Over half UK children living in poverty by 2015

[TonyGosling]

Majority of British children will soon be growing up in families struggling 'below the breadline', Government warned
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/majority-of-british-chil dren-will-soon-be-growing-up-in-families-struggling-below-the-breadlin e-government-warned-8531584.html
Nigel Morris Wednesday 13 March 2013
17.1 million children will be in homes earning below minimum income standards by 2015
The majority of British children will soon be growing up in families which are struggling “below the breadline” because of welfare cuts, tax rises and wage freezes, the Government is warned today.
Within two years, almost 7.1m of the nation’s 13m youngsters will be in homes with incomes judged to be less than the minimum necessary for a decent standard of living, according to a new report.
The figures, which emerged a week ahead of George Osborne’s Budget, suggest that an unwanted legacy of the Coalition’s squeeze on spending will be to leave more children living close to poverty.
They coincide with a new survey for the Resolution Foundation think-tank, which found that almost seven in ten of people believe the Government does not understand the financial strains they face.
The impact on children of the economic downturn and austerity measures was underlined by an analysis that concluded that the number of under-18s living in households below minimum income standards would increase by 690,000 between 2010 and 2015. The definitions of acceptable living standards are drawn up by the respected charity, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
Today’s report said 460,000 children would be pushed below those levels by the increase in VAT and cuts to tax credits, 170,000 by sluggish wage growth and 80,000 by the curbs on public sector pay. Just 20,000 would be raised above the minimum level by the new Universal Credit system, which begins to come into force in October.
The TUC, which commissioned the research by the economist Howard Reed, said the figures should “shame” any civilised society and challenged Mr Osborne to cut VAT to ease the pressures on the lowest income families.
By 2015, a lone parent with one child is calculated to require an annual income of £19,226 to have a decent standard of living, rising to £23,992 for a lone parent with two children, £24,643 for a couple with one child and £29,093 if they have two children. But Mr Reed calculated that 54 per cent of youngsters will be living in households with income below those levels in two years’ time.
His report concluded that 90 per cent of families will be worse off in 2015 than in 2010.
Only the poorest ten per cent will be better-off – and then by £29.60 a year, or 57p a week. The boost they received from raising tax thresholds has been virtually wiped out by the increase in VAT to 20 per cent in 2011.
Frances O’Grady, the TUC general secretary, said: “Families are suffering the tightest squeeze in living standards in nearly a century. On top of wages that do not keep up with prices, government policies are making life even more miserable for millions of low to middle-income families through tax increases and cuts in benefits and tax credits.
“By the 2015 election, the majority of children in Britain will be living below the breadline. For any civilised society, that should be shaming.”
The Department of Work and Pensions accused the TUC of choosing an “arbitrary measure to support their own point of view”. A spokesman said the Government was committed to eradicating child poverty by tackling its root causes including unemployment, educational failure and family breakdown.
He added: “Our welfare reforms will improve the lives of some of the poorest families in our communities, with the Universal Credit making three million people better off. And by next year, we will have taken two million of the lowest earners out of paying tax altogether."
In the Resolution Foundation poll, 69 per cent of people thought the Government did not understand the “financial pressures” they and their families were experiencing. The sentiment was shared across all income and class brackets in the poll conducted by Ipsos MORI.
Just 19 per cent said they believed ministers appreciated the pressures they were under.
Vidhya Alakeson, the foundation’s deputy chief executive, said: “Faltering prosperity is a key issue not only for the government of the day but for all political parties as we approach an election in two years’ time.
The TUC will stage a pre-Budget rally today at which it will urge the Chancellor to focus on jobs, growth and family next week.
Dave Prentis, the general secretary of Unison, will tell the gathering: “Austerity is OK if you are rich. It’s OK if you are one of the 13,000 millionaires in this country because austerity means you get richer. That’s because if you are rich, you’re in line for an extra £100,000 tax break, taken from the pockets of the poor.”

[TonyGosling]

and this is mostly why - not enough jobs not paid well enough


Revealed: The true size of the British jobs gap
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/revealed-the-true-size -of-the-british-jobs-gap-8633691.html

Some 930,000 new posts needed for employment rate to return to its 2008 level, says think tank
Ben Chu

Tuesday 28 May 2013
The jobs market remains weak and is likely to continue to struggle well into the second half of the decade, making this a more severe downturn for employment levels than the two previous recessions, according to the Resolution Foundation think tank.

