The number of children living in poverty in the UK has jumped by 200,000 in a year, according to the latest official data.
There were 3.9 million children living in “relative poverty” in 2014-15, up from 3.7 million a year earlier, the figures from the Department for Work and Pensions show.
It was the first increase, when housing costs were included, since 2011-12. An individual is considered to be in relative poverty if their household income is less than 60% of median income.
Inequality falls in a recession. Inequality increases in the recovery from a recession. the UK is recovering from recession – such a shock, isn’t it?
Tim, do you know of anywhere I can find information about the evolution of absolute living standards for the working class in the UK?
Whatever I search for I always end up with information about relative ‘poverty’.
The Graun ought to be pleased by Brexit at that rate – should decrease inequality by putting a load of lawyers, accountants and bankers out of work.
It really is a sort of Magic Tree for Progressives. In a recession, they pluck the fruits of real poverty; in a recovery, those of relative poverty. They are never out of work and the perpetual grievance machinery grinds on.
Do they add in to income the market discount that social housing residents get on their rent. A two bed flat in in central London is about an £18,000 discount (after tax).
I don’t know of a one stop shop, no.
I can think of a way of constructing it though. Have a look at what the inflation basket is. CPI or RPI, won’t make much difference.
The thought here is that the basket of what we measure to calculate inflation changes. And it’s always being adjusted so as to at least try and reflect what the “average” household is actually buying. So, black and white TVs are no longer in the index, maybe even CRTs aren’t, while flat screens and internet access are.
I’ve not looked to see whether there’s an historical record of what the CPI basket is but if you contact ONS they would certainly be able to point you in the right direction. They might even have (the Americans do, a bit) different baskets for different income quintiles or deciles.
Sorry that’s a rather technical answer and there may well be a better one.
“the UK is entering a recession”
there, fixed that for you
But FREEDOM!
‘The number of children living in poverty in the UK has jumped by 200,000 in a year, according to the latest official data.’
SJW ninja mind tricks.
Children are not in the economy, hence they cannot be in poverty. Talk about the parents. Quit using children as a prop.
And quit wasting taxpayer money on ‘the latest official data.’ Spend money on controlling the borders, for example, which is your actual damn job.
Zorro-If you should find yourself starving to death during the “recession” drop us a line before you croak. Somebody on here might want to know what happened to you.
The whole house of worldwide Keynesian/statist/socialist cards is coming down sooner or later. No way to duck it.
You should stock up on max-strength valium now or the fit of vapours a world crash will give you could prove to be fatal.
I shall survive on the intoxicating fumes of FREEDOM
The rest of us have been doing that for years.
LE
“the UK is entering a recession”
If so, it has nothing to do with the referendum result. And, anyway, I know you can do a lot better than this. I usually disagree with you, but you often make interesting points.
It would be nigh impossible in the UK to segregate genuine poverty ( not enough for basics ) from voluntary poverty ( where you have enough, but waste it on drink and gambling so the basics don’t get covered ).
Seebohm Rowntree studied this a lot back in the days of steam – the second group being quite a bit bigger than the first.
“An individual is considered to be in relative poverty if their household income is less than 60% of median income.”
Which, by definition, means that povety is impossible to eliminate (unless the entire population has exactly the same income).
Also, by that definition, I’ve been in poverty for all but one year of my entire life.
Being the Grauniad it cannot even get its twisted definitions right. The lefty definition of relative poverty is ““An individual is considered to be in relative poverty if their household income is less than 60% of median income *adjusted for household size*”. You are not in relative poverty if you are a single wage-earner with an income 59% of that of the median several-person household.
Theophrastus where do you get the idea that it has nothing to do with Brexit? Most economic forecasters are busy announcing that they now forecast a recession in 2017 explicitly because of the referendum result.
“Almost three quarters of respondents to a Bloomberg survey conducted after Britain voted to leave the European Union say the economy will slip into a recession for the first time since 2009”
this is everyone from the EIU, IMF, the big banks, individuals like El-Erian, etc.
of course everyone can be wrong but it’s not hard to understand why Brexit is likely to cause a recession – firms and consumers are worried, some firms are seeing orders fall, others are looking at relocating, that’s all it takes to create a recession, a coordinated downturn in demand from households and firms. Here’s a consumer survey:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-29/u-k-consumers-brace-for-brexit-hit-as-concern-grows-for-economy
jgh: “Which, by definition, means that povety is impossible to eliminate (unless the entire population has exactly the same income).”
No – it’s perfectly possible to have a distribution chopped off at the left hand side that would eliminate relative poverty under this definition. Working Tax Credits were tuned to try to achieve this, and a generous citizens’ income would work too.
RiND: No, it’s median income, by definition that means 50% of all incomes are below median income, and 50% are above median income. That’s what median means. The value at which exactly half are below that value and exactly half are above that value.
@ RiND
Yes, it *is* perfectly possible to legislate an income distribution that theoretically eliminates “child poverty”. Which is why Honecker built a wall to prevent East germans fleeing to the west.
jgh
Median is not the same as mean (aka what most people understand by ‘average’) Median is just whatever income is the middle value of the ranked series.
If, out of 100 incomes the 50th is 20,000, then 60% of that would be 12,000 so if all 50 of the lowest incomes are between 12,001 and 20,000 there is no ‘poverty’.