Monitoring poverty and social exclusion 2004

The subject of this year's analysis is the contrasting fortunes of specific groups within the population: working-age adults without dependent children; the economically inactive who want paid work but are not officially unemployed; the prospects for people on jobs at the bottom of the labour market; and young adults with poor or no educational qualifications.

Analysis of the indicators:

• the number of working-age adults on low incomes but without dependent children has risen in recent years;
• over the same period the number of children in low-income households has fallen by 700,000;
• finding work for people who are economically inactive but want paid work, are in long-term worklessness due to sickness and disability, or are in worklessness among single-adult households remains a major policy challenge;
• two-fifths of people who find work no longer have that work six months later - the same proportion as a decade ago;
• substantial numbers of young adults continue to have poor or no qualifications.

The full report is available from the NPI's website.