The existing method for measuring child poverty is inadequate, according to a new think-tank report. It says the method fails to acknowledge that poverty is about much more than a lack of income.
The report comes from the Centre for Social Justice, established by the current Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith when he was in opposition. It directly criticises the income-based targets for eliminating child poverty contained in the previous Labour government’s Child Poverty Act 2010.
A rejoinder by the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) pointed to what they considered to be a number of serious factual and statistical errors. They concluded: ‘it is difficult not to regard many of the arguments advanced in the CSJ report as little more than a smokescreen to allow the government to claim to do “something” about poverty without spending any money.’
The interactive graph on the Income thresholds page demonstrates the basic errors in the report’s claim that relative measures mean the poor will always exist statistically.
Source: Rethinking Child Poverty, Centre for Social Justice
Links: Report | CSJ press release | CPAG rejoinder | Daily Telegraph report