Eighteen months of social, political, and economic instability mask the immense sacrifice of millions of the poorest children nationally. Those with the narrowest shoulders have carried the greatest burdens. Undernourishment and food insecurity, stunted education and widening attainment outcomes, domestic abuse and mental ill health have all reared their ugly heads against the backdrop of economic turmoil and precarious futures.

The UK entered the pandemic deeply unequal, with an economy, jobs market, and social safety net unfit to meet the basic needs of the poorest children and households. Work didn’t pay. The proportion of people living in poverty in a working family was at a record high – 70% of children living in poverty were from working households. In 2010, 19% of children in working households were growing up in poverty, but this would rise to 24% by 2018. And for households needing extra support from the state, of the £34 billion of cuts to the welfare budget since 2010, low-income, working-age families have borne the brunt.

Altogether, we see that the employment market is failing families, which, along with rising living costs and the dire state of welfare provision, forms an unholy trinity that has direct and pernicious implications for children.

This decade of deprioritisation of children’s wellbeing represents the cornerstone of a political legacy deeply uninterested in taking on the pervasive harms of widening socio-economic inequity. This legacy continues to scar the life chances of a generation both literally and metaphorically unable to stand on their own two feet.

DWP child poverty data showed that in the weeks leading up to the first lockdown, 200,000 more children were living in relative poverty after housing costs in the financial year 2019/20 compared to the year before – an embarrassment to the prime minister’s misleading child poverty claims last summer, and a deeply disturbing bellwether for the chaotic year ahead.

The pandemic response continues to turbo-charge differences in opportunity and outcome to concerning new levels, levelling down in health, educational attainment, and child poverty. Given the backdrop, it is now hardly surprising to see both deprivation driving children into care and care itself fraying under the strain of the pandemic. In Hull, where my colleagues have been treating the symptoms of failed economic policy in the children’s ward, there has been a 19% increase in ‘troubled families’ needing extra support in the last year while the number of children in care has risen by 9%.

‘Even in the darkest of times we have the right to expect some illumination,’ wrote Hannah Arendt. Emerging is a wounded society that looks differently at itself and its relationship to the state. The case for returning back to normal isn’t especially compelling given normal was broken in the first place. Through confronting social hardships with shocking and unavoidable lenses, parameters of progress and what we value as a society are shifting.

Amid this, children and young people have never been too far from the headlines. From free school meals policy U-turns, adversity in mental health, inaction on climate and extractivism, through to the chaos for exam grades and widening attainment gap, through crisis after crisis, children have acquired a spotlight and political capital at odds with their electoral redundancy, and child poverty has taken on a new significance and tangibility in the national conversation. As domestic attention looks toward the prospect of a recovery for some quarters of society, many recognise that children must sit at the heart of reconstruction in an era that re-legitimises the power of the state and its capability to serve its citizens.

Across the pond, households in the poorest communities and neighbourhoods are beginning to benefit from the most ambitious programme of economic expansion since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. The most comprehensive analysis of the Biden administration’s $1.9 trillion economic stimulus projects a drop in child poverty by a record 61%, largely thanks to a child tax credit expansion among other measures. It’s a move that marks a major departure from deep-held convictions that have dominated US politics for decades, recognising the evidence that supporting children has myriad benefits for families, communities, and economies. While the policy focus for communities across the US has centred on ‘the difference between stress and security’, at the heart of this move is a demonstration of the responsibilities of government that contrasts against the spectacular failure of reliance on market-led solutions.

Closer to home, and where comparisons may carry greater implications for Johnson’s standing in the eyes of voters, the SNP have pledged to put child poverty eradication at the top of their domestic agenda, with all five major parties in May’s election finding cross-party consensus to double the Scottish Child Payment. Fresh off the back of her party’s fourth successive victory in the May elections, August has seen Sturgeon increase monthly payments for the Best Start Foods scheme to support low-income families to buy healthier foods for under-3s, demonstrating a sound understanding of the importance of the first 1000 days for healthy child development and setting the foundation for good health across a child’s life course. Childcare is set to be free all year round for Scotland’s poorest families, a timely intervention in a social policy space reflected by the stark inequalities highlighted and exacerbated during the pandemic. Scrutiny of both Biden and Sturgeon’s plans reveal the need for greater emphasis on ensuring equity and coverage, both agendas nonetheless show ambition and offer the hope to disadvantaged children and families that during a time of great need the state can help support them to flourish.

So where does this leave the viability of the UK government response? And what steps is it taking on welfare to meet the challenges of child poverty? While Johnson has been widely criticised in letting the most vulnerable children down throughout the pandemic response, they remain largely absent from familiar rhetoric on ‘building back better’. The fast approaching autumn ‘cliff edge’ for the furlough scheme and £20 weekly uplift to universal credit risk further entrenching disadvantage, paradoxically at a time when families are set to need the most help. DWP data shows that 3.4 million children are living in households claiming universal credit, a 65% increase from before the pandemic. Ending the uplift risks pulling 200,000 children into poverty. The government has ignored calls to scrap the two child limit, which its own social mobility advisers recognise as a critical step for poverty reduction among larger families, which research finds are disproportionately affected.

The actions of the US and Scottish governments should encourage the UK government to step up to the plate. Yet, if enacted, September’s policies reflect merely ‘propping up better’, and place the spotlight firmly on both a lack of political ambition and dereliction of state responsibility in ways the Johnson administration would be wise to pay attention to. ​​After all, you cannot look to the future without addressing the urgent needs of our most vulnerable children today. If the government are adamant about sticking to ‘Build Back Better’, we must ask: for who?