The current cost of living is pushing more people into poverty, with almost 68% of low income...
Government policy
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11/03/2014
‘Troubled Families’ in a spin
The Department of Communities and Local Government claims that the Troubled Families Programme is ‘on track at the half-way stage’. Ruth Levitas unpicks the figures and argues this is far from the truth.
Category: Articles -
27/02/2014
Child poverty – draft strategy launched
The coalition government has reiterated its commitment to end child poverty in the UK by 2020 through tackling what it calls the underlying causes of deprivation. Plans to offer a revised measure of child poverty appear to have been shelved.
Category: Reports -
04/02/2014
Impact of redistribution on inequality in OECD
Governments are capable of reducing income inequality despite countervailing behavioural responses, according to a research paper from the Centre for European Economic Research in Mannheim.
The paper uses a panel of industrialised OECD countries over the period 1981-2005 to analyse the effect of redistributive policies on post-tax inequality.
Category: Reports -
22/10/2013
On Measuring Child Poverty
At their annual conference in September, the Royal Statistical Society organised a session on the government’s consultation on child poverty. With the next announcement on consultation now expected before Christmas, Paul Allin and John Veit-Wilson summarise the presentations and discussion.
Category: Articles -
03/07/2013
Poverty action plan for Wales
Plans to provide 5,000 job and training opportunities for households in Wales in which no-one has a job are at the heart of new Welsh Government plans to tackle poverty.
The plans are an updated version of those published by the Welsh Government in June 2012.
Category: Reports -
26/06/2013
New attack by Chancellor on unemployed people
Newly unemployed people will be forced to wait seven days, instead of three days currently, before being able to claim benefits. The announcement was made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer as part of a statement on public spending plans for 2015-16. He said the move was designed to be 'helpful' to unemployed people, who would otherwise be distracted by the need to look for a new job.
Category: Reports -
25/06/2013
The forgotten poor: refugees and asylum seekers
In all the talk of tackling child poverty, one group has been largely ignored, children of refugees and asylum seekers. Stephen Crossley reports on poverty amongst this 'minority within a minority' and the role local agencies should play.
Category: Articles -
20/06/2013
Can relative poverty be abolished?
The idea that if poverty is relative it will always be with us is a common misconception, argues John Veit-Wilson. 'Relative poverty' can be abolished if no one has fewer resources than needed to achieve that society’s minimum standards.
Category: Articles -
05/06/2013
Pension reform should focus on women
The financial crisis has demonstrated weaknesses in many pension schemes. Changes need to place women at the heart of the pension debate argues Liam Foster.
Category: Articles -
30/05/2013
IDS to be called to account for DWP use of statistics
Iain Duncan Smith, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, is to be called in front of the Work and Pensions Select Committee in June over the misuse by the department of government statistics. This follows the rebuke from the official statistics watchdog for claiming that the benefits cap is pushing people to find paid work.
The select committee’s decision to ‘examine the way the DWP releases benefit statistics to the media’ follows a petition to the committee, signed by 96,666 people, calling for the committee to ‘hold IDS to account for his use of statistics on welfare’. Jayne Linney, who set up the petition on Change.org commented: ‘By starting this petition we’ve shown that everyone has the tools to call politicians out if they try to make things up. They can’t get away with spinning statistics any longer.
Category: News stories
