The problems in assessing child poverty

"Poverty of Ambition - Why we need a new approach to tackling child poverty" (PDF)

Authors: Peter Saunders and Natalie Evans (Editor)

Publication date: 29 October 2009

The report is highly critical of the indicators used by the Labour Government to assess child poverty especially the reliance on income in defining poverty. The authors argue that this is problematic as much of the income data is incomplete and misleading and incomes fluctuate massively depending on economic factors. As a consequence it is extremely difficult to quantify whether child poverty has gone up or down during Labour's time in office. The report calls for the Government's child poverty targets to be replaced.