How would you define child poverty?

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

Story here. Currently poverty is defined as 60% of the median income. If average earnings go up, more people are defined as poor. If they go down, fewer people are defined as poor. For the people defined as poor and their children, nothing has materially changed either way.

IDS is planning to widen the definition from the purely monetary to include things like long-term unemployment and drug addiction. Good idea?

I don't know, I assume long-term unemployed are in poverty, but my definition of long-term in an unemployment crisis is different to the Government's. Theirs definition of long-term unemployed is 6 months out of work, no matter what the circumstances or reasons for that are. Mine right now, given how hard it is to get a job, is 12 months+ out of work.

I think adding extra descriptors could be a hood thing, if done sensibly. The poorest people I know are trying to survive on less than 25% of median income...

I think the weakness in the monetary definition is that you can't eradicate poverty by using an average income test alone. The poverty line net household income is currently £12,000/year. If, for the sake of argument via benefits etc, we got to a stage where no household's income was below that any more, the median would automatically increase and we'd have a new group of people classed as poor...

25% of median net household income would be £5,000/year btw. That assumes a household of 2 adults, 2 children. If you know people trying to survive on that, wouldn't they qualify for benefits?

No, because they no longer work enough hours! One is a SAHM because her DC is on the Autistic Spectrum in the process of a diagnosis, her DP works PT as he has been put on 'short hours' or face redundancy, since April they no longer qualify for TC 's as he is only doing 20 he's and can't find other work. It's crap, but they're not alone locally, plenty of others here on 'short hours' and not making the cut for TC's any more!

I think IDS is right to some extent. I don't think the problem can be solved just by throwing more money at it since poverty can be poverty of aspiration. Sure people need a roof over their heads and food but if you are a family and nobody is in work then you will be getting housing benefit, income support or jobseekers, child tax credits, child benefit, free school meals and various other satellite benefits and if you are on low pay you get it topped up by working tax credits.

It is unreasonable to expect a family with 5 kids where nobody works to have the same income as a family with 2 kids where both parents work 50 hour weeks. And it shouldn't be up to the state to "equalise" this as this just disincentivizes going out to work as why would anyone work when they can have the same lifestyle on benefits?

The current rules for defining poverty are a joke and have been for some time. Only today there?s a story on the BBC website about how 300,000 children have been ?lifted? from poverty. The full story is here. The crucial sentence is this one?

The measure is based on median incomes - which also went down.

In a nutshell, the recession has made the average person in this country a bit poorer, this has meant that the families of 300,000 children aren?t as far behind the average as they used to be.

Brilliant. We?ve just proved that we can cure this whole poverty thing at a stroke by impoverishing everyone to the same level of wealth as that enjoyed within a basket case third world country.

If IDS is going to address this problem, a new definition of poverty needs to be devised. I would argue that intergenerational workless households, parental unemployment, drug and drink dependant parents, parental/role model absenteeism, number of cohabiting siblings, quality of diet, local crime rate, quality of education, quality and suitability of housing and general health should all, at the very least, be factored into a definition of poverty somewhere along with a straight forward totalling of all benefits.

I'd class poverty as parents/children going without food because it's either eating, or paying for heating. I think defining it as 60% below the median is incorrect. Some areas of the UK do earn less then others, Londoners earn far more then those in Middlesborough for example.

The concept of regional relative poverty is a whole can of worms I'd have thought

It doesn't really work with national poverty though. There should be a more accurate measure. I'd say the number of children who receive free school meals is better.

Housing is a lot cheaper in the NE than London. This going back about 6-8 years, but a friend was renting a 3 bed house for £70 a week somewhere near Middlesborough. You'd have been lucky to get bed-sit in the cheaper areas of London for that amount.

I don't think it should be measured as a percentage of a national median. Maybe the amount left after taking off fixed expenses? Even then there are many factors that affect non-fixed living expenses.

That sounds better, Totem. Living expenses = housing, gas, electricity, water, council tax, TV licence? Sky etc shouldn't be included, nor should food as people eat very differently.

I think it is almost impossible to measure.

For example, if you have 2 families, with 2 kids.

Family 1, dad works and earns £30k after tax. Mum is a SAHM. They don't get any benefits other than child benefit but their rent is £16k per year (2 bed flat in London). They don't get free school meals and they have to pay council tax etc.

Family 2, neither parent works. They live in social housing, rent is £5200 per year. They get jobseekers allowance, housing benefit (which pays the rent), child tax credits, child benefit, council tax benefit, free school meals etc.

So, the couple not in work may actually end up better off than the family with one earner because there is so much difference in the cost of housing. However, the second family would be classed as "in poverty" for some reason.

Family 1 would probably get housing benefit top up with that income and rent.

