UK income falls more fairly than France

Hamish McRae wrote an interesting article on income inequality and  the recession in Monday's Evening Standard quoting a report from researchers at UBS.  In it they stated that the loss of personal income due to the recession in the UK has affected all income groups pretty evenly - which contrasts with most of mainland Europe and the US where the fall in income for the richest 10% has been much less than for the poorest.

I've finally tracked down the report on the web here and I've reproduced the table that compares income falls over the last five years by decile:

Those progressive paragons of France and Scandanavia - who the left are telling us to be more like - saw the poorest 10% lose far more than the richest.  In France the poor's income dropped nearly 10% whereas the richest dropped by less than 5%.  In Finland the richest 10% actually saw incomes rise over the last five year.  In contrast in the UK, the poorest decile's income fell by about 7% over the last five years - slightly less than the richest 10%.

One can't help wondering that the UK would look much more like the US and most of Europe if the Tories (or even New Labour) were governing on their own. 

The ludicrous child poverty statistics

Good news - 300,000 fewer children are living in poverty than last year! 

The fact that this is down to the recession and a fall in average incomes shows the ludicrous nature of the concept of defining poverty as a percentage of average income.  Those 300,000 children are living in families most likely worse off than last year.

The 2010 child povery act - along with Tony Blair 13 years earlier - pledge to abolish 'child poverty' was one of those stupid stunts so beloved of new Labour.  You can't legislate poverty away - but being seen to be doing something was more important than actually doing something.  And if you define poverty as a relative to something else you cannot by definition ever abolish poverty because as incomes rise the bar you set rises with it.  Every time a multi millionaire Russian gangster oligarch moves to London we all get poorer.

Iain Duncan Smith is right to say that it is "increasingly clear that poverty is not about income alone".  And by way of a start he might want to find a more appropriate way of measuring poverty in the first place.