Exploring poverty gaps among children in the UK

"The purpose of this paper is to use poverty gap analysis to explore the depth of poverty experienced by children of low-income families in the UK. Measures set out in the Child Poverty Act1 and in the National Child Poverty Strategy2 are based on poverty headcounts, i.e. you are either below or above a certain poverty threshold. The most commonly used measure is the 60 per cent relative poverty measure, defined as individuals living in households with incomes below 60 per cent of the median income. The National Strategy, published in April 2011, introduces a new measure on severe poverty, defined as individuals living in households experiencing material deprivation and with incomes below 50 per cent of the median income. The head count does not distinguish between those with incomes just below the poverty line and those deeper in poverty. Policies which improve incomes for those at the bottom of the income distribution will not lead to a fall in measured income poverty, unless incomes are raised sufficiently to cross the chosen poverty threshold, and yet reducing these families’ depth of poverty is highly likely to improve living standards. This paper supplements the headcount measures with analysis of the ‘poverty gap’ for UK children. The poverty gap measures ‘How poor are the poor’ i.e. the extent of poverty for those who are below the relative poverty threshold. With this measure, an improvement in incomes for those in poverty which is not sufficient for them to escape poverty, is nevertheless captured as a drop in measured poverty. In practice, for each poor individual we measure the poverty gap by calculating the shortfall in their income from the poverty line, and expressing this as a percentage of the poverty line. For example, if the poverty line was 100 and the income was 25 then the poverty gap would be 75 per cent (100 minus 25 equals 75; 75 divided by 100 is 75 per cent). A poverty gap of 75 per cent can be interpreted as an income that is 75 per cent below the poverty line" - page 1

Better Off Working? Work, Poverty And Benefit Cycling

A study of the work experiences of a group of low-skilled workers over five years. Concern has been growing about the extent to which paid work is an effective route out of poverty and the extent of churning between work and benefits that can result in recurrent poverty. Using both interview and survey data, this report examines work pathways, experiences of retention and progression, and feelings of financial strain among a group of lone parents and former long-term unemployed people who have entered work. The report covers: • people’s perceptions of poverty and financial strain and how this relates to their movements in and out of work; • people’s trajectories in work and the factors facilitating or constraining work retention; • the relationship between work trajectories and moving into ‘better work’; • what enables or constrains people in their attempts to progress in work; and • tensions and trade-offs between retention and progression

Poverty Measures and Anti-Poverty Policy

[Excerpt] Amartya Sen has made fundamental contributions to the study of distributional aspects of economic growth and decline. Among his pathbreaking works are his lectures on the economics of inequality (Sen, 1973), his article on the axiomatics of poverty measurement (Sen, 1976), and his book on anti-poverty policy in the context of famines (Sen, 1981). This paper is concerned with one of these areas, namely, the measurement of poverty and the implications for anti-poverty policy. In the 1960\u27s and 1970\u27s those who were working in the poverty field held a number of somewhat incompletely articulated views as to the extent of poverty in an economy. One was the judgment that a country is poorer the larger is the number or fraction of its people below an agreed-upon poverty standard. Second, the severity of poverty depends on how poor the poor are. As formulated then, the larger is the average income shortfall among the poor, the more severe is poverty. Thirdly, it was recognized that some of the poor are poorer than others, and the extent of poverty should also depend on the distribution of income among the poor

Poverty and closing the gap: Adastra research consultancy projects

A fundamental principle which underpins all our teaching and research is the integration of theory and practice, and this principle is vividly exemplified within all the research consultancy projects. The longstanding successes in teacher training of Bishop Grosseteste University are founded upon the strength of our partnership with schools and educational settings. A key strand, that links our research ambitions with our commitment to teacher education, is the engagement in research consultancy and action research with partnership schools. The following reports all embed this approach of teachers working alongside researchers, integrating theory with practice, and focusing upon school-specific issues. They also represent excellent examples of how research can genuinely impact the prospects and life chances of young people. At the heart of our partnership is a focus on learners and learning, which the projects here also clearly share, alongside their key contribution in helping to close the educational attainment gap. Specifically, the research projects will enable the individual schools to develop further good practice, for the benefit of their own pupils, but also with potential applicability to other schools and settings. Furthermore, it is hoped they may motivate and inspire other teachers or schools to embark upon action research projects, driving further improvements in teaching and learning. Finally, for the individual teachers involved, the experience will hopefully stimulate an on-going theory-practice dialogue and provide impetus for further CPD and/or action research

