It feels like poverty and inequality are increasing even though the numbers say they're not. Here's why
The IndependentThe best of Voices delivered to your inbox every week - from controversial columns to expert analysis Sign up for our free weekly Voices newsletter for expert opinion and columns Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation publishes a report today saying that the numbers at risk of poverty have risen from nine million in 2008/09 to 11 million in 2014/15, which suggests the numbers “at risk of poverty” have increased from 15 per cent of the population to 17 per cent in six years. On these figures, overall levels of relative poverty and overall income inequality have not changed since about 1990, after a sharp increase during Margaret Thatcher’s time. At the time, when unemployment was high, their work defined 8.5 million people as in poverty – in that they lacked “socially perceived necessities”. The JRF prefers to focus, however, on the numbers of those on incomes of less than 75 per cent of the MIS, as it says these are the people “at high risk of being in poverty”.
History of this topic
Rich getting richer and poor slipping further back, with youth inequality growing fastest, ACOSS says
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Number of children in absolute poverty across UK hits 3.7 million after increases of 200,000 in a year
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Prosperity in the 21st century
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There’s a problem with the way we define inequality
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Cuts will force one million more children into poverty by end of decade, says Institute for Fiscal Studies
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Inequality 'is worse than under Thatcher'
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