United Kingdom

Shawn’s piece on the economic context for the “War on Poverty” made me think of how different the U.S. economy is now than it was in 1964, and how a local government in the UK is trying to address inequality, even as prosperity grows for those in the middle.

Thanks to their economic and fiscal policies, the UK actually has enjoyed median income growth, but there remains a concern that economic benefits have not been enjoyed by those experiencing poverty. In other words, even though median income is up and poverty is down (against a relative measure), the belief is that local governments can and should do even more to reach those experiencing disadvantage, with the national target to reduce child poverty as the guide.

In Knowsley, a borough of the city of Liverpool with a population of 50,000, the local government and its strategic partners (Jobcentres, the department of economic development, the learning and skills council, welfare rights advocates, the housing authority, the local primary health care trust, local children’s centres and SureStart workers, social services, the prison trust, and transportation officers) has decided to embrace the Government’s child poverty target by making it their own.

Here are some of the key principles guiding Knowsley’s strategy:

-- A close working relationship between the department of economic development, regeneration and neighbourhoods, and the department of children’s services, to the point of writing joint strategies, sharing policy and delivery staff, and pooling their funding. The belief is that reducing child poverty and creating the conditions for continued local economic growth are essentially the same goal.

-- Introducing a coordinated “life chances” approach that intervenes at every stage of the life cycle to address poverty now, and keep it form flourishing; in other words, the goal is a combination of treatment and prevention.

-- A full review of all of the existing local programmes currently in place to assist those experiencing poverty. The guiding question is “are we working as well as we could, and what do we have to change to increase programme effectiveness?” This doesn’t necessarily require a funding increase, just different ways of working.

-- A poverty principle for procurement, which involves asking private and voluntary sector organisations who are contracted to deliver local services to prove that they have reduced poverty on the ground. In other words, the local government wants to get what it’s paying for.

-- A closer look at the quality of employment being offered by companies doing business in Knowsley, and closer scrutiny of companies who want to set up shop there. The hope is that this will result in the introduction of substantial “living wage” requirements, with teeth.

In the U.S. we do need to avoid using any further “War on Poverty” language in exchange for a more inclusive approach, but that would be true in times of stagnation as well as in times of growth. And there is much that can be done locally while we wait for Congress and the next administration to catch on.

The Guardian (UK) has an interesting new poll out that "contradicts the widespread assumption that environmental issues are seen by voters as a luxury to be put aside in tough economic times." Although the overall framing of poll, which pits the "economy" against "the environment", is problematic, the findings are still worth a look, particularly those on the greater priority working-class voters in the UK are giving to climate change:

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Environmentalists are constantly accused of being middle-class lifestyle faddists, who don't understand the day-to-day financial pressures faced by "ordinary" working people. But the number of people who thought that environment should be the government's priority rather than the economy was substantially higher (56%) among the lower income, less well-educated DE¹ demographic [Unskilled manual and unemployed] than among the better-off ABs [Managerial and professional] (47%). Lower-income social groups also have a much lighter environmental footprint overall: only 42% of DEs [ took a foreign holiday over the last three years, whilst 77% of ABs did. Better-off people also own more cars, as you might expect – only 5% of DEs have three or more cars, whilst 15% of ABs do.

.... The working-class people who they claim "can't afford to be concerned about climate change" actually care more about the future of the planet than the rich – and are doing a lot less damage to boot. So next time you hear someone defending motorway expansion or cheap flights on behalf of the British poor, ask yourself the question: whose side are they really on?

When analyzing the UK's child poverty target it is critically important to remember that it uses a relative measure. Poverty is set at 60 percent of median income. For the past decade, median incomes in the UK have risen above inflation. Reducing child poverty by 17 percent over 6 years, relative to a rising median is no small feat, and makes the UK’s efforts so very commendable. That the job is getting tricky in this economic and political climate is not surprising. With a reduction as dramatic as 17 percent, the message must have resounded with some segment of the electorate. But for a host of nuanced reasons, even jobless Brits are now more likely to give their vote to the Tories rather than to Labour. In most circles, this is viewed as “people just being tired of Labour,” a phenomenon we Americans tend to answer with the help of term limits and set election days, neither of which exist in the UK.

It’s undeniable though: since the Labour Government took power in 1997, the tide has raised all ships, and smaller boats have been towed closer to the fleet.

