poverty line calculator

Dear all,

I’ve just published a new calculator on The Children’s Society website which allows you to:

1.  See the income poverty line (after housing costs) for a given family type for any year 2000-2012
2.  See “base” benefit rates (out of work benefit rates with no additions for housing or on account of disabilities etc) for that household type, again for any year 2000-2012.
3.  See what proportion of the poverty line these benefit rates represent, and
4.  Produce a chart which tracks changes in benefit rates as a proportion of the poverty line for the given household type for 2000-2012.

The calculator is available here:

http://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/news-views/good-childhood-blog/use-our-new-calculator-track-shifting-poverty-line

I hope it is of some interest to you.  If you have any comments etc, please do let me know at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) .  I will be producing some analysis based on findings from the calculator over the coming few weeks.

All the best,

Sam

Thanks Sam, very useful.  What’s the poverty measure - 60% of median?

One point on the base benefits figure; do you need to know the under ones in any year for basic CTC?

Hi Gareth,

Yes, poverty line is based on 60% of median income for the given year (after housing costs deducted).

For simplicity the baby element of CTC was ignored.  I had a note explaining this, but unfortunately this appears to have been lost when the calculator went up on the website.  I will add the note explaining this back in.

Best,
Sam