We are being told that the recession is going to cause a significant rise in child poverty. By the method that this is normally measured we can’t see it ourselves:

Coronavirus will cause child poverty to soar. So what can we do about it?

We agree that this recession - and it’s a proper doozy of a recession too - is going to lead to a decrease in the economic resources available to many to most of the population. We’re entirely happy with calling that an increase in poverty. But that’s not actually how poverty is measured these days. Instead we use a relative definition, poverty is having less than others not less in toto.

That is, the current measure of child poverty - living in a household with less than 60% of median income - is a measure of inequality, not poverty. And here’s the thing about recessions, inequality falls in them. At first blush this should mean a reduction in child poverty. And, in fact, given that relative measure, that’s what does happen in a recession.

We can go into slightly more detail. Median income is clearly going to fall when GDP does by 25 or 30%. But the incomes of the poor are somewhat to largely to completely made up of welfare and benefits, none of which are going to fall in these difficult times. We’re going to see a compression of incomes at the low end that is. Top end incomes will fall, largely based upon profits as they are, middling incomes and the median will fall, bottom end incomes will be static. Because inequality falls then so does poverty given the way we measure that poverty.

We entirely agree that we shouldn’t be measuring this way - falling incomes will indeed cause more poverty sensibly defined. But that also means that in more normal times we shouldn’t be measuring poverty this way either.

We can go a step further. In the good times inequality expands because that’s just what happens. At which point the call is for more taxation and more redistribution to curb the rise in child poverty. In these bad times our commentators are insisting that the same cure must be applied - more taxes, more benefits, to curb the increase in child poverty. But if both good and bad times increase that child poverty then there’s something wrong with the measure of the poverty we’re using, isn’t there? And something very definitely wrong with the proposed cure if that remains the same whatever else is happening.

We’re as with medieval doctors and leeches. An entirely sensible cure for a limited set of problems but their application to every problem is closer to religion than sensible disease management. So too with this treatment of child poverty. If the answer is always the leech then we’re asking the wrong question.