One-quarter live below poverty line

NEARLY a quarter of British people live in households with incomes below the poverty line, a new report has claimed.

Research by social policy charity Joseph Rowntree Foundation found 12.4m people could be categorised as ?living in poverty‘ as household bills account for 40% of the total household income.

The figure for 2002/03 compares with 14m people who lived in low-income houses when Labour came to power in 1996/97.

The number of children in poor households has fallen over the same period from 4.3m to 3.6m.

Allowing for tax credit changes introduced in April 2003, this suggests the Government might well reach its short-term target of reducing child poverty by a quarter at the end of this year, the JRF said.

Figures show a reduction of 500,000 in the number of pensioners in poor households, down to 2.2m in 2002/3.

But the number of working-age adults without dependent children living in households below the poverty line increased by 300,000 from 3.6m in 1996/7 to 3.9m in 2002/3.

While fewer families and pensioners are living on low incomes, the number of childless working-age adults below the poverty line has increased.

Guy Palmer, director of the New Policy Institute and co-author of the report, said: ?There has been substantial success over the last decade in reducing child and pensioner poverty, and unemployment.

?There has been much less success in reducing the numbers of people who are economically inactive but want paid work, as well as long-term worklessness due to sickness and disability, and poverty among childless, working-age households.‘

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