OTOH, if family 2 is in receipt of FSMs that could make them eligible for other concessions and grants that reduce their outgoings.

If you disregard the portion of income that's spent on rent, a working family has more money coming in than a comparable non working family. It's the outgoings that make the difference and this varies from area to area.

For example, if you have children at secondary school and the school is a bus ride away, in some areas being on FSMs would entitle the children to a free bus pass. They might also get a uniform grant(I don't know if this is national or down to the LEA).

Not an issue in London as all school children 11+ get an Oyster card that gives them free bus travel.

I think poverty is borne of ignorance sometimes. Lack of knowledge REALLY affects those on smaller incomes. I am on a tiny income but have some knowledge of what I am entitled to as well as the skills needed to find free things when I have to.

A family with a parent who cannot read well will suffer more than I will even if we have the same income.

There are two levels of poverty:

A "survival" level, which includes food, heating, adequate housing - that allows people to stay alive and healthy. There are people in the UK who fall even below this level - look at the food banks springing up across the country, like third-world conditions. No wonder there were riots.

A relative poverty level, which the 60% of median income level attempts to measure, and relates to equality. This is important for community cohesion, trust, civil participation, and a huge range of other things like crime levels.

The Median income is the income of the person in the middle. It will not change as people come out of relative poverty.

The first thing must be to take people above "survival" poverty. Then to gradually lift people until none are below 60% of the middle person.

No. Poverty is about the material conditions of your life, and while there are other ways of being disadvantaged aside from having a low income, this is an ideologically motivated bastardisation of a word in order to imply that money doesn't matter, or matters less.

Or in other words, trivial matters like raising the minimum wage would not help the poor, this is saying, because POVERTY IS DEEPER THAN THAT, ie, their fault, ie let's do fuck all about actual money and who has it and whether or not that's fair.

state education and no second home

Instead of the median (the middle person) we should look at using the mean - the true average, where everyone's income is added up and then divided by the total number of people.

This is better because it will show if, for example, the super-rich have raided 99% of the people, leaving third world conditions for the majority, and obscene wealth for the 1%.

Poverty is purely about money, actually.

Unless you go for all out communism. Interesting how often the Tories come up with communist policies. Like the one about getting everyone to live on benefits and work for free on workfare.

The advantage of using the traditional definition is that it provides reliable, comparable data that can be analysed by demographic groups. The current definition is universally accepted and used for comparison between nations. Personally, I'm always suspicious of politicians changing statistical concepts/ methods as it suggest they're trying to massage the figures.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation have some fantastic, thought provoking resources that provide indicators of poverty.

It's comparable and I don't think anyone's suggesting abandoning the 60% test. However, it's clearly a moving goal-post. If 300,000 have dropped out of poverty due to reasons of mathematics rather than due to any real improvement in their circumstances, what other tests could be used to assess how many need help?

But the government will claim that 300,000 families have been brought out of poverty because they have done X,Y and Z. The general public don't understand what poverty actually means, to the average 'Joe' on the street, poverty could mean no heating, no food, no carpets etc. The average 'Joe' will be chuffed to bits with the government. Free school meals and housing benefit should be used as a measure of assessing help, not a classification that people don't understand.

There is a whole episode of the West Wing on roughly this issue.

I agree that the current system is bonkers. You can reduce poverty using this method (though I agree, not eradicate). Broadly if incomes cluster closer to the centre, there will be a smaller 'tail' of people at below 60% of the median. However, it is bonkers that the number of people in poverty then fluctuates with the fortunes of the economy as a whole.

I am not a Tory by any means, but I do actually have some respect for them for not just taking the good news story that poverty fell and actually coming out to talk about this.

I am not sure how you do measure poverty accurately though.

but poverty is relative. It is something quite different to not have a fridge in 2012 to 1932, it is quite different to live on £12k a year in 2012 to 1982.
Of course whether people are in poverty or not changes as in context. It is stupid to think you can pick a number and go "5634! THAT is poverty."

Definitions of relative poverty - at least when they are not supplemented by some estimate of absolute poverty - are are almost bound to lead to problems. They can give absurd results and can distort government policies.

To illustrate with an extreme example, suppose 1% of the population were multi millionaires and the other 99% were on the poverty line, subsisting on wages clustered in a narrow band around £1 a day.

The median wage (i.e. such that half earn below as above it) it essentially £1 a day. No one earns less than 60% of this. So the poverty rate in such a society is zero - QED. Except that by any common sense understanding of poverty, the rate is 99%.

Of course the real world (at least in the affluent West) is not anything like as stark as this. However, such definitions do lead to governments footling around with the figures, in order to raise people from below to above an arbitrarily defined line. After which they proudly claim to have lifted x number of people "out of poverty", whether or not those lucky people have really noticed any difference.