The analysis conflicts with the conventional wisdom that the British employment market has performed remarkably well by historic standards since the 2008 global financial crisis.

Economists have been surprised by the fact that, unlike in previous slumps, British joblessness has not shot up and the numbers of people in employment has grown in the last five years. The total number of hours worked each week has now surpassed its 2008 peak, despite stagnation in the economy. And the number of people classified as unemployed peaked at 2.67 million in October 2011.

But the Resolution Foundation has performed an analysis of the total adult employment rate – which reflects the increase in the size of the population and the growth of the available workforce – and found that there remains a "jobs gap" of 930,000. This is the number of new jobs that would be required to restore the employment rate from its present level of 58.5 per cent to the 60.3 per cent recorded in 2008. This jobs gap has actually grown from 830,000 in the final quarter of last year.

The Resolution Foundation has also looked at the latest employment projections from the official forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility, and estimated that the jobs gap is likely to remain at 770,000 until 2018.

This would mean a longer period of weakness in the UK employment market than that which followed the recession of the early 1990s under John Major and also the early 1980s downturn under Margaret Thatcher.

James Plunkett, director of policy at the Resolution Foundation said: "While unemployment is still surprisingly low given the fall in output in recent years, this is just one way of looking at the labour market and it breeds a real risk of complacency.

"At least as important is the proportion of the population who are working and the poor performance we've seen on this measure recently reveals how tough the jobs recovery is going to be." According to the latest jobs report by the Office for National Statistics, there were 2.52 million unemployed people in the first three months of this year – an increase of 15,000 on the final quarter of 2012. The number of people in employment slipped to 29.71 million, although this was still 434,000 more than a year earlier.

The ONS reported that the total number of weekly hours worked across the economy hit a new record high of 950.3 million in the first quarter of the year. In his March Budget speech, George Osborne claimed that the economy has created 1.25 million new private sector jobs since the Coalition took office in May 2010. This, however, included 196,000 jobs in further education, which were reclassified in 2012 from public to private sector.

[TonyGosling]

Iraq and Afghanistan, Libya and Syria have come home folks

One-third of Britons are too poor to ‘join in with society’

Many on lowest incomes cannot buy consumer goods, visit the cinema or go on holiday
Andrew Johnson - Monday 27 May 2013
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/onethird-of-britons-are -too-poor-to-join-in-with-society-8633584.html

Just under a third of people in Britain are excluded from mainstream society because they cannot afford to join in cultural activities such as going to the cinema, taking a holiday or buying consumer goods.

Research for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation shows that the poorest 30 per cent are also prevented from “participating in society” because they have fewer social relationships and less trust in other people.

“Participating is about belonging. Many of society’s expectations require individuals and families to spend money,” the report, Poverty, Participation and Choice, says. “Like it or not, Britain is a consumer society in which people are assessed according to the income that they have, how they spend it and what they do with their time.”

Participation is defined by the report’s authors as “social relationships, membership of organisations, trust in other people and purchase of services”.

The research by academics at Oxford and Sheffield Universities, extends the work done by the renowned sociologist Peter Townsend who famously said that “poverty is relative” – ie, it prevents people from being full members of society.

The report found that participation in society falls as income falls, as might be expected. But participation bottoms out for the 30 per cent of households with the lowest incomes, for whom additional income then makes no difference. In other words, there is a cut-off point for being a full member of society.

Below this “participation floor” incomes may vary wildly. But extra money is spent on replacing worn-out goods or upgrading services, rather than buying extra things.

“Those [within the 30 per cent] with higher incomes do not have measurably increased living standards, greater social participation or higher levels of trust,” the report says. “The 30 per cent of people with the lowest incomes are forced to choose between the basic necessities of modern life; they must decide which needs to neglect.”

The research analysed information from a survey of 40,000 households, accounting for 100,000 people, representing a cross-section of Britain. They were asked what goods they owned, such as DVD players or dishwashers, and what activities they did, such as how often they went on holiday. Those on higher incomes owned or participated in nearly all the goods or activities. Those on lower incomes did not, and had to make greater choices.

Those with a good education and older people had greater membership of society, it found. The report, to be published this week, says that such social exclusion doesn’t affect the way children socialise, but means they perform less well at school.

Working parents tend to spend more time interacting with their children than those who don’t work but poorer parents spend more time helping with schoolwork as their children are more likely to fall behind.