However, problems occur in the terms of what are the minimum needs for subsistence – these only refer to the physical needs, and the basic need for food, shelter and good health. Alternatively, we can include other needs such as access to leisure centres, holidays or the theatre. However, in some local areas some of these are subsidised for those on lower incomes allowing them to have access.
So, can we say that children who do not have access to the internet at home are in poverty? We can answer yes to this because homework has to be finished on them due to schools expectations. Therefore, these children can be discriminated against and have to stay in at lunch times to complete their homework. This them impacts upon their participation with their peers making them socially excluded. To help combat this there are now different exams for those unable to achieve GCSE’s such as NVQ qualifications.
The history of robust statistical research on poverty is over one hundred years old, originating in Britain in the works of Charles Booth (1892) and Rowntree (1901).
Booth’s study was of East London and helped to bring poverty to the attention of Britain. He said that ‘30% of Londoners lived in poverty between 1887 / 1892’ (Booth 1889) cited ‘in’ (Blakemore, 1998:7). In Booths time, poverty was widely seen as ‘the fault of the individual, with some people in poverty categorised as being criminally poor’. He noticed that those in poverty would take part in crimes. In today’s society, many say that it is beneficial for them not to work as they get more money living off the state. Others may work cash in hand while on the benefits in order to keep themselves out of poverty.
Rowntree, in his first study of poverty in York (Published in 1901) used a model, which recognised two degrees of poverty.
Primary was to be without earnings necessary to maintain a state of physical efficiency. Secondary was to live in obvious want and squalor due to inefficient of available means.
The poverty surveys of York by Rowntree showed that poverty fell by 28% in 1899 to 18% in 1936 and then 1.51% in 1950. However, attitudes to poverty have changed from harsh individualism to collective sympathy and state responsibility. Poverty was argued, as becoming a problem of the past through the introduction of the welfare state.
However, the welfare state, which was beginning to operate in 1950s along with increasing material affluence from the mid 1950s, seemed to be effacing the last trades of the old poverty. High levels of employment also helped to eliminate poverty. Therefore, the majority of Britain’s could afford the basics of life.
However, studies by Titmuss, Townesend and Abel-Smith in the 1960s showed gaps in public welfare. Therefore, many families with young children were living at levels below acceptable in a wealthy society. This may have been due to teething problems in the state. However, there are still problems with it in today’s society.
‘By the mid 1970s 2,890.00 people were living on benefits, out of those 1,739.00 were on state pensions. However, 1,463.500 were unemployed and in poverty and 3, 00.00 were one-parent families’ (J. McCavish .2007).
Townsend (1979), in his study of poverty in the UK argued for a refocusing of the debate onto relative rather that absolute deprivation and suggested ‘that a modest income, equally distributed, would allow greater participation of people within society’.
Labour came to power in 1997, and was promising to cut ‘child poverty’ by half. ‘During 1997 / 1998 one in four children were in poverty and in 2004/ 2004 one in five children were in poverty’ (Balls 2006:7-10)
However, ending the link between state pensions and the average earnings led to an increase in pension poverty. This led to a poor underclass in UK society.
More recently, the way poverty is measured have been refined further. Today it is estimated that one in five live in poverty. However, 9.5 million people cannot afford adequate housing. This has led to higher levels of society exclusion.
The BBC website states ‘during the period 1994-2004 there was 17-18% of the population found to be in poverty’. It went on to say that; ’3.9 million of single people in the UK were living below the poverty line in 2005 and that 60%of these in poverty were homeowners’ (Knight 2005.)
Information gathered was about individuals, households, districts, regions or the whole country. The collection process can be routine or through special surveys and may take place regularly or every few years. There are three main ways of gathering information.
Information about education, health and water are through the administration system where local government authorities send information to higher levels of government. Some may be collected through censuses or surveys such as household budgets or the labour force survey.
Local level information can be collected through registers and community interviews. However, much of the local information will be for local use. It will let decision makers know how people, and especially the poor, view their own situations.
Back in 1901 Rowntree chose a basic ‘shopping basket’ of foods (identical to the rations given in the local workhouses), clothing and housing needs. Anyone unable to afford them was deemed to be in poverty. By 1950, with the founding of the welfare state, the shopping basket had been abandoned.
Rowntree found that nearly ‘a third of people earned too little to buy basic goods and were in absolute poverty’ (Liddlard, 1991) cited ‘in’ (Baldock et al 1999:116). He used absolute measures of poverty, focussing on food, shelter and warmth; few people would find his measures acceptable today.
The research of Townsend (1979) revealed that ‘ income poverty was only a partial feature of the deprived environment’ in which many poor people found themselves, included poor housing, inadequate services, pollution etc.
Recent and ongoing work with absolute poverty by Townsend used the ‘human rights’ framework to develop a deprivation index measuring access to clean water, sanitation, shelter, education, information, food and health.