Having studied first hand the successes and challenges of British policies on social inclusion, I’ve been asked recently why my friends at inclusionist.org and I advocate so strongly for a relative poverty measure when “it’s not likely to happen”?

Here's my case:

1. We believe in a more inclusive society. We believe in a more inclusive society where our government, our public services, and our community-based organizations have the power to bring those who have been excluded back into the mainstream of society. The only way to know if this is happening is to take a social-inclusion approach that measures against what’s happening in the middle, and whether the gaps between excluded groups and the whole of society are narrowing.

2. We’ve got the political capital, and we can build the political will. We’re enthusiastic, hopeful and ready to demand a little extra from the Democratic majority in both houses of Congress, and, c’mon – let’s start to believe it – a progressive president. To poverty and social inclusion analysts across the nation, we ask: “When is a relative measure of poverty more likely to happen?”

3. We don’t have to wait for the government to do it. There are some very encouraging poverty and child poverty campaigns that are building momentum in New Mexico, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Connecticut, to name a few. To achieve at least a smidgen of the success that the UK has achieved, they’ll need to start by re-conceptualizing their state’s notion of poverty by identifying the state’s median income and measuring from there.

Conventional measurements of 100 percent or 200 percent of the official poverty line are more easily calculated and sold, but it’s not really the smart policy we’re capable of developing. Without a true relative measure, we’re stuck in the same old school ideas that haven’t taken us as far as we might go. Generating ideas independent of government—isn’t that what America is bloody about?

(This guest post by Natalie Branosky of the Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion (CESI is a UK think tank, but Natalie is from the U.S.) was originally written as a comment on Shawn Fremstad's post about Kate Stanley's recent Guardian op-ed on the UK's poverty reduction goal. The Editors.)

From today's Guardian, IPPR's Kate Stanley notes that "the goal of ending child poverty by 2020 has failed to strike a chord with the [UK] electorate" and outlines some of the steps that need to be taken to actually meet the goal:

The next year will be a real test of the government's mettle: will it stand by its historic pledge and find the resources, in a hostile political and economic climate, to halve child poverty by 2010, or will it weaken and put resources into more popular causes? Strange though it may seem to many, the goal of ending child poverty by 2020 has failed to strike a chord with the electorate.

To meet the 2010 target, the method is quite simple. The government will have to find around £2.8bn next year and the year after to increase the child tax credit (or some similarly targeted measure).

Meeting the ultimate 2020 target will require a more sophisticated strategy. To start with, the UK has the highest proportion of children growing up in workless households, so more needs to be done to tackle worklessness. This will necessitate a more radical approach to welfare reform.

However, more than half of all poor children live in households where someone is working, so much more needs to be done to make sure that people move out of poverty when they move into work.

While tax credits will continue to have an important role in raising incomes, there is a limit to what can be achieved through tax credits alone. Measures are also needed to help households reduce the risk of poverty by having more than one person in the household in work. This means doing more to enable mothers and fathers to balance work and care.

And, of course, low wages have to be addressed. This means high-paying industries need to start paying their low-paid workers more and low-paying industries need greater support and greater challenge to raise their wages.

In the short term then, the challenge is coming up with significant extra cash to transfer to poor families. This will get the government back on track to meeting its ultimate target and send out a message that an anti-poverty agenda still sits at Labour's heart. In the longer term, a much stronger coalition between government, employers and citizens is needed to achieve sustainable change and end child poverty for good.

If a poverty reduction goal has "failed to strike a chord" with the relatively more liberal UK electorate--this is a country, after all, with a nationalized health system, one that makes the Canadian model look conservative--it seems safe to assume that such a goal may have even less resonance with the US electorate. One lesson might be that a goal by itself, particularly if set in a top-down manner by a government in power, may not be sufficient to mobilize public opinion in support of policies to meet that goal. In a parliamentary democracy like the UK, lack of broad public support might not be an obstacle to meeting such a goal, but it's of considerably greater importance in a non-parliamentary system like the US.

After last week's disastrous election for Labour in the UK, Neal Lawson of Compass (a sort of anti-DLC of the British left) argues that Labour needs to recast itself as a party of both the middle and working class:

New Labour is now dead. The strategy that saw the Party continually triangulate interests and concerns, tacking endlessly to the right, doing what the Tories would do only doing it first, fixating on a mythical middle England and denying that free market policies are having a damaging effect on society is now finished.

