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Items from the news
A TES report on 31 January 1997, uses the European Community
benchmark of poverty (in the absence of an official UK one).
Relative poverty can then be measured in terms of one half
of the national mean household income. 'By this yardstick,
one in 10 British children, or 1.4 million, were living in
poverty in 1979. As of 1993-4, the latest year for which figures
were then available, the numbers had risen to 4.2 million
children, or one in three. In Northern Ireland, the proportion
is nearly 40%.' Excluded from these figures are the 200,000
children who are members of homeless families (a category
that grew by 250% from 1978 to 1990). Neither do they include
older teenagers living on the streets or asylum-seekers.'
Figures from 'households below average income' show 30% of
children are now growing up in households without a full-time
adult earner. (CPAG, Britain Divided)
Monitoring Poverty and Social
Exclusion by Catherine Howarth, Peter
Kenway, Guy Palmer and Cathy Street, published in 1998 by
the New Policy Institute with support from the Joseph Rowntree
Foundation, identified 50 key signs of disadvantage, including
14 relating to children and young adults. The report is available
from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation for £16.95 plus
£1.50 p&p. A fuller summary is available on their
website at www.jrf.org.uk/knowledge/findings/socialpolicy/sprD48.asp
The key indicators of disadvantage
identified were:
*work-rich and work-poor households - the number of children
living in households with no working adults growing from under
a fifth in 1979 to almost a third in 1997. More than 2.5 million
children are currently growing up in 'work-less' households.
*the number of children living in households with less
than half the average income - more than 3 million children
- one in three - fall into this category, almost 3 times
as many as in 1979.
*children on free school meals - 67 LEAs recorded an increase
in the number of children receiving free school meals in
particular primary schools, as compared to only 33 recording
an increase in 1994.
*divorce - the number of divorces amongst unskilled couples
has risen to more than twice the average for all couples.
*health - under-weight babies are more likely to be born
to parents in families with low social status and to lone
mothers.
*education - 200,000 children failed to obtain at least
one GCSE of grade C or above and 30,000 leave school with
no graded GCSEs. School exclusions have risen to more than
12,500 in 1997 from 2, 500 in 1991. Black pupils are six
times more likely than white children to be excluded.
Tony Blair's plan to reduce inequality was dealt a blow in
August 2005 as research showed that the income gap between
rich and poor has widened significantly under Labour. Data
from the Office of National Statistics showed that the incomes
of the best and worst-off had risen by about a fifth between
1995 and 2003. However, that translated into a weekly rise
of £119 for the richest 10% and only £28 for the
poorest.
The report, Focus on Social Inequalities, showed that slow
progress has been made in increasing the educational achievements
of 16-year-olds under Labour. In 2002, 77% of children with
parents in higher professional occupations gained five or
more top grades at GCSE. This was more than double the 32%
achieved by children with parents in "routine occupations".
While that gap has narrowed to 45 percentage points from 49
in 1998, it is still greater than the 44-point gap achieved
by the Conservative Government in 1992. The ONS said, "People
in the United Kingdom are better-off than in the past across
a range of measures but the benefits are not spread equally.
Household income and educational attainment have improved
overall but the gaps remain large."
(The Times, 24 August 2005)
The income gap between rich and poor in Britain, which widened
during the Thatcherite 1980s, has been checked under Labour,
but inequality in household wealth is still growing, the Government
admitted yesterday. The Cabinet Office's strategic audit,
titled Progress, admits that income inequality is high by
international standards.
Especially striking is the admission that "educational
attainment is strongly correlated with social class in the
UK," even though the fastest improvements since 1997
had come in the most deprived schools. But only 74% of 17-year-olds
are in full-time education, one of the lowest rates in the
developed world. Other evidence in the survey underlined how
less able children from higher social groups could catch up
and overtake disadvantaged children by the age of six.
Overall, the audit showed the UK to be upbeat about individual
and national prospects. "Substantial and sustained progress"
had been made across the economy and public sector, creating
a platform for "significant gains" in the coming
years, according to the Cabinet Office minister David Miliband.
