Poorest hit by welfare cuts

The announced spending cuts were today described as the deepest since the second World War and analysts say families will be the hardest hit.

Britain’s leading independent economic analysts the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) declared ‘families with children as the "biggest losers" .

The independent think tank said that ‘the less well off would be proportionately the hardest hit’, and that the £7bn of benefit cuts would reinforce the "regressive" nature of the government's plans to tackle the deficit.

The richest 2% of the population will also feel the pinch but, in comparison, only £2.5bn of the welfare savings will come from the better-off - through withdrawing child benefit for top-rate taxpayers, with the rest to be found from restricting benefits for poor and vulnerable groups.