Shocking Statistic on the UK

missjames

why is west wales number 1 poorest?

vivatifosi

missjames wrote: »

why is west wales number 1 poorest?

It shouldn't read West Wales, the actual region is called West Wales and the Valleys. There's more info on this here:
http://www.assemblywales.org/Research%20Documents/Regional%20and%20Local%20Gross%20Value%20Added%20-%20Research%20paper-18122012-241740/12-057-English.pdf

If you go to page 15, you can see how the numbers break down within West Wales and the Valleys.

chewmylegoff

missjames wrote: »

why is west wales number 1 poorest?

I don't know but I would hazard a guess that it has a high unemployment rate relative to the areas against which it has been compared.

vivatifosi

chewmylegoff wrote: »

I don't know but I would hazard a guess that it has a high unemployment rate relative to the areas against which it has been compared.

That's where I think a broader EU comparison would be useful.

Unemployment in W Wales and the Valleys in 2011 was 9%.
https://statswales.wales.gov.uk/Catalogue/Business-Economy-and-Labour-Market/People-and-Work/Unemployment/ILO-Unemployment/ILOUnemploymentRates-by-WelshLocalAreas-Year

So why have so many parts of Spain scored better when unemployment was so much higher?
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_PUBLIC/1-27022014-AP/EN/1-27022014-AP-EN.PDF

Only Andalucia and Extramadura have lower GPD per capita yet unemployment av across the whole of Spain 2011 was just under 23%.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-16754600

chewmylegoff

Perhaps Spain count their unemployed properly. I rather doubt that the number of economically inactive working age people who are entirely dependent on benefits in West Wales and the Valleys is anything like 9%.

vivatifosi

chewmylegoff wrote: »

Perhaps Spain count their unemployed properly. I rather doubt that the number of economically inactive working age people who are entirely dependent on benefits in West Wales and the Valleys is anything like 9%.

I haven't managed to get the numbers for West Wales and the Valleys, but the actively employed figure for adults in the UK in 2011 (same period as survey) this was 69.4%. In Spain it was significantly lower at 57.2%.
http://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?queryid=35253
The corresponding figures for economically active (as opposed to employed) were much closer: 75.8% (UK) and 74% (Spain), both of which are higher than the USA (73.2) which has a higher GDP per capita.
http://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?queryid=35253
Confusing...

chewmylegoff

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-17353478

This is interesting - the inset 'analysis' column suggests that the boundary for the region of west wales and the valleys was drawn up deliberately to ensure that it was dramatically poor (ie by excluding richer bits) in order to qualify for EU funding.

IveSeenTheLight

robmatic wrote: »

It certainly looks like the wealth is disproportionately distributed towards Scotland... all the poor areas are elsewhere in the UK.

On the face it may imply that, but that depends on what is contained in the figures.

Is Scottish figures contained in the figures?
Sometimes we see that Scotland is treated separately from the ROUK

cepheus

Don't the Scottish parliament grant more generous benefits (pay University fees, free bus passes for over 60s, free prescriptions & eye tests and free elderly care) than their English counterparts thereby reducing poverty? Poverty is engineered in this country (England) since the government believes it forces citizens to work harder and obey their corporate masters.

although according to the Yes propaganda

We know, thanks to Financial Times analysis, that Scotland is one of the top 20 wealthiest countries in the world - wealthier per head than France, Italy and the UK. And as the expert group point out, in each of the last five years our spending on welfare and benefits has been lower than the UK (when taken as a share of our national wealth). Indeed, "Scottish expenditure has consistently been below the EU-15 average from 2005 to 2012". So we can more than afford to build a fairer welfare system that better supports those that need it.

chewmylegoff

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

On the face it may imply that, but that depends on what is contained in the figures.

Is Scottish figures contained in the figures?
Sometimes we see that Scotland is treated separately from the ROUK

Yes, Scotland is included. See the link in #21.