(Guardian, 22 February 2005)
Labour has presided over seven years of widening income and
wealth inequality since coming to power, a left-leaning think
tank claims. The gap between rich and poor has expanded and
social mobility has decreased, says the Institute for Public
Policy Research. The findings come a decade after a report
by the IPPR's Commission on Social Justice, set up at the
request of John Smith, the late Labour leader, which formed
a keystone of the New Labour project. The follow-up report,
Rethinking Social Justice, suggests that the UK has become
less equal since 1997, with any improvements achieved by "stealth",
according to Nick Pearce, director of the IPPR. The picture
is not entirely negative, with Britons on the whole enjoying
better health and life expectancy and less likely to experience
poverty or crime than in 1997.
But the report found that people's lives were still largely
determined by the social class of their parents and their
ethnic background. The proportion of income going to the richest
1% of the population more than doubled from 6% to 13% between
1980 and 1999, while the share of national wealth held by
the richest 10% rose from 47% to 54% between 1990 and 2000.
(Financial Times, 3 August 2004)
Children whose parents cannot afford to buy them a bicycle,
take them swimming at least once a month or invite their school
friends round for tea every fortnight, will be officially
classified as poor.
A new measure of child poverty, unveiled by the Government,
takes into account for the first time the "material deprivation"
that children suffer. The measure provides the first official
recognition that poverty in 21st-century Britain is no longer
about survival and the ability to afford food and shelter.
Instead it is about people's ability to participate in the
same social activities with each other. The measure will be
used by the Government in deciding whether it is meeting its
much-trumpeted policy of reducing and then eradicating child
poverty.
Jonathan Bradshaw of the University of York said: "Poverty
is not about survival any more, it's about being able to participate
in the society in which we now live." The report illustrates
how the general rise in prosperity has influenced perceptions
of what constitute the necessities of life. Goods and services
that were once luxuries have become more available and are
perceived as necessities by increasing numbers of people.
Notions of poverty have also been affected by changes in taste,
fashion and technology.
In 1983 only 32% of people thought that having friends or
family visit for a meal was a necessity. By 1999, this had
risen to 65%. The proportion of adults who believed that a
computer was necessary for their child more than doubled from
20% to 42% between 1995 and 1999. A key test of the new measure's
effectiveness will be in seeing where the Government sets
the threshold for poverty for 2004-05, against which future
performance will be measured, and whether it decides to include
all the items on its material deprivation list or just some
of them.
(The Times, 19 December 2003)
Extra benefits and new tax credits for low-income families
have dramatically reduced hardship and child poverty, according
to research.
The policy Studies Institute found that poor families' incomes
increased by a third between 1999 and 2001. The percentage
of children experiencing hardship fell from 67 to 53, while
the percentage suffering multiple hardships fell from 28 to
15. In 1999, 41% of out-of-work families were in severe hardship;
by 2001, 22%.
The study, based on interviews with 8,000 families, measured
40 items that low income families sometimes had to go without,
including hot meals, clothes and outings.
(Times, 25 July 2003)
The Joseph Rowntree Trust has published the findings of researchers
from the Universities of Bristol, Loughborough, York and Heriot-Watt
with fieldwork undertaken by the Office for National Statistics.
The study uses a variety of measures of poverty in addition
to income, including the lack of socially perceived necessities
and subjective measures. It says it is the first national
study that attempts to measure social exclusion.
Findings include:
- Poverty has risen sharply. In 1983, 14% of household
lacked three or more necessities because they could not
afford them. That proportion had increased to 21% in 1990
and to over 24% in 1999
- By the end of 1999, 26% of the British population were
living in poverty, measured in terms of low income and multiple
deprivation of necessities.
- Roughly 9.5 million people cannot afford adequate housing
conditions.
- Around four million are not properly fed by today's standards.
Items defined as necessities are those more than 50% of the
population believes "all adults should be able to afford and
which they should not have to do without."
The list of items deemed necessary does not refer to book
ownership except for owning a dictionary. 53% said this was
a necessity, 44% said it was not necessary. 6% said they did
not have and did not want a dictionary, 5% said they did not
have and could not afford a dictionary.
About 33% of British children go without at least one of
the things they need, such as three meals a day, toys, out
of school activities or adequate clothing. 18% of children
go without two or more items or activities defined as necessities
by the majority of the population.
The study defines four areas of social
exclusion:
Exclusion from an adequate income
Labour market exclusion - 43% of adults
have no paid work
Service exclusion - only about
half the population has access to the full range of services
(eg gas, water etc.).
Exclusion from social relations
- men living alone had a high risk of social exclusion,
nearly 11% of the population have very poor personal support
available in times of need.
