Talk:Poverty in the United Kingdom

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This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Treys1, HarryGeorgiou.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 07:04, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Can anyone find a link to...
Find "Households Below Average Income (HBAI) 1994/95–2003/04", a Government publication that should prove useful? --bodnotbod 11:29, 26 November 2006 (UTC)


 * That would be Households Below Average Income at http://www.dwp.gov.uk/asd/hbai.asp --Henrygb 17:00, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Poverty
Can anyone find data of poverty stats within cities or regions that would prove useful and indeed interesting?

Update?
This article doesn't appear to have had an update for a few years. What is the stance of the current Conservative/Lib Dem government on poverty? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.149.39.210 (talk) 16:14, 24 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Additionally, stating what the 60% factor means to 04/05 levels of income means very little in 10/11. Update please. FloreatAntiquaDomus 17:12, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Again, this really requires an update - ten years out of date now! absolutelypure milk 18:52 16 July 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Absolutelypuremilk (talk • contribs)

Cleanup/Rewrite
This article is very very poorly written and structured especially the 'Political Party' sections which are very biased. Like the 'Polly Toynbee anathema' remark, I have removed that remark. It badly needs a massive cleanup. Christian1985 (talk) 16:28, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

brick built "pre-fab" in th picture at start of article?
the caption for the pic at the start of the article says the housing is pre-fab, but it looks brick built. i am not aware of any pre-fabrication of brick buildings - instead they are constructed in-situ (and therefore not pre-fab!)

pre-fabs tend to be made from concrete (not brick!!!), or in the contxt of high-rise, from panels attached which are attached in-situ to an internal frame. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.26.79.157 (talk) 18:45, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

The houses in the picture in the article were only built in the 1960s and have since been demolished. It seems a bit oblique to include pictures of modern housing that was rendered unhabitable by the criminal and anti-social behavior of the local residents in an article on poverty. (86.136.184.148 (talk) 09:18, 20 February 2013 (UTC))

Absolute poverty statistics
The introduction of this article stated that 10.9 million residents were living in relative poverty, citing http://labourlist.org/2014/07/number-of-people-living-in-absolute-poverty-rises-to-almost-11-million/ - however, the citation states that this is the number living in absolute poverty. I have corrected this.

The article cited above seems to be taking stats from the following document https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/325416/households-below-average-income-1994-1995-2012-2013.pdf, "Summery of 2012/13 estimates section". This makes it clear the stat refers to 2013, so I've updated the intro to reflect this. Note that the report refers to 'absolute low income,' which may not be compatible with the term 'absolute poverty'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.20.202.211 (talk) 14:42, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

I removed the word tragically
Something being tragic or not is subjective opinion, and is not objective language. Please do not put it back in. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.118.96.0 (talk) 09:26, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

"absolute poverty"
"As of 2013, there are 10.6 million people in absolute poverty, up from 9.7 million in 2012."

When you click on the link absolute poverty, it says that the term means "the equivalent to earning a $1.00 a day in 1996 US prices". The idea that 10.6 million people in the UK live on less than $1 a day (1996 prices) is quite clearly total nonsense. Someone should look at how that 10.6 million number actually is defined. 81.132.192.73 (talk) 02:51, 3 June 2015 (UTC)


 * OK, I looked at the sources cited. The only clear definition that I can see is at, which calls it "Absolute low income", defined as "below 60% of 2010/11 median". The relevant "median", as far as I can tell, is £440 per week. gives an example "Inclusive of benefits and after tax and housing costs, the poverty line for a childless couple is defined by the DWP as £235 a week". Unless someone has a better suggestion, I propose removing the link to the completely different use of "absolute poverty", and also explicitly including the "below 60%" definition in the article text. 81.132.192.73 (talk) 03:04, 3 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I made the change that seems sensible to me. I think there is some confusion over the term "absolute". For example, uses the term "absolute poverty", in which the word "absolute" seems to have a sense of total destitution. In fact, the ultimate source of the relevant figures, the DWP, uses the term "absolute" in the technical sense of "using criteria not changing year by year" (other than maybe for inflation adjustment). The DWP source does not use the term "absolute poverty" at all. 109.151.63.170 (talk) 17:21, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Suggestion for new section
I feel there should be a comparison with other countries (France, Germany, US, EU/OECD average) in here somewhere? If anyone can find data then that would be helpful Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 21:59, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Updating this page (2017)
Have started work on updating this page. --Xcia0069 (talk) 13:06, 16 January 2017 (UTC) Issues to be worked on
 * Methods of surveying and defining poverty
 * Naming valid sources for information (especially quantitative data)
 * Updating poverty stats based on clear methodologies and sources
 * Separating responses to poverty from definitions of poverty
 * Possibly removing the historical section to another new Wikipedia page
 * Updating political parties' responses to poverty

