The number of pensioners and children living in poverty in the UK has fallen but remains at "historically high levels", government figures have shown.
The amount of people of working-age in poverty is the highest since records began, the study of Households Below Average Income (HBAI) also said.
Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith said the figures showed that the "vast" expenditure on the benefits system by the previous government had failed.
The statistics, released last week by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), show 2.3 million pensioners were living in relative poverty between 2008 and 2009. After housing costs were removed, the figure was 1.8 million.
It marks a fall of 200,000 since the previous study covering 2007/08.
The number of children living in poor households was 2.8 million, and 3.9 million after housing costs were deducted.
This represents a fall of 100,000 children, the DWP said.
For working age adults, the figures are 5.8 million people before housing costs were removed and 7.8 million after.
The DWP said overall inequality remains at historically high levels.
Responding to the report, Mr Duncan Smith said: "These statistics reveal the scale of poverty in the UK today.
"Millions of children, adults and pensioners are daily experiencing the crushing disadvantage that poverty brings.
"They are living at the margins of society, unable to achieve their aspirations and trapped in dependency.
"Such levels of poverty are unacceptable and today's statistics show that, despite huge expenditure, this has made little impact in helping the poorest.
"Vast sums of money have been poured into the benefits system over the last decade in an attempt to address poverty, but today's statistics clearly show that this approach has failed.
"Little progress has been made in tackling child poverty, society is more unequal than 50 years ago and there are more working age people living in poverty than ever before."
Mr Duncan Smith said a new approach to tackling poverty was needed.
He added: "It is right that we invest in addressing poverty, but we must focus our resources where they will be most effective.
"Work, for the vast majority of people, is the best route out of poverty."
Single parent charity Gingerbread said the fall in child poverty was likely to reflect the Budget of 2008, when Child Tax Credit was increased by £150 a year.
However, the charity said the reduction was still well short of that which would be needed to meet the target set by Labour of halving child poverty by 2010.
Chief executive officer Fiona Weir said: "The new government has today committed to ending child poverty by 2020 - in line with the Child Poverty Act.
"Step one to achieving this must be to protect the poorest families and children from any cuts in public spending. Forty per cent of all poor children live in single parent families, so any new measures must support all family types."
Sally Copley, head of UK policy at Save the Children, added: "The numbers of poor children are finally coming down, after years of little change.
"However, the fact that more than one in five of children in the UK still live in poverty is a stark reminder of the prevalence of this issue.
"It can't be right that, in 2010, so many families are having to make a choice between putting the heating on or eating a hot meal.