The atrocious results from last night clearly show that the Blairite strategy, revived by Gordon Brown, of targeting middle class votes while assuming the working class would back the Party come what may, no longer holds. The working class are now staying home or voting for anyone other than Labour as an alternative to the Tories. Millions still identify with the Party but won't back it because its policies and rhetoric is alienating them.

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The issue is not whether Labour is a party of the middle class or the working class. It has to be both. That was the genius of the 1997 voting bloc. The leadership of the Party must now accept that the same issues affect voters in Reading as in Rotherham; insecurity and anxiety caused by flexible labour markets, the lack of affordable housing, sharp price rises, concerns about pensions, worries about securing places in local schools, immigration and the widening gap between the rich and the poor. But while this pervasive insecurity affects everyone it is the lower social groups who pay the heaviest price. A fresh start is not just an ideological necessity but an electoral imperative.

We must have a vision and a set of policies that unite common interests and concerns. Brown said in the autumn that he would delay the election to set out his vision for the country. Six months on no one is any the wiser. Instead he has panicked and pressed the rewind button back to the failed politics of Blairism. The working class have not just been ignored but attacked on issues such as social housing, benefits and now the 10p tax rate. Trade union action in defence of workers rights and conditions have also been criticised. John Hutton says the rich should be celebrated! It is little wonder that these people don't vote for us and particularly alarming that regrettably some seem to have backed the BNP.

And when the middle class face university tuition fees, long term care costs, white collar jobs being outsourced to India and when economic good fortune turns against us - the scale of the political and electoral task facing Labour becomes clear. If Brownism is just Blairism without the economic boom then the Party is finished.

Everyone is working hard and playing by the rules but a political and economic system that prioritises the needs of the rich over everyone else is always going to disappoint.

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A new narrative for Britain must be based on the eternal centre-left values of liberty, equality and solidarity. The trick is how we apply them in the world today.

Whether or not Lawson's diagnosis of Labour's defeat is correct, it's hard to disagree with his vision for the party going forward.

A tipster sends us the latest report on the status of the UK goal to halve the number of children living in poverty within a decade:

... less than three years before the first major deadline in 2010, it appears ministers are falling well behind in meeting their own bold targets.

According to the latest report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, although the number of children living in poverty has fallen by 600,000 since the government made its pledge, it remains 500,000 short of the target it should have reached in 2004/5.

The report's authors say the most serious setback was an increase of 200,000 children living in poverty in 2005/06 - taking the total to 3.8 million, or one in three children, if housing costs are taken into account.

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Although half of all children in poverty are in working families, according to the report, the redistribution of income through tax credits has not kept pace with the growing inequality in incomes across Britain.

"That is a sign that tax credits alone are not quite sufficient," says Mr Kenway. "They are asked to carry more burden than any single policy."

However, while he admits there is no "silver bullet", he would like to see the government tackle low pay, especially in the public sector, the tax burden of low-income working-age households - such as council tax - and the education of young adults aged between 19 and 20 who don't have a minimum level of education.

The Rowntree Foundation report, Monitoring Poverty and Social Exclusion 2007, also concludes that "overall earnings inequalities are widening" and "disability rather than lone parenthood is the factor most likely to lead to worklessness."

In response to misleading terminology (often used here in the US) that describes the standard poverty measures used in the UK and the rest of the EU as "relative" measures, and essentially arbitrary measures like current US measure as "absolute" ones, the authors of the report make a point that deserves emphasis:

In our view, one of the worst things that has happened to the discussion of poverty in recent years is the way in which the poverty measured in this report is now often referred to as 'relative' poverty.

This is wrong in principle and betrays a misunderstanding of what poverty is: in short, poverty is measured relative to average income because poverty itself is inherently relative, that is, when someone is so short of resources that they are unable to attain the minimum norms for the society in which they live. So what is being measured is not some lesser thing called 'relative poverty' but poverty itself.

It is perfectly possible – and one of our indicators does this – to measure progress relative to a fixed poverty line, that is, one that does not change from year to year. In the statistics for the latest year, for the first time in many years, the fixed threshold measure has important information to impart. But it is not in any sense an 'absolute' poverty measure and it plays only a supporting role.

