Tackling child poverty by boosting family income through benefits is a narrow approach that ‘looks set to have failed’ said Ian Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, in a major speech.

Warning of six more years of austerity, the Chancellor’s package of measures included a number of provisions that, on the Treasury’s predictions, are likely to increase the numbers of children in poverty.

Key points in the statement include:

This website was set up as part of the Poverty and Social Exclusion in the United Kingdom research project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.

The Breadline Britain 1983 survey pioneered the consensual approach to measuring poverty by investigating the public’s perceptions of minimum needs and then identifying those who could not afford these necessities.

The Breadline Britain 1990 survey was a modified repeat of the pioneering Breadline Britain 1983 survey. The survey was again seeking to establish what the public thought were minimum standards to which everyone was entitled, and who fell below these standards.

New Zealand Living standards survey 2008.

While Northern Ireland had long been recognised as one of the most deprived parts of the United Kingdom, comparisons with other regions and countries was difficult as little specific data on poverty had been collected.

The PSE 1999 survey was an update of the two Breadline Britain surveys in 1983 and 1990.

In June 2010, the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, commissioned Frank Field MP to conduct an Independent Review on Poverty and Life Chances.

A new UNICEF report on child inequality in developed countries, The Children Left Behind, shows that children in the UK are more disadvantaged in terms of material well-being than those in the large majority of other rich countries.

The government has consistently argued that under the government spending review those with the broadest backs would take the heaviest burden – that the package would conform to the principle of ‘progressive austerity’.

Poverty will become more widespread when the coalition government's austerity measures kick in, writes Larry Elliott, Economics editor, 

A third of Scots households are unable to keep their homes warm, according to Scottish government figures.

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A new study from Cardiff University of former industrial areas suggests that living in a deprived area increases the risk of violence more sharply for girls than boys.

Excessively high pay is damaging companies, the economy and society, concludes the final report of the High Pay Commission, Cheques With Balances: Why Tackling High Pay is in the National Interest.

The Report shows that:

Poverty and Social Exclusion in the United Kingdom is a major research project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). 

Minimum budget standards aim to establish the budget necessary for different types of households to maintain a minimum standard of living.

Many of the approaches to poverty explored in other sections within ‘Definitions of poverty’ incorporate within them aspects of social exclusion.

The current research (PSE: UK) builds on the work of the Poverty and Social Exclusion survey in Britain in 1999, the Poverty and Social Exclusion survey in Northern Ireland in 2002/03 and the Breadline Britain surveys in 1983 and 1990 (see left hand menu).

Trends in poverty and deprivation in the UK over the last 30 years can be tracked through PSE and predecessor Breadline Britain surveys. These surveys provide an independent assessment of the success or otherwise of government policies to tackle poverty.

Leaving work due to illness and injury can be as damaging as becoming unemployed, according to new research from the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) at the University of Essex, The Economic Impacts of Leaving Employment for Health-related Reasons.

Consistent poverty measure

A number of measures of poverty combine different approaches to poverty measurement, in particular income and deprivation measures, to provide what’s called a consistent poverty measure.

The consensual or ‘perceived deprivation’ approach to measuring poverty follows the deprivation approach to measuring poverty by looking at direct measures of living standards rather than indirect income measures.

Direct measures of poverty that look at deprivation and living standards have a very long history, particularly in Britain.

Many poverty measurements use household income, adjusted for household size (see equivalence scales below), to find out who is in poverty.

Absolute poverty has been seen as a matter of acute deprivation, hunger, premature death and suffering. This captures an important understanding of poverty and its relevance remains widespread in parts of the world today.

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The lack of material items and experiences selected by children themselves as needed for ‘a normal kind of life’ provide a better predictor of children’s well-being than conventional measures, finds research conducted for The Children’s Society, Missing Out: A Child-centred Analysis of Materi

The government reforms to incapacity benefit will result in severe hardship for hundreds of thousands of households living outside the south of England, according to research published by Sheffield Hallam University in Incapacity Benefit Reform.

Government policies on child poverty have shifted too far in their focus on individual families rather than wider problems, according to the first director of the Sure Start programme, Naomi Eisenstadt.

Ways of generating evidence on the impacts of policy reforms on children are outlined in a joint paper from the World Bank and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Integrating a Child Focus into Poverty and Social Impact Analysis.

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Fuel poverty is a ‘distinct and serious’ problem producing physical and mental ill-health and excess winter deaths, argues Interim Report on Fuel Poverty commissioned by the Department of Energy and Climate Change.

In Social Mobility and Child Poverty, the PSE: UK research team is highly critical of the Coalition government’s social mo

The PSE: UK research team has produced a detailed response to the government’s call for evidence on their strategy on social mobility and child poverty.

Work in itself is not a solution to poverty, in part because of the spread of low pay work over the last 30 years, argues Richard Dickens in the latest National Institute Economic Review (vol. 218, no. 1).

Transfers of money to poor families in Ecuador postponed children’s entry into the labour force, found research published in the American Economic Journal, ‘Poverty alleviation and child labor’.

A common view exists about what is required for an acceptable standard of living in South Africa despite significant social, racial and economic inequalities. This standard is above that which much of the population obtains.

Jennie is 39 and unemployed. She lives with her three sons, all of whom have disabilities, in Redbridge, outer London. The family has lived in temporary accommodation for the last 12 years.

Meet Jennie and family in the following three videos recorded in autumn 2011.

Kristian Niemietz, 2011, London, Institute of Economic Affairs

Reviewed by Stewart Lansley and Joanna Mack