However, traditionally many surveys took the form of household budgets surveys, which focussed predominantly on collecting information on incomes and expenditures.
The Rowntree foundation estimated that 26% (14.5 million) are poor. The way they used their research was based on what people regarded as essential.
According to the Rowntree foundation website, ‘the poverty line is 60% of the median income level (where the median is the level of income after taxes and benefits are adjusted for household size)’.
However, Mark and Lansley (1985) cited in Baldock et al (1999:118) looked at whether people lacked something by choice, or whether it was a consequence of financial pressure. They were also concerned about the accusation that any items included in their deprivation index would be necessarily arbitrary. Therefore, they adopted a consensual approach to poverty; they asked the public what they considered necessities. They decided that anything that 50% of the public classified as one was. This method of measuring poverty, was used in later surveys.
The main cause of social exclusion may be traced to unemployment. Tony Blair has claimed that ‘the best defence against social exclusion is having a job…’ (SEN, 1998). However, Room (1995:14) argues that ‘any attempt to measure social exclusion must recognise that it is a cultural as well as material process’. He goes to argue that since its incrustation the measurement of social exclusion focussed upon disposable income of an individual or household at one moment in time.
We must remember that poverty and social exclusion varies over time and reflects the contemporary social circumstances in which it is experienced.
Grooby, Larsen and Kananen state that New Labour ‘introduced policies designed to promote employment, including the New Deal, minimum wage and Tax credits’ (2004:579).
In 1989 the Social Exclusion unit was launched and was set up to address the long- term causes of social exclusion. The three key tasks of the unit are to ‘reduce the scale of truancy and school exclusion; to reduce the extend of street living; and to develop integrated and sustainable approaches to the problems of the worst housing estates’ (Barry and Hallett, 1998:131).
However, the government is succeeding in getting more lone parents back to work, and lifting working families out of poverty through tax credits. These were set up to enhance incentives for those facing low pay and child- care responsibilities. It also helped to reduce people falling below the poverty threshold. However, these benefits did not help all due to many being over-paid. This was the fault of the agency. However, many struggled to repay the over payments which for some were thousands of pounds.
The Chancellor (Grooby et al, 2004:588) anticipated ‘the tax credits and minimum wage would reduce poverty and cut child poverty. However, this reduction was smaller that hoped’.
Another problem was fraud and organised crime. Apparently, organised criminals were able to make claims over the internet without proving their identity.
If tax credits do not adjust properly, the old poverty trap may return as times and income levels change. We know that the old poverty traps put poorer people in a terrible situation of having a much higher marginal rate of taxation than more wealthy people. There is a danger that the tax credit system can drift towards that as well if we do not modify it as it goes along.
New Deal offers training and work related advice for those under twenty- five years old who have been on benefits for at least six months. For those over twenty – five who have been unemployed for more that a year. The negative side of this was the updating of Income support. ‘This was equivalent to 29.5% of median earnings in 1983, 20% in 1997 and 19.5% in 2001’ (Grooby et al 2004:580).
It is problematic for governments to tackle poverty. They need to encourage inward investment that creates jobs and allows taxes to be collected. The experience of other countries show it is possible to have high taxes, high economic growth and much lower levels of poverty than in the UK.
Because poverty is so complex and changes so much even during the course of the year, we have to have a flexible system. One of the main things that we have discovered about poverty is that it is not a unitary state. Poverty has so many different faces and any system must be tailored to that. Poverty is not going to go away.
References
Alcock, P. (1993) Understanding poverty. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Baldock, Manning, Miller and Vickerstaff (Eds) (1999) ‘Breadline Britain’ Social Policy. Oxford: University Press.
Balls, E. (2006) ‘Call for action over UK poverty’. The Journal of poverty and social justice. 14(1):7-10.
Barry, M. and Hallett, C (1998) (Eds) Social exclusion and social work: Issues of theory, policy and practice. Dorset: Russell House.
Blackmore, K. (1998) Social Policy. Buckingham: Open University.
Blair,T. (2007)Prime Minister’s speech on tackling poverty and social exclusion. {Online} available from: {accessed 9 March 2007}
Grooby, P. Larson, T. and Kananan, J. (2004) ‘ Market means and welfare ends: The UK welfare state experiment. Journal of Social policy. 33 (4):573-592.
Joseph Rowntree Foundation (updated) progress to poverty 1997-2004 {online} March 2007}.available from: . {Accessed 3 March 2007}.
Knight, J. (1999) What is poverty {online} available from: {accessed 8 March 2007}
McCavish, J. (2007) ‘Policy and practice’ SOW1201, lecture 4. 14 February 2007.
Townsend, P. (1979) Poverty in the United Kingdom ‘ A survey of household’s resources and standards of living’. Hamondsworth: Penguin.