Britian's Guardian newspaper lauched its Guardian America website today. Edited by former American Prospector Michael Tomasky, it will be a welcome antedote to the Murdochization of the American news media. As Tomasky explains in his welcome post:

... the paper was founded in 1821 "to promote the liberal interest" in the aftermath of the Peterloo massacre. Now, I confess that I don't know what that was. But it sounds bad, and I've been around the block enough times to know that journals founded in response to events like massacres tend to be pretty reliable, from my point of view, more or less across the board.

So Guardian America will, yes, promote the liberal interest. Not with a sledgehammer; one of the most important liberal interests, after all, is in free inquiry, debate, scepticism, even about one's own positions. But I suspect that, among the Americans who like the Guardian, one of the things they like is that the paper expresses its view of the world a bit more openly than American newspapers do.

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In addition to high-quality content, the Guardian has one of the best designed sites in the newspaper business. Four columns but with lots of white space and nice graphics and video.

And, where else would you learn that it's National Curry Week?

In her blog entry on lessons from recent trip to the UK, Margy notes that the UK uses a poverty measure that takes into account inequality and social exclusion. The UK measure is a vast improvement on the antiquated US measure that is based on, well, nothing really. Along the lines of the Guardian editorial Margy mentions, there's another good opinion piece in last week's Scottish paper The Herald that discusses how the UK measurement—typically known as relative poverty, but I'm not a fan of that label for reasons discussed in Inclusion's recent paper on low-wage work—accurately measures the reality of deprivation in a rich nation:

This is not the child poverty Thomas Annan's camera recorded in the backcourts of Victorian Glasgow, where thin, ragged, barefoot children played in the dirt, let alone the child poverty of waifs in Addis Ababa scouring rubbish dumps for plastic carrier bags to sell for a pittance. Yet Martin is instantly recognisable as one of the 210,000 children in Scotland living in poverty. This is the reality of relative poverty. Because he is shod and isn't starving and probably lives in a home that has both a telephone and a television, many people would say he "isn't really poor".

In fact, they would probably say "real poverty" no longer exists in Britain. But Martin is poor because he is part of a group that is falling behind what most ordinary people take for granted in his society. Without a lot of help, Martin's chances of leaving school with a respectable set of Standard Grades and getting a decent job are minimal, and his chances of ending up on benefits or in prison are extremely high. This week's Scottish poverty figures provide a window into the bleak lives of boys such as Martin. Ask people about the 20,000 Scottish children who do not have birthday parties or go on school trips, or the 150,000 who go without a week-long summer holiday, let alone the 30,000 whose parents can't afford to heat their homes, and they might change their minds about Martin being poor."

I don't agree with conservative Robert Rector about much, but I basically agree with his finding that:

Overall, the typical American defined as poor by the government has a car, air conditioning, a refrigerator, a stove, a clothes washer and dryer, and a microwave. He has two color televisions, cable or satellite TV reception, a VCR or DVD player, and a stereo. He is able to obtain medical care. His home is in good repair and is not overcrowded. By his own report, his family is not hungry and he had sufficient funds in the past year to meet his family's essential needs. While this individual's life is not opulent, it is equally far from the popular images of dire poverty conveyed by the press, liberal activists, and politicians.

I also agree with my friend Arloc Sherman's finding that rates of various forms of material "hardship are considerably higher among families living in poverty" and that about one out of every two poor families experience either crowded housing or food insecurity or unmet medical needs.

But, ultimately, I find this type of technical discussion about poverty and hardship extremely limiting. The kind of extreme inequality that exists in the United States would be a bad thing even if every American had cable and a DVD, and even if no Americans were hungry or homeless. And many of the most serious forms of harm from extreme inequality in a wealthy nation aren't captured in datasets.

This is something that even leading conservatives in the United Kingdom understand. Imagine John McCain or Rudolph Giuliani publicly repudiating the inequality generated by the radical conservative economics of the 1980s and 1990s and calling for replacing the current US poverty measure with one that is based on measuring extreme inequality. It's hard to imagine, but it's exactly what David Cameron, the UK's conservative candidate for Prime Minister, has done in recent months. While it's not that surprising that US conservatives aren't following Cameron, it is surprising that so few liberals and progressive think tanks in the US have called for replacing the US poverty measure with an inequality-based measure.