A report published at the start of July by the Children’s Commissioner for England [1], printed in the Guardian of 8/7 and taken up again by the Italian daily newspaper „Il Fatto Quotidiano“ of 11/7, declares quite explicitly that: “the findings in this work highlight real hardship; an almost-Dickensian level of poverty facing some children in England today. […] Children do not talk about poverty as an abstract concept. They talk in simple but powerful terms about how it feels to not have enough money to do the same things as their friends, or to feel a sense of shame at being seen as ‚lesser’. […] they spoke with candour about things that most people would consider basic, but which for them are out of their reach: a safe home that isn’t mouldy – or full of rats, a bed big enough to stretch out in, basic food like bacon, a place to do their homework, having the heating on, privacy in the bathroom and being able to wash, having their friends over, not having to travel hours to school, or having a local park to play safely in where the grass isn’t overgrown and unusable”.
And in fact, the data regarding their condition is harrowing. As well as the return of illnesses linked to malnutrition, typical of Victorian times, such as rickets and scurvy (in 2022, 700 pediatric admissions for rickets were recorded and cases of scurvy have increased to hundreds of diagnoses every year, especially amongst the children of economically fragile families), the „Fatto Quotidiano“ of 11/7 reminds us that - again quoting the Report - „around 4.5 million British children, or 31% of all minors, live in conditions of poverty and without significant intervention, this figure may rise to 4.8 million by 2029.“ In 2023, an analysis by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation reported a 22.4% risk of childhood poverty in the United Kingdom, a percentage superior to that in many northern countries, such as Denmark and Finland (9.7%). In addition, the 2023 UNICEF report, “Child Poverty in the Midst of Wealth”, “places the United Kingdom amongst the wealthy countries with the worst performances in the fight against child poverty, just above Colombia and Turkey. Between 2014 and 2021, child poverty increased by 20%, whilst countries like Poland and Slovenia recorded reductions of respectively 38% and 31%. The children most affected come from single-parent households with a risk of poverty that is triple that of two-parent families, as well as from ethnic minorities or those with disabilities present.“ „Ethnic inequality“ is especially marked: „whilst 24% of white British children live in poverty, 65% of children of Bangladeshi origin and 59% of those from a Pakistani background find themselves in conditions of poverty due to systematic discrimination, difficulty in accessing a steady job and high housing costs. Poverty is also geographically differentiated: areas such as the North of England, the West Midlands and Tower Hamlets in London record up to 40% child poverty, with Birmingham Ladywood and Bradford West amongst the worst affected areas, with 47% of children living in poverty. What is more, a measure introduced in 2017 (the “two-child cap”) “limits tax benefits and Universal Credit for families with more than two children, excluding economic support for the third child and any following that, save for exceptions (multiple births, non-consensual conception, adoptions). In 2025 around 1.66 million children in 469,780 families were affected by this measure: one out of nine minors nationwide and up to one in three in some areas. Families lose an average of around £3,514 a year for every child after the second, aggravating poverty and daily hardships.“
The widespread condition of poverty is certainly not a new development that has arisen over the past few years. Already in 2017, so almost ten years previously, in a chapter devoted to the failure of the English National Health system (once the post-war carnation in Britain’s buttonhole) in an in-depth study on the consequences of the so-called „new poverty“, we read: “This is particularly unfair on children – if you’re born into a low-income household, the chances are you’ll be sicker and weaker and die sooner than most of the population. Childhood mortality (deaths between birth and the age of fourteen) in the UK is significantly higher than similar countries in Europe – only Poland, Hungary, Malta, Slovakia and Latvia have higher child mortality rates. In children under five, the UK mortality rate is the highest in Western Europe, double that of Sweden” [2]. And again, regarding how children live: “According to the housing charity Shelter, in October 2016 over 40 per cent of rental homes in the UK fail to live up to minimum standards of acceptable conditions, with reports of persistent pests, damp and safety hazards. More than 400,000 working households live in private rented homes with category 1 hazards as defined by the English Housing Survey. These include severe health threats from damp and mould, pests, electrical installations, excess cold and dangerous levels of carbonmonoxide, lead and other chemicals, including asbestos” [3].
***
Thus “an almost-Dickensian level of poverty”, this is the anguished definition of the 2025 Report of the Children’s Commissioner for England. But there was no need to disturb Charles Dickens and his novels: it would have sufficed to open Friedrich Engels’ book, Condition of the Working Class in England, published in Germany in 1845 and only later in England, to find food for thought. After reminding us of the spread of illnesses such as typhoid, consumption, scarlet fever, directly related to unhealthy living conditions, Engels reports that:
“Another category of diseases arises directly from the food rather than the dwellings of the workers. The food of the labourer, indigestible enough in itself, is utterly unfit for young children, and he has neither means nor time to get his children more suitable food. […] But a new disease arises during childhood from impaired digestion. Scrofula is almost universal among the working-class, and scrofulous parents have scrofulous children, especially when the original influences continue in full force to operate upon the inherited tendency of the children. A second consequence of this insufficient bodily nourishment, during the years of growth and development, is rachitis, which is extremely common among the children of the working-class. The hardening of the bones is delayed, the development of the skeleton in general is restricted, and deformities of the legs and spinal column are frequent, in addition to the usual rachitic affections. How greatly all these evils are increased by the changes to which the workers are subject in consequence of fluctuations in trade, want of work, and the scanty wages in time of crisis, it is not necessary to dwell upon. Temporary want of sufficient food, to which almost every working-man is exposed at least once in the course of his life, only contributes to intensify the effects of his usually sufficient but bad diet. Children who are half-starved, just when they most need ample and nutritious food – and how many such there are during every crisis and even when trade is at its best – must inevitably become weak, scrofulous and rachitic in a high degree.
And that they do become so, their appearance amply shows. The neglect to which the great mass of working-men’s children are condemned leaves ineradicable traces and brings the enfeeblement of the whole race of workers with it. Add to this the unsuitable clothing of this class, the impossibility of precautions against colds, the necessity of toiling so long as health permits, want made more dire when sickness appears, and the only too common lack of all medical assistance; and we have a rough idea of the sanitary condition of the English working-class. The injurious effects peculiar to single employments as now conducted, I shall not deal with here” (Friedrich Engels, Condition of the Working Class in England, Chapter “Results”).
***
Is it surprising then, that in England today scurvy and rickets are on the rise, the main illnesses linked to poverty? When Engels published his book, it was in the thick of the industrial revolution, the cradle of capitalist development. Today, almost two hundred years later, the society of capital and profit at all costs, of merciless competition, of conflicts and wars, has come full circle: it has returned to its original vices. The circle must be broken, before - after new and monstruous slaughter and destruction worldwide - another starts, commencing its umpteenth infernal death march, to the detriment of the human species
[1] https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/resource/growing-up-in-a-low-income-family-childrens-experiences/
[2] Stephen Armstrong, The New Poverty, Verso, London 2017, p.74.
[3] Ibidem, p.115.
