In his TV interview with Andrew Marr on 1st December, the Prime Minister argued that;
...
Poverty forecast
-
20/05/2012
Children’s watchdog queries Wales poverty target
The watchdog for children’s rights in Wales has said it is unlikely child poverty will be eradicated in the country by the official 2020 target.
Keith Towler, the Children’s Commissioner for Wales, told a BBC television programme he welcomes the Welsh Government’s aspirations but he called for more honesty from politicians. He said: ‘I think that if they continue to say it – eradicating child poverty by 2020 – they will just cheese people off.’
Towler also questioned whether politicians really understand what people living in poverty are going through.
Source: BBC report, 20 May 2012
Link: BBC report
Category: News stories -
11/05/2012
Minimum wages across Europe fall short of poverty thresholds
A new academic paper has looked at the role of minimum wages, tax and benefit policies in protecting workers against financial poverty in 21 European countries with a national minimum wage, together with three states in the USA.
Category: Reports -
10/05/2012
Public service cuts ‘will create forgotten Britain’
A charity chief has warned of hardening public attitudes to people in poverty, resulting in an increasing divide between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’. He said plans to cut billions from public services risk creating a ‘forgotten Britain’ where the plight of ‘whole swathes of society is getting worse but is invisible to the rest of us’.
Sir Stephen Bubb, head of the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations, made his comments in a speech in London.
Category: News stories -
02/05/2012
Poverty and social exclusion in Northern Ireland since 2009
A new study has examined how poverty and social exclusion in Northern Ireland have changed since 2009.
Researchers for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found:
Category: Reports -
30/04/2012
UK progress on inclusive economic growth
The government has published an annual progress report on implementation of the European Union’s strategy for inclusive economic growth – including the target of lifting at least 20 million people out of the risk of poverty and exclusion by 2020. The government says it ‘remains committed to eradicating child poverty, increasing social mobility and ensuring social justice’. It aims to do this by:
Category: Reports -
27/04/2012
Teachers ‘buying food’ for hungry pupils
New research has found that since the start of the economic recession teachers are witnessing increasing numbers of pupils coming into school ‘hungry’, ‘dirty’ and ‘struggling to concentrate’.
The research was based on interviews with 515 secondary school teachers in England, and was released by The Prince’s Trust charity and the Times Educational Supplement.
The survey found that:
Category: News stories -
21/04/2012
UK households suffer from high level of material deprivation
Researchers in the Czech Republic have found high levels of material deprivation in UK households compared with a representative sample of four European countries.
The paper compares material deprivation in households in the UK, Czech Republic, Finland, France and Spain, drawing on official (EU-SILC) data. Material deprivation criteria are divided into four groups: financial stress, housing conditions, availability of consumer durables and basic needs.
Category: Reports -
19/04/2012
EU poverty reduction targets could be missed
Anti-poverty campaigners in Europe have raised concerns over whether national governments are planning to ignore poverty reduction targets when they take decisions on the next round of EU Structural Funds (2014–2020).
The European Anti-Poverty Network (EAPN) has written to all 26 Prime Ministers in advance of the General Affairs Council meeting on 24 April 2012. The letter makes the following demands:
Category: News stories -
11/04/2012
Poverty ‘shifting from inner to outer London’
Poor neighbourhoods are increasing in number in outer London boroughs but getting fewer in the centre, a new analysis by the University of Sheffield has shown.
Although the poorest places in the capital are still in the eastern centre of the city, it appears that poverty is being pushed out into the suburbs.
The analysis shows that:
430 neighbourhoods in London have become significantly more deprived than their neighbours since 2004, 400 of them in the outer boroughs. In contrast, 374 neighbourhoods across London (mainly in the west and central parts of the city) have become significantly less deprived.The poverty data is based on an analysis by Alasdair Rae at the University of Sheffield of the official Indices of Multiple Deprivation, which measure relative poverty across England between 2004 and 2010.
Category: News stories -
06/04/2012
Child poverty is a ‘multidimensional’ phenomenon
The importance of understanding child poverty as a multidimensional phenomenon is highlighted in a new report from UNICEF, Child Poverty and Inequality: New Perspectives. The report argues that as long as policy debates focus solely on income poverty, children and their priorities will be overlooked, and the battle to end the cycle of poverty will be undermined.
The report brings together a series of expert contributions on how and where children globally are experiencing poverty, and on the kind of policy responses that would structurally address their different deprivations.
Although an adult may fall into poverty temporarily, the report suggests that a child rarely gets a second chance – falling into poverty in childhood can last a lifetime. Child poverty not only threatens the individual child, it is also likely to be passed on to future generations.
Separate chapters in the report:
Category: Reports
