The paper argues that public policy in Wales needs to be clear what it means by poverty. And while the 60% median income is a useful measure, it is too blunt a tool to inform Wales’s actions to ‘tackle poverty’. Instead it suggests that an approach based on resources and needs is more useful.
Income is a very important aspect of individual and household resources, and, the authors suggest, public policy should explicitly adopt strategies to raise incomes, including the Living Wage. But income isn’t the only important resource – whether households have a home, can keep warm and have enough to eat also matter, and the authors suggest that these should be important areas of a future anti-poverty plan. And last, but not least, individuals need the necessary skills to manage their everyday lives, so literacy and numeracy, digital skills and financial capability are key areas.
The paper by Victoria Winckler with Michael Trickey was published in November 2014.