A detailed summary of the report is available on the Joseph
Rowntree website: www.jrf.org.uk/knowledge/findings/socialpolicy/930.asp.
The full report by David Gordon et al. ISBN 1 85935 059 3,
£15.95 is available from York Publishing Services on
01904 430 033.
Up until recently, presenting statistics about poverty was
not a straightforward exercise. According to the Child Poverty
Action Group (CPAG) in their 1997 publication Britain Divided,
'UK Governments of all political persuasions have resolutely
refused to tread the difficult path of adopting an official
definition of poverty.' This makes the present Government
the first to adopt an official definition of poverty and to
measure progress against recognised criteria.
In September 1999 the Government published a
report, Opportunity for All.
Tackling Poverty and Social Exclusion, an annual audit
on the state of poverty in England. In it ministers report
that one in three children are living in poverty today.
The statistical basis of that claim, the number of households
with incomes below the national average, inow includes milestones
in education, health, employment and housing as well as disposable
cash.
Educational indicators range from increasing the proportion
of seven-year-olds achieving Level 2 or above in Key Stage
1 tests for English and maths to boosting the number of 19-year-olds
gaining at least two A-Levels or their equivalent.
The report Opportunity for
All, Tackling Poverty and Social Exclusion, can be
downloaded from the Department of Social Security website
at
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/publications/dss/1999/poverty/pdfs/summary.pdf
Data released by the Department of Social Security in July
2000 revealed that between 1997 and 1999 the number of people
living in households on less than half average income rose
from 16.9% to 17.7%, as the incomes of the rich grew three
times as rapidly as those of the poor. The number of pensioners
living below the poverty line rose from 2 million to 2.4 million
- accounting for 80% of the increase. Thus a widening gap
between the rich and the poor pushed 500,000 more people below
the poverty line in Labour's first two years of office.
The DSS's figures showed an increase in children living in
poverty from 3 million to 3.4 million in Labour's first year
in office.
The richest 10% of the population saw their incomes rise
by 7.1% in the first two years of Labour, compared with 4.3%
in the last two years of the Tories. The poorest saw their
incomes rise by 1.9% in the same period.
What has improved:
- The number of children living in homes where nobody is
in work has fallen by more than 250,000 since the election.
In 1997 the figure was 17.9% but by spring 2000 this had
fallen to 15.8% with most of the fall happening in the last
12 months.
- There are one million more people in work than in 1997.
- The number of people sleeping rough rough fell by more
than 30% between June 1998 and June 2000.
- The number of permanent exclusions from school fell by
15% between 1997/98 and 1998.99.
The figures also show that the Government's objective of lifting
1.2 million children out of poverty by the next election is
still a long way off.
For more information see www.dwp.gov.uk
(Source DSS press release, 21 September
2000)
The existence of an underclass of the permanently poor is
a myth, a Left wing think tank claimed in August 2002, presenting
a direct challenge to assumptions at the heart of Labour policies
on welfare reform.
According to a pamphlet published by Catalyst, poverty is
normally temporary and most people who are poor will not stay
poor for life. This is at odds with labour strategy designed
to "offer a hand up not a hand out" to those in danger of
being permanently confined to the bottom of the social scale.
The Catalyst pamphlet, Poverty and the Welfare State: Dispelling
the myths, written by Paul Spicker is unusual because Catalyst
is an 'Old Labour' organisation. The existence of a permanent
economic underclass is more often challenged by thinkers on
the right who believe that market forces can be trusted to
lift individuals out of poverty.
The pamphlet quoted figures showing that 39% of children
were in the lowest part of the income distribution for at
least one year from 1996 to 1999, but that fewer than half
of those stayed in that poverty bracket for the whole four
years.
This contradicts the claim made by Alistair Darling, the
Work and Pensions Secretary, who is one of the principal architects
of the Government's welfare reforms. He said that a third
of Britain's children were born into poverty and that, "if
we do nothing, these children will not only be born poor,
but they will live poor and die poor".
Catalyst said: The Government believes there is a large hard
core of persistently poor people, that poverty is long term
and that it is passed from generation to generation. "This
is not consistent with the evidence."
Mr Spicker pointed out that 60% of the population spent at
least one year in the bottom 30% of the income distribution
between 1991 and 1999.
"People move through dependency, and most poverty is temporary.
