Coalition is repeating Labour's mistakes on poverty says report

The Coalition Government is repeating the same mistakes as Labour on poverty reduction, according to a new report released today by the Joseph Rowntree foundation.

It's annual assessment of poverty in the UK warns that the Coalition does not have a comprehensive anti-poverty strategy, and relies too much on the tax and benefits system alone to encourage people into work, mistakes also made by Labour.

The authors calls for there to be a comprehensive anti-poverty strategy across all age groups whereas the Coalition, like Labour, has a strategy for child poverty only.

This ignores,says the report, the equally high level of poverty among young adults. It also ignores rising poverty among working-age adults without dependent children, which has risen by 1 million in the last decade.

The report found that in the year to 2009/10, the child poverty rate fell to 29 per cent, the second fall in two years.

Child poverty fell by around one-seventh under the previous Labour Government.

The report finds that like Labour, the Coalition's policies rely too much on the tax and benefits system to encourage people into work. There is not enough emphasis on putting the creation of more and better jobs at the heart of anti-poverty policy.

Millions more jobs are needed in the UK economy. Six million people were under-employed in the first half of 2011,this includes people who are unemployed (2.5m), working part-time but wanting full-time work (1.2m),and those classed as economically inactive but wanting work (2.3m).

Other changes to Tax Credits now mean that an additional 1.4 million households lose over 70p for each extra £1 they earn. Although the report welcomes Universal Credit as a reform heading in the right direction, it still will not address problems with low paid, insecure and dead end jobs. Without solving these problems, poverty can never properly be tackled – over half of all children in poverty are living with a parent who already does paid work.

Report co-author Tom MacInnes commented: '"A conservative estimate is that the country lacks at least four million paid jobs. In this situation, reforms aimed at improving incentives to enter work will increase the number scrambling for vacancies whilst doing next to nothing to reduce poverty".

Community cohesion? Not us say the white working classes

Community cohesion is being viewed as a 'top-down',government-imposed model according to a new report out this morning.

The study,White working-class views of neighbourhood, cohesion and change by the Joseph Rowntree trust found that the white working classes had a the sense of being a forgotten group disconnected from policy and politics.

The report was set up as a response to the fact that community cohesion has been influential in shaping government policy since the 2001 disturbances in Burnley, Oldham and Bradford,whilst recognising that few studies have assessed the contribution of white working-class communities to cohesion.

However the report recommends that after nearly ten years of being a key policy, the evidence from this study was that community cohesion had not succeeded in creating shared values or reducing intolerance.

Many residents felt they were a forgotten community and had been ignored by policy-makers at local or national level. The sense of disconnection was due to neighbourhood change but also the impact of immigration,the study found.

They also discovered that many residents felt they had been unfairly treated by government, especially in terms of allocation to social housing. They felt that housing organisations rewarded groups who did not appear to add anything positive to neighbourhoods.

The research showed residents felt they were being treated unfairly and did not have a voice. They saw themselves as a forgotten group, and felt that government had not listened to them in the past, nor showed any signs of doing so in future.

The language used in their discussions appeared to be racist. Yet many residents would be upset by this suggestion. Racialised opinions should be seen in the context of people feeling the effects of neighbourhood loss, political disconnection and competition for scarce resources.

There were also concerns about the pace of neighbourhood change. Many residents stated that cultural identity – as evidenced in social clubs, public-sector housing and pubs – had largely disappeared, replaced by communities (minority groups and newly arrived immigrants) who had no allegiance to the neighbourhood, identity-based organisations and services.

How climate change in the UK hits those that consume the least carbon

Two interesting reports out today from the Joseph Rowntree trust looking at the effects of climate change in the UK.

The first report has found that people who emit the least carbon in the UK are most likely to suffer from the consequences of climate change and and identifies who and where is most vulnerable to climate change in the UK.

The distribution of UK household CO2 emissions reveals distinct social patterns in the way that emissions vary across UK households.

It shows that people in the 45–55 age group emit the most carbon, 50 per cent more than that the under- 25s. It also shows that wealthier households have the highest overall emissions, with the top 10% of earners emitting more than twice as much carbon as the bottom 10%.

Travel accounts for much of this variation, with the top 10% of earners emitting 5 times as much carbon from flying than the bottom ten per cent, and 3 times as much from driving. Not surprisingly car ownership is itself associated with increased emissions: multi-car households have on average 3 times the emissions of those with no car.

The differences, though still significant, are smaller for household fuel use, with the top ten per cent of earners emitting 45% more than the bottom 10%.

The second bit of research identifies for the first time the people and places in the UK most likely to be worst affected by climate change.

It found that Urban and coastal areas are by far the most socially vulnerable.

There is a north-south divide in terms of flooding in England, with Yorkshire and Humberside the region most disadvantaged due to the potential for harm and the likelihood of being affected.

Manchester to host launch of Chinese migrant workers in the UK: experiences of exploitation and forced labour

The Joseph Rowntree foundation (JRF) will be launching in Manchester research which is to look at how the Chinese migrant workers in the UK have experiences of exploitation and forced labour.

The research has been conducted by Manchester Metropolitan University in partnership with the Wai Yin Chinese Women Society, Manchester, and in collaboration with the Chinese Welfare Association in Belfast and the Chinese Migrant Network in London.

This research drew on the experiences of 32 migrant Chinese workers, mostly in the Chinese catering and hospitality business and it explores the experiences of exploitation among low-skilled Chinese migrant workers in the UK.

It highlights the extent of exploitation at work, examines what makes workers vulnerable to forced labour, and considers the complex relationships between migration, work and family.

This free event will take place on the 1st November.

More details HERE

What do we do with the poverty figures?

There has been a lot of debate about poverty over the last 24 hours.

I would like to point you in the direction of this article from Julia Unwin who is the CE of the Joseph Rowntree Trust.

One of the hardy perennials of the poverty debate is the question of measurement. I wonder what it says about us as a country: why do we spend so much effort thinking about definitions of poverty, and so little responding to the reality

The piece was in repsonse to yesterday's IFS report which predicted a substantial rise in poverty over the next few years

Julia asks what do we do when faced with reports like these?

We can read them and despair, or we can address the well-documented and widely-recognised underlying drivers of poverty. The instability and insecurity of so many poorly paid jobs, the limits to child care for working parents, and the educational inequality which condemns people to a life of poverty. We can design jobs that help people to progress, and at the same time support families and break the damaging cycles that lie behind these figures