Oh Dear - "Poverty" rising under New Lie

[DimPrawn]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4989070.stm

Relative poverty in the UK may have risen since 1997, rather than fallen, says the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
The usual measure is the proportion of households whose income is less than 60% of the median household income.

That suggests that the poverty rate fell from 25% to 22% of households between 1996/97 and 2002/03.

But the IFS says that if household spending is measured instead, then over the same period of time the poverty rate rose from 20% to 22%.

Using spending as a measure, the IFS also finds that the poverty rate among children increased by 11% during that time, compared to the government's assessment that child poverty, measured by income, fell by 15%.


FFS - Is there ANYTHING these muppets do properly?

[Dalek Supreme]

The only answer is to raise taxes and redistribute some wealth from the disgusting middle classes.

[EternalOptimist]

You find this everywhere you go though, dont sound so suprised.
The gits who talk a good job eventually have to be bailed out by us, the people who do a good job.

[xoggoth]

Isn't relative poverty almost the most utterly nonsensical stupid socialisty crappy arse flaky concept ever?

If they discovered vast reserves of oil under the UK and we could all afford to drive around in luxury cars, those with mere Jaguars would still be in relative poverty and moreover the number in relative poverty could increase. Terrible!

If the UK economy collapsed and were all close to starvation relative poverty could still decrease. Marvellous!

[DimPrawn]

It's all relative

The whole "poverty" clap trap is there merely to justify the social engineering experiments going on under our noses.

[Joe Black]

Indeed. Relative poverty means that if you happened to live in Luxembourg for example, not having a Lear Jet could be deemed being worse off than some poor sod in Somalia who has to get by on a bowl of rice each day.


Edit:

"Isn't relative poverty almost the most utterly nonsensical stupid socialisty crappy arse flaky concept ever?"

I think it's probably up their with that other great concept, equal pay rates when comparing totally different jobs.

[wendigo100]

It's all relative

The whole "poverty" clap trap is there merely to justify the social engineering experiments going on under our noses.

I don't think they are experiments. They are the real thing.