What is the poverty line?

mrsyardbroom

My husband claims that we are living below the poverty line. When I asked him if he knew what the up to date figures were for the poverty he admitted that he had no idea. I haven't been able to find any up to date figures and I wondered if anyone else knew what they were. There are lots of stories about percentages of pensioners living below the mysterious poverty line but these all appear to be the same story reworded for different publications. Nowhere does it actually say that if you are a retired couple couple and you have less than x amount of money coming in you are officially above or below the poverty line. Help!

Lovelyjoolz

According to http://www.family-action.org.uk :

Poverty in the UK

• The poverty line in the UK is defined as a household income below 60% of the average. This threshold is currently around £195 a week for a lone parent with two children. Using this definition there are over 3 million children living in poverty.

I can't find the stats on average income for a couple without children though.

seven-day-weekend

There is no need for Pensioners to live below the poverty line(whatever it is), because your income can be made up to a minimum level by Pension Credit, if it falls below these figures.

https://www.gov.uk/pension-credit/overview

1. Overview

Pension Credit is an income related benefit made up of 2 parts - Guarantee Credit and Savings Credit.

Guarantee Credit tops up your weekly income if it’s below £145.40 (for single people) or £222.05 (for couples).

Savings Credit is an extra payment for people who have saved some money towards their retirement, eg a pension.

You don’t pay tax on Pension Credit.

mrsyardbroom

Thanks for that. I thought it was household income below 60 percent of median income rather than the average but I can't find out the median. No-one seems to have published the figures but they must be somewhere.

margaretclare

These were the latest figures, for June this year. https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-work-pensions/series/households-below-average-income-hbai--2

As you can see, children, working-age adults, and pensioners, are all discussed separately.

mrsyardbroom

:beer: They seem to be mixing up median and average incomes which are two different things. However, one of the documents says that you have a relatively low income if you have £256 a week or less coming in before housing costs and £220 a week after housing costs. This means I can tell my husband we are not officially poor. :j He was upset because he couldn't claim any help with the cost of getting to a hospital miles away in the next county and it did cost rather a lot for him to get there.

Steve059

According to Iain Duncan-Smith, who isn't "out of touch", it's 53 guineas a week.

John_Pierpoint

It is nonsense anyway.
The Condems have been lifting children out of poverty by cutting other people's real wages.

zygurat789

Lovelyjoolz wrote: »

According to http://www.family-action.org.uk :

Poverty in the UK

• The poverty line in the UK is defined as a household income below 60% of the average. This threshold is currently around £195 a week for a lone parent with two children. Using this definition there are over 3 million children living in poverty.

I can't find the stats on average income for a couple without children though.

So long as poverty is described as a percentage of an average there will always be poverty no matter how rich the poorest may be.
To arrive at any meaningful figure ACTUAL costs of ACTUAL items should be used. Itemes like plasma screens, washer dryers, cars etc should of course be excluded.

dzug1

mrsyardbroom wrote: »

He was upset because he couldn't claim any help with the cost of getting to a hospital miles away in the next county and it did cost rather a lot for him to get there.

eerm - bus pass?

zygurat789

mrsyardbroom wrote: »

:beer: He was upset because he couldn't claim any help with the cost of getting to a hospital miles away in the next county and it did cost rather a lot for him to get there.

Quote dzug1
eerm - bus pass?

Maybe the next county was in another cvountry