target. They say an estimated 3.5 million British children will still be living in poverty by 2020.