Cost of cutting child poverty rises as families fall further below poverty line

<p><p>The Government would need to spend £4.2 billion extra on tax credits for low-income families to be on track to hit its short-term child poverty target for 2010-11, according to research funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and carried out at the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Institute for Social and Economic Research at Essex University. Without this spending, child poverty in 2010-11 is forecast to be 600,000 above the target.</p></p>