Poverty is generally an experience for a part of people's
lives, not all of it. Few people under retirement age who
have low incomes now have been poor throughout the last five
years.
"Relatively few people who are unemployed stay unemployed
continuously. Most young people who are currently poor will
either obtain work, or settle down with someone else who is
not poor."
In a swipe at Government policy, he added that it was a mistake
to base policy on the assumption that a large underclass of
people living in long-term poverty existed.
"Systems that focus on 'the poor' are usually poor systems.
The obsession with targeting the dependent poor has added
to the complexity and the administrative problems of the benefits
systems.
"The best way to help the poor within the welfare site is
not to target programmes more carefully on the poor, but the
converse: to ensure that there is a general framework of resources,
services and opportunities which are adequate for people's
needs, and can be used by everyone."
(Telegraph, 28 August, 2002)
The Government's ambitious plan to eliminate child poverty
in a generation is "bound to fail" unless it creates a more
accurate definition of poverty, a leading thinktank warned
in August 2002.
Accusing ministers of "fighting poverty blind" because they
do not really know who is poor in modern Britain, the Social
Market foundation (SMF) proposes a better model for measuring
poverty and deprivation - and warns it is likely to show that
single parent families are getting a raw deal.
The reason is that current poverty measurement does not make
enough allowance for the costs of childcare - which a couple
can often manage without paying for, or the fact that "two
can live as cheaply as one", the SMF says.
"If the Government has no settled and adequate measure of
poverty, then it cannot reliably assess how its policies are
contributing to reducing poverty," writes analyst, Tom Startup.
He calls for a cross-party consensus on an 'official headline'
definition of the problem as a long-term contribution to tackling
it.
The labour Government has made repeated high-profile promises
since 1997 to eradicate child poverty by 2020; the stakes
are high. Ministerial claims to have taken 1 million of Britain's
4 million poor children out of poverty, thanks to the working
families tax credit and other measures are disputed.
Critics say the true figure is closer to 500,000, though
both are sustainable claims if different criteria are used.
Few dispute that inequality - not the same as poverty, Mr
Startup stresses - has grown sharply, making Britain one of
the more unequal industrialised societies.
Ministers admit that progress is harder than expected. But
in his IMF pamphlet, Poor Measures, Mr Startup argues that
no system used by nation states, the EU or international agencies
including the UN is flawless, and there is none on offer that
Britain should adopt.
Instead, Mr Startup adapts aspects of ideas pioneered in
Victorian Britain, modified more recently by Government statisticians
in Ireland, Australia, Sweden and the United States, to propose
a version of the "budget standards" methods.
The model decides what constitutes an adequate standard of
living in terms of a "basket of goods and services" - a return
to the Victorian starting point rather than defining poverty
as below 50%, or more recently 60%, of the average or median
family income.
This method has been widely used in Britain and across the
EU for 40 years. but the SMF points out that such methods
can create false impressions, such as during Ireland's 'Celtic
tiger' boom, when annual growth was 7% - 8%. Deprivation among
the poorest was eased, but because average incomes grew much
faster, it looked as if poverty was rapidly increasing.
In fact, those who were deemed consistently poor, suffering
both low incomes and "substantial deprivation" in being unable
to afford key necessities like proper housing, were later
said to have fallen from 14.9% to 9.9% in the mid-1990s.
Britain has had some of the same problems and researchers
have established that having less than 60% of the median income
does not mean a family is deprived in as many as 70% of cases.
Some families deliberately fulfil their children's needs
at the expense of their own; others forgo necessities for
'luxuries' like drink and cigarettes.
The poverty minister Malcolm Wicks welcomed the SMF proposal
as a contribution to the debate. Mr Darling's four options
for a fresh approach last April includes two which are within
striking distance of the SMF: a core set of indicators of
"consistent poverty", and a headline measure of that poverty,
which would combine low income with signs of material deprivation
- e.g. lack of a warm coat.
Though it is impossible to predict whether a new method would
reveal more or less overall poverty, Mr Startup suggests the
situation might be much the same for two-parent families,
but seriously worse for single-parent ones.
(Guardian, 27 August 2002)
For many better-off earners, more money would make little
difference. But it has got harder to be poor.
According to figures from the Office of National Statistics,
in 2001 the top 25% of full-time workers were earning more
than £580 a week, equivalent to over £30,000 annually.
That was more than 130% of the average weekly wage, against
117% in 1982.
