Fighting Poverty Costs UK over $103bln Annually
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Tackling the effects of poverty in the United Kingdom deprives the country's public purse of $103.4 billion a year, a report published on Monday revealed.
The report titled "Counting the cost of UK poverty" was published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF).
"The public service costs of poverty amount to around £69 billion [$91.5 billion], with identifiable knock-on effects of child poverty costing a further £6 billion and knock-on effects of adult poverty costing at least £2.7 billion; this gives a total cost of poverty in the UK of around £78 billion [$103.4 billion]," the report said, according to Sputnik News.
The report added that one fifth of all the money spent on public services in the United Kingdom goes to dealing with the consequences of poverty.
Around half a million of UK citizens visit food banks annually, according to the government data.