One in three children in Wales lives in poverty, IFS report finds
One in three children in Wales is growing up in poverty, and a new report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies says the Senedd has limited tools to change that number quickly.
The IFS puts the child poverty rate in Wales at 32%, compared to 28% across the UK.
The figures measure relative poverty — children in households with incomes below 60% of the UK-wide median after housing costs are taken out.
Across the whole population, 22% of people in Wales are in poverty on the same measure, slightly above the UK average of 20%.
The Senedd election on 7 May will choose six members of the Senedd for the new Fflint Wrecsam constituency, but whoever wins will face a significant constraint.
The fastest way to cut child poverty is to change benefits — things like Universal Credit.
Benefits policy is controlled by Westminster, not Cardiff.
The IFS says that without a change to the devolution settlement, the next Welsh Government’s options for cutting child income poverty quickly are limited to smaller, locally delivered payments or ad-hoc grants.
What the Senedd does control is education, health and childcare.
The IFS says these give Welsh Government more scope to close longer-term inequalities between richer and poorer children — but not to shift poverty figures quickly.
The Welsh Government updated its child poverty strategy in 2024, setting out five broad objectives covering family income, employment, housing, services and dignity.
The IFS describes the strategy as “broad in scope” and says it is not always clear how individual policies connect to specific targets.
It points to Scotland as a comparator — Scotland has set narrow, measurable poverty targets and models the likely impact of individual policies against them.
In 2025, Plaid Cymru proposed a Scottish-style child payment as one approach to cutting income poverty directly — the IFS notes that implementing such a payment at scale would require either changes to the devolution settlement or creative use of existing powers.
The IFS cautions that poverty estimates at the regional level are “somewhat volatile” and carry statistical uncertainty, meaning the 32% figure should be read as a strong indication rather than a precise count.
Jed Michael, a Research Economist at the IFS and co-author of the report, said: “The Welsh Government and Senedd have made improving living standards and reducing child poverty key goals enshrined in law as part of the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act.”
“Improving productivity, earnings and employment will be key to meeting these goals — not least because under current devolution arrangements, the Welsh Government has limited control over benefits, which are generally the most direct way to boost the income of low-income households.”
The report is the fourth in a series of Welsh election briefings from the IFS, funded by the Nuffield Foundation and the Economic and Social Research Council.
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