How much poverty in the UK?
An extract from an analysis of the most recent figures from the respected Institute for Fiscal Studies:
“The most widely used measure of relative poverty is the number of people living in households with incomes below 60% of the median. (If households were lined up from richest to poorest, adjusted for family size, the median income would be that of the household in the middle.)
On this basis, the number of people in poverty fell by 100,000 to 10.9 million before housing costs in 2008-09 (18%), but was largely unchanged on an after housing costs basis at 13.4 million (22%).
Having increased in each of the three previous years, poverty is still higher than its recent low-point in 2004–05. However, it is significantly lower than when the recent Labour Government came to office in 1997.”
You can read the full press release here.