Tell me more about the poverty line of £288 p.w.

[grumpyvamps]

Yesterday's Times said this was the poverty line (2 adults and 2 dcs) after housing and tax costs. Does this mean what's left for food, petrol, insurance etc? After rent and utilities?

God, I would think us rich if we had £100 a week left after housing and tax costs!

I thiink it would be after rent biut not after utilities

I think from that you have to pay for utilities, food, car costs, insurances, everything but rent

I believe the £288/week refers to income after tax for a family of 2 adults and 2 children. It's calculated as 60% of average household income which is currently in the £30-£35k area. So £288/week after tax would be about right.

eh? I get less than that after tax, before rent and I have more dc... does that mean i am poverty line then? What exactly does that mean? I don't feel poverty line!

We have around that amount after tax but before everything else goes out and we have 3 DC. We don't feel poor either, a lot probably depends on your cost of living. Plus we do get tax credits etc.

Usually, in the UK, poverty is defined as 60% of the median income (which is the income that the someone exactly halfway up the range of incomes gets...). So as incomes change, the definition of what poverty is changes. It isn't an absolute measure, defined by ideas of what someone needs, or what something costs. It is a relative measure, pegged to the average salary.

I believe 'income' also covers unearned income such as that from tax-credits etc. The point of the articles I've read being that there are now more children officially living 'in poverty' (using the 60% definition) in working households than there are in households where everyone is unemployed. Which is back to the old chestnut of whether unemployment has been made (accidentally one assumes) a more financially attractive option than paid employment.

I was including tax credits... actually I have just worked it out and we are slightly over that including tax credits etc, a few pounds anyway. However we have more dc, I am genuinly shocked that this is considered poverty! We are certainly not rich but we have enough (obviously we would all like more!). What do others think? I think of poverty as not being able to feed children and so on but we manage all that...

That figure is nonsense. We are middle incomers and we have just over a 1/3 of that figure left after tax and housing costs and we live in a small property.

In the same article it said that the Canadian Government had recently complied their own list which included the following:

Do you eat fresh fruit and vegetables every day? (No)

Are you able to replace broken household appliances e.g toaster or vacuum? (No)

Do you have a hobby? (No)

Therefore not only are we poor by Canadian standards I reckon half the country is too!

Why does David Cameron think that we are rolling in it then?

If the measure is just the 60% of average household income, this seems a bit of a crude measure. What if overnight half the country became millionaires, or if we had a major depression and wages were slashed massively? Potentially somebody earning a well above average salary could be classed as below the poverty line by having lots of children.

To my mind poverty is an absolute thing ie. not being able to eat, feed, clothe yourselves and heat your house, rather than being a relative thing depending on how much money other people have.

By that standard we spent years below the poverty line yet still managing to eat well, go on holiday and save money...

As WilfShelf said, 'poverty' is defined purely numerically relative to the median income (not average as I said earlier). But we all know that there is a big difference in costs of living in different areas - and what's 'an essential' in some households is 'a luxury' in others.

I've seen people on MN this week describing living on my income (which I previously thought of as rather generous) as 'struggling to get by'. So it's all relative.

I agree daisy, although I suppose it is used as a barometer more than a fact IYSWIM, if X many people fall under the poverty line then thre are certain actions required/consequences etc.

@thedollshouse. It's after tax but before housing costs.

Surely if it's a relative figure then it is basically impossible to eradicate poverty then?

I don't get that but yes moneys tight but would not class myself as living in poverty though aware sone people might class themselves as that if had my lifestyle .Guess it's all related to what your use to mangeing on

But riven, we use the heating - not much but we certainly aren't cold! My dc have new clothes, again not many but enough of a mix and match wardrobe that no=one really notices and the clothes fit the season, they all have their hobbies...again done on a budget.

I agree that my impression of poverty is as you describe it above riven.

We only heat one room too. I have a friend who does the same. Last winter I wasn't working and it was hell being at home in the cold. I'm working now so I get to be warm

But you're right, Riven. That's not proper povery. There are people who live in REAL poverty.

I am a very good charity /car boot shopper!

I love car boot sales.

A much better measure of poverty are the Breadline Britain surveys which were update in 1999 (Poverty and Social Exclusion (PSE) Survey of Britain funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation - also known as the Millenium Poverty and Social Exclusion Survey).

They base the poverty measures on what people deem to be necessities and then whether they can afford those things (taking into account can afford but don't want). For something to be seen as a necessity 50% or more of the people surveyed had to think that it was a necessity.

Deprivation was then calculated based on how many necessary items someone couldn't afford. The necessities were also split between adult and children's necessities so that child poverty could be accurately calculated.

What is especially fascinating is the change in perceptions of what constitutes a necessity between the original surveys in the 80's and the millenium survey (I think for example a TV made it into the 1999 survey but was not in the 80's one).

Link to the PSE [http://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/files/jrf/185935128x.pdf here]. List of adult necessities is on page 14, kids on page 34.