Date published: 2007/03/27
The BBC says:
Figures showing a 200,000 rise in UK children living in relative poverty last year have been described as a "moral disgrace" by Barnardo's.
The children's charity said ministers were a long way from honouring a pledge to halve child poverty by 2010.
In 2005-6 3.8m children were in poverty - in homes on less than 60% of average income including housing costs.
...
In the previous year the number of children living in relative poverty with housing costs taken into account was 3.6m.With housing costs not deducted from incomes the number of children living below the relative poverty line was 2.8m, up from 2.7m in the year before.
The increases are the first recorded in six years; since 1998/99, 600,000 children have been lifted out of relative poverty.
...
But to reach their stated targets, ministers must now help lift a further 1.1 million children above the poverty line by 2010 - or 1.6 million after housing costs are included.
The definition of poverty is relative to median income, not average income. The former is the income of an average person (or household), the latter is the income averaged over all people (or households), so is (usually) skewed by the long tail of the incomes of the rich. The only way to reduce relative poverty is to screw the average workers of Britain, since the definition is relative to their income, not the income of the rich. But it is the income of the rich, not the income of the average worker, which is responsible for the soar in real inequality in Britain over the last decade. This is the fundamental problem with the relative definition of poverty.
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