Living standards, poverty and inequality in the UK: 2012

Abstract

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has supported this project as part of its programme of research and innovative development projects, which it hopes will be of value to policymakers, practitioners and service users. The facts presented and views expressed in this report are, however, those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Foundation. Neither are the views expressed necessarily those of the other individuals or institutions mentioned here, including the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which has no corporate view. Co-funding from the ESRC-funded Centre for the Microeconomic Analysis of Public Policy at IFS (grant number ES/M010147/1) is also very gratefully acknowledged.

Child and working-age poverty in Northern Ireland from 2010 to 2020

“…While absolute poverty among this group did fall in the early 2000s, it was less than 1% lower in 2010-11 than in 1998-99. As Cribb, Joyce and Phillips (2012) show, these increases are part of a longer term trend that has seen relative poverty measured BHC more than double among this group since 1979, at least partly as a result of being less favoured by changes to the tax and benefit system. Before 2008-09, absolute and relative WANP poverty in Northern Ireland followed a very similar path to the rest of the UK, with little or no change in relative poverty and a slight decline in absolute poverty.…”

“…In each case, the changes in poverty in Northern Ireland are presented alongside the figures for Great Britain, and for the most part the trends shown are broadly similar. This chapter draws heavily on Cribb, Joyce and Phillips (2012), which provides a more comprehensive discussion of poverty in the UK over recent years. 1 presents absolute and relative child poverty rates since 1998-99 for Great Britain and Northern Ireland (for which the comparable data series begins only in 2002-03).…”

Organized Combat or Structural Advantage? The Politics of Inequality and the Winner-Take-All Economy in the United Kingdom

“…In the Labour period, in contrast, income gains were more evenly distributed among the middle, but income growth was nonmonotonic: there was negative income growth at the very bottom percentiles, but income growth then turned upward very sharply beyond the ninetieth percentile. 33 In other words, Labour's policies did redistribute from the top half to the bottom half of the income scale, but the top 5 percent enjoyed spectacularly higher growth than all the other groups, doing even better relative to the rest than they had under the Conservative governments. 34 The net effect of these changes was that overall inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient began to narrow only once the financial crisis had depressed top incomes.…”

Living standards, poverty and inequality in the UK: 2015

“…In addition, the 'cannot afford' response to child material deprivation questions is replaced with two separate reasons: 'I do not have the money for this' and 'This is not a priority for me on my current income'. 72 More details and discussion of the measurement of material deprivation can be found in chapter 6 of Cribb, Joyce and Phillips (2012).…”