Chris Goulden reviews recent JRF research into minumum income standards, finding that a necessary but not sufficient condition for a minimum standard of living is to be in work, but earnings on the National Minimum Wage combined with in-work benefits are not necessarily enough.
One of the (many) great features of our annual minimum income standard research is that it provides a fair and independent way of comparing how well-off different groups are – both in and out of work. It shows that working-age families do not meet the minimum if they are workless and fall short even if they are working full-time on the minimum wage.
It’s consequently a unique measure of the fairness of our social protection systems. Crucial to this is that decisions about the minimum are made by ordinary members of the public.
Led by the public
Throughout careful and extensive group deliberations, members of the public taking part in the research agree on the items and activities making up the minimum for their own family type. It’s important that they bring insights from their own lives as single people, parents or pensioners to the case study families that form the basis of the focus group discussions.
JRF and the research team have no control over what the decisions eventually are – this is truly a participant-led piece of research. Similarly, we have no hold over the costs of the components of budgets or the changes to taxes and benefits that affect how much people need to earn to reach the specified minimum standard of living. The shops where food, clothing and other goods are bought are decided by the groups too (typically plumping for Tesco, Wilkinson’s or Argos). Finally, items are priced by the research team according to the real cost in these shops.
Importantly, all the groups work to the same definition (also agreed by the first participants in 2008):
“A minimum standard of living in the UK today includes, but is more than just, food, clothes and shelter. It is about having what you need in order to have the opportunities and choices necessary to participate in society.”
A clear hierarchy
But how are these opportunities and choices distributed? The chart shows the proportion of the minimum income standard achieved for some of the main household types in the research if they are relying on benefits, pensions or minimum wage work.
Chart: Who gets what they need?
There is a pretty clear hierarchy with pensioners at the top, followed by working-age adults in jobs and then those who are out of work. The childless single adult is some way behind the rest. This ordering ties in well with notions of the deserving and undeserving poor. A major problem with this concept is that these are the same people, just at different points in their lives.
Children, deserving of support, become young adults, who must struggle with entering the labour market and maintaining work. They may lose their job and have to survive on less than half of what they need for a time or slightly more than that if they become parents. Then, on retirement, (if they take up all the benefits to which they are entitled) they may find themselves able to more easily live a comfortable life.
Lessons
There are a number of lessons from this. Firstly, the generational gap between what people need and what they can get was already large but it’s slowly growing as working-age benefits get eroded. Secondly, the only way to achieve a minimum standard of living for working-age adults is to work – but earnings on the National Minimum Wage together with in-work benefits are not enough to get there. The heavy withdrawal of those benefits as earnings rise means that it is very difficult to make up the gap – particularly for lone parents.
Finally, and on a more positive note, the fact that pensioners are able to achieve a minimum standard of living is an important welfare precedent. It shows that, with sufficient public support, a thriving economy and the political will, the goal of everyone getting at least what they need is not an impossible dream.
Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the British Politics and Policy blog, nor of the London School of Economics. Please read our comments policy before posting.
Chris Goulden is Poverty Programme Manager at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. He tweets at @chris_goulden.
Martin Wisema you are talking rubbish people in bracket disabled are treated completely different the way it works out at the minute I would sooner have something that could be classed disabled the benefits they get is ridiculous you know if you are disabled you still get beneifts if you are in work I know quite a few people that are allowed to work and claim, stupid things like Autism and Diabetes some people with autism are severe and cannot work which i have nothing against but the fact is the one I know with it can work infact they are perfectly capable and nothing holding them back and does work in a real good job still gets allot of DLA free rent bus passes the lot, the person with diabeties gets the same, if the disabilties don’t stop you from working then why is it fair they get it and not someone on low income with children to feed.
No where here does it seem to mention the disabled or permanently injured who unlike people with children are actually easily treated the hardest by the government. My wife and I am constantly pressured to give up the tiny amount of benefit we claim are lied about and are easily harder up than any group you can name. People with children constantly picked out as the hardest up are in reality the reverse, actually being recognised by marketing men as having the most expendable income than any other group. Please look for ‘kids go free’ kids eat free’ offers and go into any BP/M & S garage and see them buying food in this the most expensive food outlet in the country for just some proof. My wife and I don’t smoke or drink whereas most single parent families can apparently afford to do both. When my wife and I go out we visit gardens. Whilst there we might have a pot of tea between us whilst we regularly see women with pushchairs spend £40-50 and think nothing of it. My wife suffers with arthritus but still does 4 days in Tescos working on the till. Whilst there she reguarly witnesses people with children pick up toys on their way round worth £15 -£20. All this adds up to the reality that it is definitely not people with children who are the most hard up in our society. Far from it, around my way women now regard having babies the moment they are of child baring age as a career option as it avails them of priority treatment to rent free housing and a multitude of other benefits. Those former hard working injured or disabled in complete contrast are currently being left now with no income whatsoever after finding themselves cut off from any benefits at all despite expert medical diagnosis from their medical specialists proving they are genuinely struggling with illness, injury or disablement. They are cut off by an IT Solutions company pretending to be a medical company (please confirm this at Companies House – Atos Healthcare is registered at Companies House actually as Atos IT Solutions UK Ltd) Disabled, permanently injured and genuinely sick people are having all the benefits cut off by this company by the illegal altering of all their answers given in completely bogus medical assessments carried out by people with no knowledge or medical qualifications at all of their illnesses or disabilities and apparently this is deemed perfectly acceptable as we demonise these people regularly in the press. This is a totally corrupt system and yet you seem blind to the plight of these people who are clearly by a country mile worse off than anyone with children. Whereas you have stated a two parent family needs over £36k a year to avoid poverty, a disabled, ill or permanently injured couple can apparently receive no income at all and still NOT be living in poverty? How can that possibly be right? It angers me imensely how people with children are falsely presented as being hard up when the reality is so the opposite. Car retailers now for instance, are all concentrating on cars for people with children as no other group in the domestic market is buying new cars at anywhere near the same rate as those within this group. Proton has even stopped manufacture of its cheap sports mini in the UK instead consentrating on the manufacture of a more expensive four door family saloon and all other manufacturers are doing the same. Any company not aiming their marketing at people with children is aiming to go bust as these are the people with most the expendable income as benefits are so easily available and are so over generous compared to any other group. People who are injured, ill, or disabled are by contrast falsely painted as all scroungers and so can be cut off from all benefits by a dishonest method and this is now deemed fine by all the press and media as no publicity is given to the genuine plight of childless people in this group who are living in genuine poverty often with no income at all. Why can you not see all this? Genuinely disabled, injured and sick people are even winning their cases in tribunals proving in front of District Judges they are genuinely ill, injured or disabled and that the government has lied about the effects of their medicines, lied about how their illness effects them, and actually illegally altered their answers in capability assessments carried out in truth by an IT company and STILL they are being cut off from all benefits and yet they are NOT mentioned in any of your figures, why is that please? How can anyone claiming to be interested in fighting poverty ignore this completely unjust system and not acknowledge how these people are clearly the hardest up and harshest treated in UK society today? People with children receive benefits automatically for either chosing to have children or irresponsibly having them. Sick, injured or disabled by contrast have not chosen to be so, they have left this way by suffering serious illness or accident not in any way their own fault. So why are so hard on this group of people who quite often were the 40% income tax payers when they were working and are now left with no income at all using a totally corrupt system of assessing them?
Regards
Martin Wiseman
Recently cut off BBC Radio London for stating truthfully how the government hires an IT solutions company to carry out medical assessments on our injured, disabled, and ill people.