Poverty

The last month has been dominated by the parliamentary debate about welfare reform, and it has been tempting to see this as – finally – a big and public debate about poverty.

I have spent some of the last week carrying a hefty book around on trains. The Better Angels of our Nature, by Stephen Pinker, has had a great deal of coverage and carries an important message. Pinker argues, eruditely and compellingly, that on almost every measure you can think of life has got better for everyone over the last few centuries.

Somewhere between 4 and 5.5 million people in the UK live in fuel poverty – defined broadly as a situation where a household spends more than 10% of its income on fuel costs. Will existing fuel poverty policies reduce this number and, if not, what are the alternatives?

The final design for Universal Credit could make or break the Government's welfare reforms for families and for their goals on child poverty over the next few years.

It has become much harder to talk about race in relation to public policy. One reason for this is the welcome recognition of the diverse nature of our ethnic minority population. As this latest JRF review of poverty and ethnicity highlights, this has made it more difficult to analyse the nature of ethnic disadvantage, and also to offer policy solutions.

I have spent a good part of the last couple of years developing a new programme for JRF, focusing on the relationship between poverty and ethnicity. It's been fascinating and lots of people have been incredibly generous with their time and expertise. It has also been very challenging: the area is extremely broad, tensions often run high, language is vital and issues tend to become more and more complex the further you examine them.

The official poverty figures out yesterday, independently analysed by the IFS today, don't reflect what is happening now. Nor do they show the potential impact of cuts, growth or welfare reform in the future. The 2% fall in child poverty we've seen reflects tax credits changes even further back in 2007 and 2008. But this does show that decisions taken by governments can definitely make a difference.

This year’s Budget rightly focused on growth. If we are going to lift people out of poverty we need a strong economy to be able to do it. However, in the meantime it looks like people living in poverty will continue to struggle. The key announcements affecting people in poverty in today’s Budget include:

According to the Government, in these times of austerity people will need to be prepared to help each other more. Family, friends, acquaintances and community organisations are an important way of finding and providing that help and mutual support. The Big Society and the 'Big Lunch' all aim to bring people together. But will 'social networks' help people cope with or move out of poverty? Is the power of social networks being overstated?

Ensuring that globalisation has a positive impact on UK poverty and communities was the theme of a JRF event on 4 March.