Conservative manifesto
I removed some content which Xcia0069 added today. The reason I removed it was that it seems to be WP:OR, i.e. original research, i.e. using primary sources to draw conclusions that are not in the primary sources. I recommend reading WP:OR as it gives good guidelines, but the basic idea is that you can't use primary sources (such as a manifesto) to support arguments. You can however use primary sources to directly state facts, as long as you don't use them to support an argument which isn't there in the source. So if you can find a secondary source (e.g. news article) that discusses references to poverty in the Tory manifesto then feel free to put it in. Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 16:49, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Proposed Changes to this page
In line with the recommendation that this page needs rewritten I am proposing to make the following changes

1) Rename the current page Poverty in the UK in the 21st Century

2) Export the historical information to a new page (possible title: Historical Poverty in the UK ?) The current page is unwieldy and the the different methodologies for measuring poverty make comparison between different periods of time more difficult. There are also many more contemporary sources and reports on 21st-century poverty that need to be referenced. Including them on a page which deals with contemporary and historical poverty imbalances the contents of the page

3) Making the section How poverty in the United Kingdom is defined and measured the first section. Part of the reason the page is so messy is that different editors use the term poverty according to different measures. Placing this section at the top illustrates the essential nature of considering measurement before talking about. This could also include references to specific types of poverty, eg child, fuel or food poverty.

4) Creating a second section on Statistics and Reactions to Poverty. This will largely draw from the current section Poverty in the UK in the 21st century, and will indicate the different poverty trends according to the different measurements. Sub sections on poverty according to gender, class, region etc could be added. It will also include a reactions to poverty section to highlight the large number of reports produced which relate and inform and add to the statistics on poverty

5) A third section on causes, influences and reduction. This will largely draw on the 'poverty reduction' section  and also draw in the political party viewpooints. It will also make more systematic use of various charity reports which comment and interpret the statistics

Xcia0069 (talk) 09:04, 24 April 2017 (UTC)


 * I think there is a case for moving the historical information to a new page History of poverty in the United Kingdom, but I think there should still be a short summary of the history of poverty in the UK on this page. Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 18:55, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I have now created this page. I will shorten the history section down to a summary of the new article. Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 20:49, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

UNDUE section
The section "Poverty in the UK in the 21st century" appears to mostly a collection of whatever articles that mention poverty, rather than being a balanced overview of the topic. I suggest that the section is massively trimmed down to an appropriate level. N.B. There is a similar issue that I have raised at Talk:National Health Service. Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 19:05, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
 * you have made a lot of edits here, would you care to discuss here? If not I will go ahead and make the changes above. Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 21:55, 28 May 2017 (UTC)


 * The section does seem overly long, and is likely overweight for this article. It seems reasonably well written. I suggest splitting it off to a new article called Poverty in the United Kingdom in the 21st century, and leaving a couple of paragraphs behind (replicating the lead of the new article).  LK (talk) 01:36, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

I have added a tag to this section. LK, the history section already had its own main article, which I have now linked to and will trim the existing content in this article. Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 12:28, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
 * If you see anything worthwhile, after you've trimmed it from this article, if would be good to add it to the dedicated history article. Rgds, LK (talk) 12:44, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

Bias
This reads as much more biased than the usual standards set for Wikipedia articles and a lot of the cited sources for statistics have more up to date info available. 31.111.79.198 (talk) 10:32, 25 February 2024 (UTC)