Saturday, 16 June 2012

Why using relative poverty as a measure is stupid

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It really is you know. Stupid that is:

Figures released by the DWP on Thursday, show that the number of children living below the poverty line has fallen, but still remains over 2 million, this is despite the median income levels falling.

In truth the numbers below the poverty line - 60% of median income - have fallen precisely because median income has fallen. So get this social policy folk, we are on average poorer but poverty has fallen.

Perhaps we can stop using this daft measure now and focus instead on absolute figures rather than relative figures.

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