The poverty gap for working families is turning into a chasm.

Families with children where one or both parents work are living further below the poverty line than they were in 2008 with those employed in the public- sector faring worst.

Using data from the Households Below Average Income (HBAI) statistics produced by the Department of Work and Pensions Professor Jonathan Bradshaw and Dr Antonia Keung of the Department of Social Policy at the University of York have identified an increase in the median poverty gap.

In 2007/08 the gap before housing costs stood at £41.60 per week, after housing costs were added this rose to £50.40. The 2016/17 HBAI data shows a respective rise to £57.40 and £63.00.

Further pressures are added to squeezed family budgets by in work benefits failing to keep pace with rises in the cost of living. The harsh conditionality of the welfare system has, according the University of York's WELCOND project, resulted in poor health and financial outcomes for many claimants and may have driven some to commit crime to survive.

Writing in the report Bradshaw and Keung say ' the UK has tended in the past to have had comparatively high poverty rates, but low poverty gaps. This has been thanks to a fairly comprehensive but quite low minimum income scheme'.

They go on to say that since the recession this has been undermined by the government's austerity policies, leading to a situation where poverty rates may be falling, but the number of children living in poverty is increasing and they are further below the poverty line than ever before.

Figures produced by Landman Economics for the TUC show there will be a million more working households with children living in poverty this year, a rise of 50% since 2010, taking the total to 3.1million. The factors driving this increase, the research claims, include weak wage growth and the rising number of people in insecure work.

Public sector workers have been hit hardest with their average income falling by £83.00 a week since 2010, workers in the private sector have seen their wages fall by £32.00 a week over the same period.

The rise in child poverty has been highest in the East Midlands (76%), with the West Midlands (66%) and Northern Ireland (60%) close behind.

TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady said the government was 'in denial over how many working families can't make ends meet '.

She concluded that the government needs to ' boost the minimum wage now and use the social security system to make sure no child grows up in a family struggling to get by'.