Latest editorial
A homeless man in Liverpool
THE Social Metrics Commission’s report, A New Measure of Poverty for the UK, is effectively a damning criticism of the policies of the Tory administrations since 2010.
New Labour, which aimed to eradicate child poverty and end pensioner poverty, broadly defined people in poverty as those living on less than 60 per cent of the median average household income, before housing costs.
Within this definition, the proportion of children in relative poverty fell from 27 per cent to 20 per cent from 1997 to 2010, when New Labour was in office.
Plans to delay access to the universal credit health element until age 22 have triggered fierce opposition from disabled people’s groups, who warn it would deepen poverty and entrench discrimination against young disabled people under the guise of ‘encouraging work.’ DYLAN MURPHY reports
DYLAN MURPHY reports that far from helping people back into work, the sanctions regime is inflicting unnecessary trauma on working-class families