The Poverty of Wealth and Income in the United States

An alternative poverty rate was calculated using poverty thresholds from the U.S. Census Bureau to assess income poverty and a similar set of thresholds at four months’ of the poverty threshold for annual income to assess wealth (i.e. net worth) poverty. Using point estimates derived from the multiple imputations of the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) between the years of 1989 and 2007, the findings revealed the percentage of households in poverty by both measures was 6% in 2007 compared to 11.1% of households experiencing poverty of income only and 22.4% experiencing a poverty of at least one of the measures. The author assessed the demographics of the households experiencing poverty of both income and wealth and found a larger racial gap for African Americans and Hispanics than income poverty alone, support for the lifecycle hypothesis, and the importance of home ownership in lower poverty rates among other factors

An illustration of the average exit time measure of poverty

The goal of the World Bank is 'a world free of poverty' but the most widely used poverty measures do not show when poverty might be eliminated. The 'head-count index' simply counts the poor, while the 'poverty gap index' shows their average shortfall from the poverty line. Neither measure reflects changes in the distribution of incomes amongst the poor, but squaring the poverty gap brings sensitivity to inequality, albeit at the cost of intuitive interpretation. This paper illustrates a new measure of poverty [Morduch, J., 1998, Poverty, Economic Growth and Average Exit Time, Economics Letters, 59: 385-390]. This new poverty measure is distributionally-sensitive and has a ready interpretation as the average time taken to exit poverty with a constant and uniform growth rate. The illustration uses data from Papua New Guinea, which is the country with the highest degree of inequality in the Asia-Pacific region

Columbus and Franklin County Poverty Profile

Using census data, CRP looked at poverty in Columbus and Franklin County. We examined the overall increase in poverty, the people in poverty, and where those people are living. Between 1970 and 2006, the number of persons in poverty in Franklin County grew at more than triple the rate of overall population growth. In 2006, one in three county residents had incomes below the self-sufficiency level of 200% of poverty. Over 40% of female-headed families with young children lived in poverty, while only about 4% of married couple families were poor. In 2006, Franklin County's black or African American population had a poverty rate nearly three times that for the white population. The Hispanic population had poverty over twice the rate of the white population. The poverty rate of Older Columbus was nearly three times that of Newer Columbus and almost five times suburban Franklin County; however, poverty is becoming much more dispersed. In 2000, the majority of Franklin County's poverty population (51%) lived outside of Older Columbus, compared to only 30% in 1970

US poverty studies and poverty measurement: the past twenty-five years

This paper discusses the contribution made by American social scientists to the study of poverty in the past twenty five years. It has three parts. The first concentrates on the measurement of poverty and the fact that the US poverty line remained unchanged in that period despite its increasingly important deficiencies. Proposals to produce a revised poverty line and an Annual Poverty Report are advanced. The second part traces the change of emphasis in US writing about poverty both in terms of academic emphasis and prescription. The final part considers the policy impact of American work on poverty policy beyond America. This paper has been published as: "US Poverty Studies and Poverty Measurement: The past twenty-five years", Social Service Review, March 200

Hard times: young people’s and young parents’ experiences of living through poverty in Luton

This research report is primarily concerned with the experiences of young people (16-24 years) and young parents bringing up children within the context of poverty in Luton. It is divided into three sections. Part One provides a general overview of poverty research in the UK. Part Two presents the findings from the study of young people and young parents’ experiences of poverty in Luton. Part Three discusses the implications of the findings presented and recommendations that arise from them. The overview of research presented in part one of this report is organised under the following headings: measures of poverty commonly adopted in UK poverty research; the extent of poverty in the UK including a short discussion of gender and ethnicity; attitudes to poverty amongst the general public; the impacts of poverty on children and families; poverty amongst young people; parenting in poverty; patterns of poverty. Part two of the report provides a brief description of the methodology adopted for this study and the sample amongst whom the research was conducted. Key findings are then summarised. Following this a thematic analysis of interview data is presented. This covers the following themes: how participants defined poverty; how participants explained poverty; the images of ‘poor people’ participants employed; whether participants considered they or their families were poor; participants’ descriptions of living through poverty; what participants thought the Local Authority should do to tackle poverty. Part three presents a discussion of the implications of the findings from this study and the recommendations that arise from them

Relative and absolute poverty : the case of México, 1992-2004

This paper advocates that although an absolute notion of poverty should remain an essential ingredient in the evaluation of the standard of living in developing and transition economies, it is time that relative poverty begins to be systematically estimated for those same economies. This prescription is applied to México for the 1992-2004 period, where the Fox Administration has fixed for the first time an absolute poverty line for 2000. To facilitate comparisons with developed countries, the relative poverty line is fixed at 50% of mean equivalent expenditures. Absolute and relative poverty behave in opposite ways during the 1992-2000 business cycle, but both decline significantly during the 2000-04 stagnation period. Relative poverty is above absolute poverty from 1992 to 1994, below it during 1996-98, and above it again in 2000-04. In any case, relative poverty in México is well above relative poverty in developed countries