Meanwhile Inland Revenue statistics show the number of people
earning more than £100,000 a year has jumped by almost
50% in just four years, to about 326,000, out of 28.5 million
in employment.
In 2001, half the British full-time workforce was earning
less than £19,000 a year - equivalent to 83% of average
weekly pay. Two decades ago their share was as high as 90%.
The bottom tenth of full-timers have seen their cut of average
weekly earnings drop from less than 60% to less than 46%.
Mr Paul Gregg, an economist at Bristol University, says pay
inequality accelerated fastest in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Factors included cuts in higher rate tax, a decline in the
power of unions and an increase in the economic value of highly
trained professionals. Since then, "there has been a sharp
slowdown in inequality, but no overall decline".
Disparities in household incomes have continued to accelerate
as a result of social change. The trend for women to combine
full-time work with motherhood has lifted the joint income
of professional couples.
But more single mothers meant that "by 1996 there were three
times as many households with no work as in 1989". Almost
4 million out of 13 million live in poverty, defined as less
than 60% of median income.
Professor Andrew Oswald, an economist at Warwick University,
believes many Britons have reached a level of affluence where
further material success - even when measured against one's
peers' achievements - no longer greatly improves well being.
Long hours and, particularly in the south-east, long commutes,
are cited in surveys as causes of unhappiness.
The poor, meanwhile, are left gazing through a barred window
of deprivation at vistas of unattainable prosperity.
"It is harder to be poor these days," says Professor Carl
Chinn, a historian at Birmingham University. "A few generations
ago most people were poor. Now they are in a minority, constantly
exposed to images of a better lifestyle and dehumanised by
terms like 'underclass'."
(Financial Times, 20 August 2002)
Nearly one in 10 Britons has experienced conditions of "absolute
poverty" without basic human necessities such as enough food,
safe drinking water and proper sanitation according to a report
from Bristol and London University. The report is the first
to measure poverty scientifically using the United Nations
definition, which defines absolute poverty as a shortage of
food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health,
shelter, education and information.
(Independent, 9 March 2001)
A unique study of London's social geography, published at
the end of December 2000, reveals that 100 years of policy
initiatives have failed to shift the boundaries that divide
the rich from the poor, or to close the gap between them.
By comparing modern London with "maps" of poverty made in
the city more that a century ago, researchers from the universities
of Leeds, Bristol and Cardiff have demonstrated the extent
to which the divisions between London's social classes have
remained rigid.
(Independent, 22 December 2000)
In April 2000 the Government announcced that the poverty
index, which is used to target regeneration funds at the poorest
areas, was to be altered. The new index, compiled by academics
at Oxford University, uses six indicators: income, work, health,
education, housing and geographical access to services and
transport, rather than the 12 used in the previous index.
Rural areas are set to gain more funding while many deprived
inner city areas will lose hundreds of millions of pounds
of Government funding because the new poverty league table
has been based on different criteria.
Under the new rankings, only six London boroughs are in the
top 20 and only 13 rank among the top 65, which together receive
80% of all single regeneration budget funding which was worth
£16 billion over the past four years. A high ranking
on the index is also a factor in the bidding process for the
new deal for communities. London authorities and metropolitan
councils argue that the new index fails to recognise that
cities have a mixed pattern of affluent areas and small pockets
of severe deprivation. But rural authorities that benefited
have welcomed the changes.
The number of people living in poverty - defined as below
half average income level (adjusted for family size, after
housing costs) - has risen from five to 14 million - or a
quarter of the population since 1979. As the table below
shows poverty among adults is more common for women than for
men; children are even more likely to be in a poor household.
Unemployed households are the most likely to be poor; followed
by lone parent families; the greatest number of the poor continue
to be the elderly.
| The bottom
line: People in poverty by personal, economic
and family status.1996-7,UK |
| |
Total Number |
Proportion Poor |
Number in Poverty |
| Adult women |
22.2m |
24% |
5.3m |
| Children |
13.0 |
35% |
4.5m |
| Adult men |
21.1m |
20% |
4.2m |
| Elderly |
9.8m |
31% |
3.0m |
| Lone parent family |
4.3m |
63% |
2.9m |
| Unemployed |
4.6m |
78% |
2.3m |
| All |
|
25% |
14.1m |
Note: Poverty defined as
below 50% average income after housing costs
Source: Department of Social Security,1998 |
(David Piachaud, Guardian, 1 September
1999)
A study commissioned by the Department of Health has found
that Britain is still riven by gaps between rich and poor.
