Brown’s poverty fiddle

Over at the Adam Smith Institute blog, Dr Eamon Butler highlights a very important truth – that severe poverty has worsened under this government.  How so, when the Government claims to have lifted ‘a million’ people out of poverty?  Well – as you’d expect – it’s all to do with a Bronwie-style, statistical fiddle.  

The Treasury defines a poor household as one which earns under 60 percent of median income.  They’ve expended a whole lot of effort, time and taxpayers’ cash to lift people from just under that line to just over it – success, by this Government’s terms.  But those far below the line have been left behind.  As Dr Butler points out, those with incomes below 40 percent of the median have swelled in number, so that things are the worst they’ve been for 30 years.  

So much for Brown’s self-stated goal of improving opportunities for all, then.