The current cost of living is pushing more people into poverty, with almost 68% of low income...
Inequality
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13/06/2013
Absolute poverty up nearly a million under coalition
The percentage of people living in households with an 'absolute' low income was 17 per cent (before housing costs) in 2011-12 – nearly a million higher than when the coalition government took office in 2010-11 – according to the latest official Households Below Average Income (HBAI) statistical report.
The HBAI report uses three main measures of low income/inequality:
Relative low income – where someone lives in household that receives less than 60 per cent of the average (median disposable) income in the year in question.
Absolute low income – where someone lives in household that receives less than 60 per cent of average (median disposable) income in 2010-11 adjusted since then by inflation.
Income inequality – measured by the Gini coefficient, on a scale from zero (perfect equality) to 1 (perfect inequality).Category: Reports -
10/06/2013
Absolute poverty in America higher than in 1969
Despite using a 40-year old absolute standard, child poverty in the US has increased dramatically from 14% to 22% as Salvatore Babones reports here.
Category: Articles -
03/06/2013
Wage inequalities ‘stifling recovery’ – ILO
Downward pressures on wages are holding back economic recovery in the UK and other advanced countries, according to the latest edition of the International Labour Organization’s World of Work report. The ILO contrasts the position of most workers with that of top executives on 'elevated' pay packages, and calls for greater effort to tackle damaging inequalities.
Category: Reports -
31/05/2013
Tackling inequality and poverty in US
Reforms to the education and tax/benefit systems in the US could help to reduce income inequality and relative poverty, according to a working paper from the OECD in Paris. The paper highlights the fact that inequality and poverty in the US are among the highest for developed countries, and have also increased substantially in recent decades.
Category: Reports -
15/05/2013
Growing income inequality in developed world
Gross income inequality in developed countries increased by more in the first three years of the global economic crisis, to the end of 2010, than it had in the previous twelve years, according to a new analysis from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Category: Reports -
22/04/2013
Countries becoming ‘equally unequal’
There is strong evidence showing that inequality levels across countries converged during the period 1980–2005, according to a new academic paper.
Researchers tested trends in GINI indices (a standard measure of income inequality), compiling separate results for developed and developing countries.
Category: Reports -
17/04/2013
Greater equality ‘harms work incentives’
There is a 'negative and significant' link between income equality and work incentives, says a new academic study of EU countries.
The study used EUROMOD (an EU-wide microsimulation model) to disentangle the role of taxes, benefits and social insurance contributions in influencing income inequality and work incentives – the latter being indicated by marginal effective tax rates (METRs), the share of an increase in earnings lost through higher tax and social insurance contributions and/or lower benefit entitlement.
Category: Reports -
16/04/2013
A more unequal country?
Stewart Lansley and Joanna Mack explore the trends in inequality and poverty pre and post the Thatcher years and find inequality grew sharply in the years after 1979. Add your comments to the debate.
Category: Articles -
08/04/2013
Drivers of income inequality examined
A more unequal distribution of earnings is not the only factor behind growing household income inequality in recent decades, according to a study from researchers based in France. Income from self-employment and from capital has also played a role in boosting inequality.
The report looks at data for six countries (Canada, Germany, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States of America) and attempts to disentangle the different 'factor components' involved in increasing inequality.
Category: Reports -
24/03/2013
Inequality of opportunity – international comparisons
Inequality of opportunity is directly linked to income inequality in a range of different countries, finds a new study from an international research forum.
The authors note that methodological problems have so far prevented meaningful international comparisons of this kind. They approach the problem by comparing measures of inequality of economic opportunity across 41 countries (mostly in Europe and Latin America), and linking them to indices of output per head, income inequality and intergenerational mobility.Category: Reports