The study by the Smith Institute has found economic opportunities
for the most disadvantaged 30-year-olds are as poor today
as they were for their parents. The "map of inequality" is
based on two tracking studies of 16,000 people born in 1958
and 1970.
The opportunity gap between the two generations has remained
the same even though the parents of those born in 1970 were
better educated.
The report's authors conclude: "The figures demonstrate convincingly
that family social class and parents' educational level at
the time our respondents were born were critically important
factors in determining what was going to happen to them 16
years later."
The study found that female graduates are eight times more
likely to have full-time jobs and that the average gap in
educational achievement between daughters of professional
fathers and unskilled fathers has remained the same. It found
men born in 1970 who have no qualifications are 12 times more
likely than those with degrees to be jobless at the age of
26. Those with jobs lived on pay considerably lower than the
children of professional parents.
(Independent, 12 July 2000)
More children are living in poverty in Britain than in any
other European Union country except Italy, with numbers having
trebled in 20 years, according to Unicef, the United Nations
children's agency. In a report published in June 2000 Britain
came 20th out of 23 countries in a league table of relative
poverty.
The United States was second from the bottom, despite being
among the wealthiest of nations.
Critics of the findings questioned Unicef's measure of poverty.
It defined as poor families on incomes less than half their
national average.
Alistair Darling, the Social Security Secretary, said the
Unicef figures were based on 1995 data, before Labour came
to power.
(Telegraph, 14 June 2000)
The gap between the rich and the poor in Britain continued
to grow right through the 1990s, according to the Office of
National Statistics (ONS) report on social inequalities published
in May 2000. The report highlights the scale of the social
justice problem with April 1998 figures showing that about
three million children were still living below the poverty
line in families with incomes of less than 60% of the median
- the middle value - income. The report is a first for the
ONS and is a mark of a new official recognition of the need
to tackle social exclusion.
The report shows that the pay gap between men and women remains
as wide as ever. Average gross annual earnings for April 1999
show that men in full time jobs earned about £23,000
a year - 42% more than the average £16,000 a year earned
by women in full-time work.
There has been a rapid expansion in the number of young women
in further and higher education from 1 million in 1970 to
about 2.5 million by 1998.
Poverty and class differences are still an important influence
on educational attainment. The report says that high levels
of children eligible for free school meals generally correspond
with lower GCSE attainment levels.
When it comes to social class the differences are even more
striking. In 1998, only a fifth of those whose parents were
in unskilled manual jobs achieved five GCSE passes at grades
A to C. In contrast, more than two-thirds of children of the
professional and managerial classes got five GCSEs at this
standard.
Educational success is also linked to ethnic background but
not always in a straightforward way. The 1998 figures show
that children from Indian families are outperforming white
children in exams. But black, Pakistani and Bangladeshi pupils
do less well - though the latter appear to be improving the
most rapidly with the proportion getting five GCSEs more than
doubling from 14% in 1992 to 33% in 1998.
8% of all boys and 5% of all girls received no graded GCSEs
or their equivalents . Men without qualifications are four
times more likely to be unemployed in 1999 than those who
had a degree education.
The number of university students trebled from 620,000 in
1971 to almost 2 million in 1998, mostly resulting from the
rising number of women entering higher education. Thirty years
ago, 33% of university students were women; now there are
more women than men.
(Guardian, 11 May 2000)
The number of people in Britain classified as very poor has
increased by half a million since 1997 when Labour came to
power, according to a study published by the Joseph Rowntree
Foundation in December 2000. The number of people living in
households with less than 40% of the average income is now
8,750,000. It also reveals an increase in the number of people
living below the poverty line - defined as less than half
the national average income - to 14,250,000 over the past
two years. This is one million more than in the early 1990s
and more than double the number of the early 1980s.
The report was complied by the New Policy Institute and is
the third in a series of annual publications used to monitor
the Government's success in improving the life of the poor.
It is independent and uses a wider set of figures than the
Government's own poverty audit. Fifty indicators of poverty
are used in the report out of which only seventeen improved
in the last year.
The figures were compiled before the Government initiatives
such as the working families tax credit came into effect.
The numbers of poor children have failed to drop. In 1998
there were 4.5 million children in households classified as
poor - a threefold rise in the past 20 years.
