This report looks in detail at food insecurity among benefit claimants using YouGov surveys of the...
Living standards
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16/11/2011
Consensual method
The consensual or ‘perceived deprivation’ approach to measuring poverty follows the deprivation approach to measuring poverty by looking at direct measures of living standards rather than indirect income measures. But here, deprivation is seen in terms of an enforced lack of ‘necessities’ as determined by public opinion.
The 1983 Breadline Britain study pioneered this ‘consensual’ approach to measuring poverty by investigating, for the first time ever, the public’s perceptions of minimum needs:
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18/01/2011
The ‘squeezed middle’ and the ‘poor’
by Stewart Lansley
Middle and low income households have missed out on increases in prosperity in the last three decades with the gains going to the rich. As a result the numbers vulnerable to poverty are rising.
In his first speech after becoming Labour’s new leader, Ed Miliband pledged to stand up for the ‘squeezed middle’. There is nothing especially new about Britain’s political leaders attempting to woo the central layer of British society. Mrs Thatcher won the 1979 election by targeting what she called ‘middle England’ and eighteen years later, Labour won the political battle for the centre ground with an appeal to what the popular press dubbed ‘Sierra Man’ or ‘Worcester Woman’.
Category: Articles -
17/01/2011
Inflation hits the poorest
The spending power of the poorest has fallen by 10 per cent over the last decade and will continue to fall as the basic cost of living continues to rise, according to research commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and reported in The Guardian.
About seven million of Britain’s poorest people will see their spending power fall by a tenth over the next decade because the prices of essentials such as food, fuel and clothing are rising much faster than inflation, according to the research.
The research shows that these households have already seen their spending power reduced by about 10 per cent in the past 10 years. If prices trends continue, they will be nearly a fifth worse off by 2012 than they were in 2000.
See the full report at The Guardian website.
Category: News stories
