HomeChild poverty indicators

Measures of Child Poverty

North East Mayor Kim McGuinness has made tackling child poverty her number one priority during her term of office. The North East Child Poverty Reduction Unit (CPRU) has developed a Child Poverty Action Plan that includes measures to monitor progress.

Download the Child Poverty Action Plan

North East Child Poverty Action Plan

This five-year child poverty action plan sets out a vision of the North East being a place where every baby, child and young person is supported to thrive and achieve their potential - regardless of their background, or where they live.

The plan includes a pledge to monitor progress against a set of measures from national datasets to ensure that we are heading in the right direction together.  

Improving how we measure progress

At present, several of these measures are published for England at a regional (not combined authority) level. We will therefore press national Government and its agencies to address this data gap. Additionally, there can be a significant time-lag on some measures. We will work with national, regional and local partners to explore how we can make use of more real-time information to understand and respond to what is happening now for North East families.

In addition to using published statistics, our ongoing evaluation of this work will focus on what families, children and young people tell us about the tangible difference our interventions have made to their living standards, opportunities, and plans for the future.

Key measures of child poverty

The action plan highlights eight sets of key measures to monitor progress. The charts below show the position using the latest data in July 2025, when the plan was published.  Text referencing the "North East region" refers to the ITL1 area that contains the North East and Tees Valley combined authority areas. This is one of nine English ITL1 areas.

Children living in relative poverty, after housing costs
Children living in relative poverty, before housing costs
Children living in deep poverty and in very deep poverty, after housing costs
Children living within ‘income deprived’ families
Children living in food insecure households
Children living in ‘workless’ and ‘long-term workless’ households
Economic inactivity rates, working age people, aged 16-64
Young people (16-24) not in education, employment or training

Data sources

Each tab contains information about one of the eight key child poverty measures in the charts above, with a link to the source and a brief explanation of the measure.

After housing costs

Source: Local Child Poverty Statistics (Loughborough University)
Published by: End Child Poverty Coalition
Date: 02 June 2025
About the data: Children in households with an income below 60% of the  median after housing costs (AHC). A child is defined as being aged 0-15, or aged 16-19 and in full-time education. 

Before housing costs

Source: Children in low income families: local area statistics
Published by: Department for Work and Pensions
Date: 27 March 2025
About the data: Children in households with an income below 60% of the median before housing costs (BHC). The DWP headline rate is based on children aged under 16 (excluding dependent children aged 16 to 19).

Deep poverty

Source: Joseph Rowntree Foundation analysis.
Households Below Average Income (HBAI) data
Published by: North East Combined Authority
Date: 27 March 2025
About the data: Households in deep and very deep poverty have, respectively, an income (AHC) less than 50% and 40% of the median. There is no data for combined or local authority areas.

Income deprivation

Source: Indices of deprivation 2019
Published by: Ministry of Housing Communities & Local Government
Date: 26 September 2019, scheduled to be updated in late 2025.
About the data: The Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index (IDACI) measures the proportion of children (0-15) living in income deprived families for each LSOA in England. 

Food insecurity

Source: Households below average income: Stat-Xplore data
Published by: Department for Work and Pensions
Date:  27 March 2025
About the data: "Food insecurity" is based on responses to survey questions about the purchase of food and diets of household members in the previous 30 days.  There is no data for combined or local authority areas.

Workless households

Source: Children living in long-term workless households
Published by: Office for National Statistics
Date: 30 October 2024
About the data: Workless households are those where all the adults are not working. Long-term workless households are where this has been the case for at least 12 months. There is no long-term data for combined or local authority areas.

Economic inactivity

Source: Annual Population Survey (via Nomis)
Published by: Office for National Statistics
Date: 15 April 2025 (latest calendar year data)
About the data: Percentage of people aged 16 to 64 who are not in employment and are not actively seeking work. Based on surveys over a 12 month period.

N.E.E.T.

Source: NEET age 16 to 24
Published by: Department for Education
Date: 20 March 2025
About the data: Estimates of the percentage of young people (aged 16 to 24) who are NEET (not in education, employment or training) in England. Based on responses by individuals to the Labour Force Survey.  There is no 16-24 data for combined or local authority areas.

Information and analysis

This section includes links to the main NECA website page for the CPRU and to pages on the evidence hub that allow access to further detail about datasets that focus on child and household poverty.

Child Poverty Reduction Unit

Child Poverty Reduction Unit

North East Mayor Kim McGuinness has made tackling child poverty her number one priority during her term of office.

In September 2024, the Mayor and North East Combined Authority Cabinet set up the country’s first Child Poverty Reduction Unit (CPRU), backed with £500,000 initial investment, to develop an action plan for the region. 

Find out more
Poverty and deprivation theme page

Poverty and deprivation theme page

The evidence hub's poverty and deprivation theme page has links to reports charting and analysing the latest statistics for these two topic areas.

The reports include those that specifically relate to child poverty and others that focus on household poverty and deprivation. Further reports will be linked to this theme page during the second half of 2025.

Explore the statistics
Children in low income families

Children in low income families

This report focuses on the key headline measures of child poverty.

It includes details of relative child poverty within the North East before and after housing costs. It also has charts of trends over time and analysis of related statistics.

View the statistics