| Synopsis: |
The Coalition Government is committed to ending child poverty. This consultation document asks how the government can best reflect the reality of child poverty using a multidimensional measure. The most recent child poverty statistics revealed a large reduction in the number of children living below the relative poverty threshold. However, this was largely due to a fall in the median income nationally that pushed the poverty line down. Absolute poverty remained unchanged and the children who were "moved out" of poverty were in fact no better off than before. This document considers a number of potential dimensions: income and material deprivation, worklessness, unmanageable debt, poor housing, parental skill level, access to quality education, family stability and parental health. This consultation seeks views on the specifics of each dimension as well as whether the government should include other dimensions in a multidimensional measure of child poverty along with technical questions about how to build a measure |