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?

"But the government will claim that 300,000 families have been brought out of poverty"

They're actually doing the opposite. They're the ones pointing out the anomaly

The 60% figure isn't an indicator of how many need help (as far as I know). You could take what's called a budget standard approach (which I think was the approach used by Rowntree at the start of the 20th century). Work out what a family's 'necessities' are, calculate the cost if the family's income doesn't meet these necessities they are living in poverty. It's not a perfect measure either but it could be used to assess falling living standards alongside other statistical indicators.

The trouble with including drug-addiction, for example, in the measure of poverty is that you're in danger of mixing up the cause of poverty with the effects of poverty which makes it difficult to draw conclusions about causality from data IYSWIM.

The trouble with including drug-addiction, for example, in the measure of poverty is that you're in danger of mixing up the cause of poverty with the effects

It allows you to differentiate between the deserving and the undeserving poor though.

It is statistically possible to remove everyone from relative poverty see point 2 of this list

Good points mammabrussels

futzing about with complaints about "what we really meeeeeean by poverty" is just a way of wriggling out of taking responsibility for doing something about it.

I mean there will be the odd anomaly, probably, but who cares? the nature of statistics is that they are usually flawed attempts to access big picture truths out of aggregates of facts and figures. Complaining about the fuzzy edges doesn't mean anything really, except an unwillingness to take responsibility.

Debt appears to be a real confounding figure in this issue as in other 'are benefits enough' debates. What about families where the income should be enough but the family is still skint and doing without essentials because of debts?

I do think if a figure is put on it then it should be one after housing so instead of it being £12,000 per year then it should be (as an example) £7,500 after housing costs for an appropriate sized home.

We can all point to families on fat salaries who are 'skint' because they've taken on too much debt. With the legitimate option of bankruptcy to clear the slate, I don't think we should be putting state money into paying off people's debts.

Bullshit to that, some long term unemployed are better off then the working.

MammaBrussels It is statistically possible to remove everyone from relative poverty see point 2 of this list

The article reads, "it is still mathematically possible for every household to be moved from below 60 per cent of the median to above without the median moving... It is only when incomes increase above 100 per cent that the median shifts."

But what we all want is for our incomes to increase above 100%. This is what growth in the economy is. If we want our incomes to stay at 100% or even fall back, we need to engineer either economic stagnation or a recession.

MrPants do you mean we want our incomes to increase above 100% of the median income (which is what, I think, the article refers to) or 100% of our current income level (i.e. not fall)?

Arguing that income isn't the best measure of poverty is surreal.

It's like saying that riches aren't a good measure of wealth or that illness isn't a good way of measuring health.

By all means, we should measure drug dependency, long-term unemployment and family breakdown. But those aren't measures of poverty and don't always correlate with it. They're measures of drug dependency, long-term unemployment and family breakdown!

It's hard to avoid the conclusion this attempt to redefine poverty is intended to mask falling incomes and rising inequality.

POVERTY in Britain. When parents and children cant afford to have 3 meals aday;or go properly clothed to school. I dont think ha;f the average wage is a bad rough guide