Households below a minimum income standard: 2008/09 to 2010/11

摘要: This report looks at changes in the adequacy of household incomes in the early part of the recession, as measured by households’ ability to reach the Minimum Income Standard (MIS). It is the first in an annual series of reports monitoring how many people live in households with not enough income to afford a ‘minimum acceptable standard of living’as measured by this benchmark. It also identifies how many are comfortably above and how many well below the standard.This new way of monitoring income adequacy tracks changes in the economic wellbeing of low-income households relative to socially defined minimum household needs. Unlike poverty measures based on relative income thresholds, MIS does not fluctuate with changing average incomes, but is based on current public views of what is essential. This report thus answers the question ‘how have economic hard times affected the number of households with insufficient income according to agreed public norms?’in a way that has not been possible using other measures.