Household Spending in Britain: What Can It Teach Us about Poverty?

1. Auflage 2006
ISBN: 978-1-86134-854-8
Verlag: Bristol University Press

Buch, Englisch, 48 Seiten, Format (B × H): 210 mm x 297 mm

Much of the recent policy debate surrounding poverty in Britain focuses on income as a measure of living standards. In this report we consider one alternative to income for measuring poverty that has been largely overlooked in the mainstream poverty debate in the UK: namely household expenditure.
Economic theory suggests that household expenditure is an important measure of financial well-being. Using 30 years of data from household surveys, this report shows the trends in poverty in Britain since the 1970s when household expenditure is used as a measure of financial well-being, rather than household income and investigates how using spending, rather than income, as a measure of well-being alters our view of who is poor. It examines the spending levels of the lowest-income households and analyses whether low-income pensioners' spending on basic and non-basic items increased as a result of the large increases in entitlements to means-tested benefits since 1999.
The research will be of interest to civil servant policy-makers, academics and researchers working on poverty issues, and other groups with an interest in anti-poverty policies.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Brewer, Mike

Goodman, Alissa

Leicester, Andrew

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Soziale Mobilität
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gewalt und Diskriminierung: Soziale Aspekte
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Soziale Ungleichheit, Armut, Rassismus

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction; Income and expenditure poverty compared; Income and expenditure behaviour of the same households; The effect of increased benefit entitlements on pensioner spending; Conclusions and policy implications

Über Autor(innen)

Mike Brewer and Alissa Goodman are Programme Directors, and Andrew Leicester is a senior research economist, all at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, UK.