Record levels of poverty among families with wages (in the UK)

[Turborama]

Source: Independent on Sunday

Report challenges Government's line that the work-shy are the problem

By Jonathan Owen
Sunday, December 05 2010

A record number of children in the UK are living in poverty despite the fact that one or both of their parents work, according to a new report to be published tomorrow. The figure of 2.1 million is the highest on record – up 400,000 in the past five years, undermining the oft-repeated claim that people simply have to work their way out of poverty. The new figure accounts for more than half of the 3.7 million children living in poverty in Britain today, according to researchers from the New Policy Institute (NPI) who produced the report for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF). It is perhaps the most damning element of an analysis of the past decade, showing how initial progress in some areas has halted or been reversed.

In the past five years, 30 out of 47 poverty indicators examined in the JRF's Monitoring Poverty and Social Exclusion report – including child poverty, inequality and well-being – have stalled or worsened. Twelve of the indicators that have declined concern low income, employment or debt.

Poverty campaigners reacted angrily this weekend to what they described as the grim reality of life for families on low incomes, who have to choose between spending money on keeping their children warm and feeding them. Yet this is expected to worsen next year as cuts in public services and spending begin to bite.

More than 13 million Britons, 22 per cent of the population, are now living on less than 60 per cent of the median (average) income despite at least one parent bringing a wage home. That translates to a couple with two children under 14 who exist on less than £288 per week after income tax, council tax and housing costs have been paid. Of these, 5.8 million are in "deep poverty" – surviving on less than 40 per cent of the median income (under £192 a week for a couple with two children under 14). This is the highest proportion on record.

Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/record-levels-of-poverty-among-families-with-wages-2151711.html

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So, even though it's a great place, the UK is not the 'land of milk and honey' a lot of people seem to think it is.

[Occulus]

1. We are seeing a global funneling of weath to the very top

This cannot last. Something will give at some point.

I doubt the top 1% will survive that, in the most literal sense possible.

[avaistheone1]

2. Sad news.

I think we have entered the tipping point. People with little have nothing much to lose.

[InkAddict]

3. Perhaps the Crown could offer the meanest and most

adventuresome free to low-cost passage to the New World...America...to start a new life...oops, been there, done that...

[midnight]

4. Oops wrong location....

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

5. This is them trying to be more like the US.

And succeeding.

[xchrom]

6. hey they had thatcher -- we had reagan.

we're peas in a pod.

the reagan/thatcher years have simply triumphed.