child poverty; rural premium

There’s a scene in “Apocalypse Now” where the man sent to murder Kurtz wakes up and realises to his horror he is still in Saigon. I woke up this morning to a mention of an above inflation increase for the royal household and an increase in child poverty. I am not making a political point but from almost everyone’s perspective this must seem like a very unusual state of affairs. I think Prince Charles is a great rural champion but I do wonder what the implications of more child poverty mean for rural families where isolation makes living costs more expensive still.

Against this background this article caught my eye it tells us:

For years Conservatives have argued that the current poverty measure – the proportion of children living in households earning less than 60% of median income – is inadequate. The party’s election manifesto promised – once more – “better measures to drive real change in children’s lives”.

David Cameron argues the existing indicator has perverse results: child poverty is deemed to have risen when the state pension goes up. The Coalition Government carried out a consultation on. This included an evidence base that considered the key factors that make it harder for some families to get out of poverty and the key factors that make some poor children more likely to become poor adults. The evidence suggests the main factor is lack of sufficient income from parental employment which restricts the amount of earnings a household has: this is not just about worklessness but also working insufficient hours and/or low pay.

The evidence touches upon the differences between poverty in urban and rural places and suggests poverty is more prevalent in an urban context. I wonder if rural poverty is masked by official measures and statistics? Being more prevalent of course also does equate in terms of individual’s experiences with less acute!!!!