Families in Northern Ireland are facing the biggest drop in income since the 1970s, according to a new report from the independent British Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).
A further 600,000 children and 800,000 adults of working age across the UK will be pushed into poverty by 2013, with incomes expected to fall by around seven per cent, representing the largest three-year fall for 35 years.
People are considered to be below the poverty line, or living in relative poverty, if they have a household income which is below 60 per cent of the median national income.
The report’s authors said their commentary forecast what might happen to poverty under current British Government policies and showed that the administration could not rely on higher earnings and employment to reduce relative measures of poverty.
“The results therefore suggest that there can be almost no chance of eradicating child poverty – as defined in the Child Poverty Act 2010 – on current government policy,” the report said.
“The trends in the short run are unusual in that measures of absolute poverty are set to increase by more than measures of relative poverty,” the report said.
The report’s authors said this unusual pattern arose because the living standards of low-income families were set to fall over this period, which would increase absolute poverty. However, they were forecast to fall by less than the living standards of families at median income, and so relative poverty was forecast to have fallen in 2010–11.
Information from the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency was used to inform the report.
PA