Decline in poverty, debate

Decline of poverty debate (degrowth vs green growth). In a corner of Twitter there was a flare up of the simmering arguments between degrowth thinkers epitomised by Jason Hickel and poverty and inequality researchers, in this instance, Max Roser of World In Data. This is important for me as I rely on the WiD poverty data in Thinking Bigly. The Roser work based on academic papers reconstructing GDP is used by some market proponents and techno-optimists to argue that market forces/innovation have helped global poverty (v. simplified argument) and that innovation and growth will continue to be an important part of helping the global poor. Hickel argues (in my simplified interpretation) the data are flawed and as growth (and mechanisms/structures created by eg. colonialism) has not been as helpful then de-growth (especially in rich countries) is a better mechanism. A balanced leftist view you can find from Branko Milanovic, who I find broadly comes out in favour of the Roser work, and has very good work on inequality (Branko is also not a de-growth economist). Although Branko is also a techno-optimist, the innovation-market view is probably best seen in the work and essays of Bill Gates. These discourses are happening and I think if you want to be an active thinker or do-er here you should join the debate.

The Max Roser tweet that started the current round of debate off.

UK Poverty, severe and worse if there's a disabled person in family

14.2 million people in poverty in the UK, 6.9 million (48.3%) are living in families with a disabled person. Given that only 35% of families in the UK have someone with a disability, this shows that families with someone with a disability are significantly over- represented within the population in poverty. Poverty rates also vary across people in families with different disability statuses. The poverty rate for people living in a family with a disabled adult or child stands at 27.6%, whereas for people living in a family where no-one is disabled, the poverty rate is 16.3%.

The SMC measure of poverty suggests that 22.0% of the UK population is living in a family considered to be in poverty. Poverty rates for children are far higher (32.6%) than those for working-age adults (21.6%) and pension-age adults (11.4%). This means that there are 14.2m people in poverty in the UK, comprised of 8.4m working-age adults, 4.5m children and 1.4m adults of pension age.

There has been much debate on poverty measures with no agreed upon UK metrics. The Socail Metrics Commission has taken thinkers (from both left and right) to look at metrics and this seems very robust to me.

The figures are more severe than I would have guessed. I think this might be suggestive of austerity not working well for thos ein poverty although the policy and structural factors are complex. This seems to be view the view of a recent UN inspector visit.

Social Metrics Commission

UN prof visit - “Statement on Visit to the United Kingdom, by Professor Philip Alston, United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights”