A possibly harsh but necessary question

The Joseph Rowntree bods have another report about poverty. In which they say:

Larger families - 43% of children in families with 3 or more children were in poverty in 2021/22. A number of benefit policies, including the two-child limit and the benefit cap, have a disproportionate impact on larger families.  Families whose childcare responsibilities limit their ability to work – 44% of children in lone-parent families were in poverty in 2021/22, as were 32% of children in families where the youngest child was aged under 5. Families not in work – more than half of working-age adults (56%) in workless households were in poverty in 2021/22, compared with 15% in working households. However, because a high share of the population is in work, around two-thirds of working-age adults in poverty actually lived in a household where someone was in work. Part-time workers and the self-employed - amongst people in work, the poverty rate for part-time workers was double that for full-time workers (20% compared with 10%) and self-employed workers were more than twice as likely to be in poverty as employees (23% compared with 10%).

These things are highlighted because JRF think they are bad things. In fact, they think they are very bad things.

Note the definition of poverty being used, which is that 60% of median household income. Yes, adjusted for household size but perhaps not enough. The modal household in the UK is two earner and we’d not be surprised to be told - in fact would expect - that the modal number of workers in families with large numbers of children is one. This would also give us an insight into why one parent families have lower incomes.

We’re also really not surprised that those not working at all, or those working only part time, have lower incomes than those working full time.

We also have that rather hopeful insistence that has been repeated over the years - work should pay.

At which point, the possibly harsh question. How much should work pay?

We all know where the 60% idea comes from. It’s a 30,000 foot view from the egalitarians. A society which is more unequal than that pains them therefore they’ve adopted it as the standard by which they measure poverty. But it’s possible to approach the point from the other direction. So, if work should pay then how much should it pay?

How much more should two earner families get? Those working than those not? Those working full time than those part? We have a certain expectation that when asked - well, at least net taxpayers will say this - the answer will be greater than the differences in household income allowed by that 60% of median standard.

It’s even possible to suggest that the answer, when the question is put that way, will be that the Great British Public think there’s not enough relative poverty.

No, we do not say that’s so. But we do think it would be terribly fun to go out and ask. This 60% idea. Do you think it right that a household in which no one works at all should, by right, get 60% of what one where two adults work full time get? On average?

For that is what this measurement of poverty is insisting upon. Well, once we include the implicit insistence that government needs to solve this poverty so that no one is on less than 60% of median household income. So, is that what the people actually believe?

We’re really most uncertain that it is.