The income you need to survive in Northern Ireland

Tara and Declan talk to the women taking on the government over the cost of raising a family in NI. Louise McCullough and Rachel Benson are single mums, who are desperately trying to get themselves and their families out of poverty. Louise has two degrees, and is working towards her Masters qualification, she works 20 hours a week, the maximum she’s allowed to to retain her benefits. Rachel works part-time, but can’t afford to take on more hours. On The State of Us today, they give us their assessment of the long-awaited draft Anti-Poverty Strategy, which was agreed by Executive parties in May. They say there are too many barriers for them to be able to lift themselves out of the position they’ve ended up in. Almost 75 charities and anti-poverty organisations have called for the Northern Ireland Executive to withdraw the draft strategy, saying that families "deserve better". An anti-poverty strategy was first committed to by Stormont 19 years ago. In the next few weeks, we will be speaking to the Minister for Communities, the department behind the strategy, Gordon Lyons. For help and support: www.bbc.co.uk/actionline Get in touch: [email protected]