For the Government to reach its target of eradicating child
poverty by 2020 there will have to be a net reduction of children
in poor households of more than 200,000 each year.
According to the study educational standards are improving
and the number of school exclusions falling.
(The Times, 11 December 2000)
Monitoring Poverty and Social Exclusion
is compiled by the New Policy Institute and published
by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. The report is available
at www.jrf.org.uk
Ministers are on course to meet their target of taking a
million children out of poverty by 2004, according to research.
But they will struggle to meet their long-term target of halving
child poverty by 2010, a study for the Josph Rowntree Foundation
says.
Poverty in Britain: The impact of Government policy since
1997 by Holly Sutherland, Tom Sefton and David Piachaud is
available at www.jrf.org.uk
(TES, 17 October 2003)
Social mobility has fallen in the UK over the past 40 years
and a key cause, paradoxically, has been the rise of higher
education, according to a study from the London School of
Economics.
The finding that the less well-off have a reduced chance
of climbing the social ladder than those of the previous generation
comes despite the widespread belief that wider educational
opportunities will benefit young people of all backgrounds.
The study suggests it does so - but the children of better-off
parents still gain more than the children of less well-off,
producing a fall in social mobility.
The findings make discouraging reading for the Government
which aims to increase the social mobility of the less well-off
by increasing to 50% the proportion of young people who gain
a degree.
The LSE's Centre for Economic Performance looked at the outcomes
for children born in 1958 and 1970 - the generations that
gained from the big expansion in higher education in the 1970s
and the 1980s.
Over the same period, income inequality widened dramatically
so that the proportion of children living below the poverty
line at age 16 rose from 6% to 10% - a proportion that rose
further in the 1980s.
The study found that the incomes achieved by those born in
1970 were determined to a significantly higher extent by the
income of their parents than was the case for those born in
1958. "It is clear from these figures that economic mobility
between generations has fallen in the UK in the last 40 years,"
the study says.
Education explains about a third of the increase in immobility,
with the implication "that those who took advantage of the
expansion in university places came in general from higher
social backgrounds". The research also found that there was
less mobility among parents at the top of the incomes table
than those at the bottom.
For a copy of the research contact the Centre for Economic
Performance on 020 7955 6963.
(Financial Times, 17 June 2002)
The Government's target of reducing child poverty by a quarter
by 2004/5 risks making the most deprived children worse off,
according to research released in July 2002.
The Institute for Social and Economic Research study argues
that pressure to meet the Government's target could lead to
administrators "creaming" money or services from the poorest
to help borderline families rise above the poverty line. "By
redistributing benefits or services away from the very poorest
(who are so far below the poverty line that they are likely
to stay poor anyhow) to those just below the poverty line,
administrators can improve the poverty rate, even while deepening
the deprivation of the worst off - which is surely not a socially
desirable outcome," the report says.
The study is the latest blow to the Government's unprecedented
drive to tackle child poverty.
A study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development published in 2001 showed that the UK has one of
the strongest links between social deprivation and educational
underachievement.
In April 2002, official figures showed that fewer than half
a million children had been lifted out of poverty during the
Labour Party's first four years in office.
That leaves the party with an uphill struggle if it is to
meet its target by 2005. Eradicating child poverty altogether,
which ministers have promised to achieve by 2020, will prove
even more difficult if it manages to remain in office that
long.
Part of the problem is that poverty is measured on a relative
rather than an absolute basis. For example, Mike Brewer and
Alissa Goodman of the Institute for Fiscal Studies point out
that if average incomes had not risen since 1997, then Labour
would be able to claim to have helped 1.3 million children
escape poverty.
Critics also claim that Gordon Brown has made life more difficult
for himself by relying to a large extent on tax credits to
alleviate poverty. It is argued that many of those who
should benefit from Mr Brown's initiative have not done so
because they do not understand the tax system or have not
been made aware of the help on offer.
(TES, 21 June 2002)
A fifth of all children in Britain now live in a one-parent
family. The figure represents a rise from 12% in 1981 with
Britain now having the largest proportion of single parents
in Europe.
In Belgium and Germany the figure is 14%, in France 13%,
12% in Ireland and Austria, 10% in Holland and Luxembourg,
9% in Portugal, 8% in Italy and 6% in Spain.
The figures come from the Office for National Statistics.
(Telegraph, 1 August 2002)
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