Britain's War on Poverty

Notes

Notes introduction 1. Blair (1999, 8–9). 2. Figures for Britain—taken from Brewer, Muriel, et al. (2009, tables 4.2 and 4.5)—consider income before housing costs are taken into account. 3. Clinton (1996, 66). 4. Figures for the United States from Dickens and Ellwood (2003a, table 4). 5. Haskey (1998). 6. Millar and Ridge (2001). 7. Blair (1999, 7). 8. The studies carried out by the Manpower Demonstration Research Corpora­ tion (MDRC) were particularly influential (see Gueron 2003). 9. Department for Work and Pensions (2007e). 10. Hills and Waldfogel (2004). 11. Gregg and Harkness (2003); Blundell, Brewer, and Shephard (2005); Fran­ cesconi and van der Klaauw (2007). 12. Hasluck, McKnight, and Elias (2000). 13. HM Treasury, Department for Work and Pensions, and Department for Chil­ dren, Schools, and Families (2008). 14. HM Treasury (2001). 15. Waldfogel (2006a, 2006b). 16. Waldfogel (2006b). 17. Walsh (2008); Department for Children, Schools and Families, Department for Work and Pensions, HM Treasury, and Cabinet Office (2009). 18. HM Treasury (2002b). 19. Stannard and Huxley (2007). 20. Machin and McNally (2008b). 21. Lupton, Heath, and Salter (2009). 22. Emmerson, McNally, and Meghir (2005). 23. Cabinet Office (2009). 24. Cabinet Office (2009). 25. Department for Communities and Local Government (2007). 26. Hills (2003); see also HM Treasury (2002a). 27. Hills (2003, 157). 28. Estimate from Waldfogel (2007b). 29. According to Nicholas Timmins (2001), the windfall profits tax yielded £5.2 billion for Gordon Brown’s first budget, in July 1997, which was allocated to notes 200 the New Deal employment program, spending on schools, and the start of the child care strategy. 30. See, for example, MacAskill and Bowcott (2001); Parker (2001). 31. As discussed earlier, Britain calculates its poverty measures both before and after taking housing costs into account. For simplicity, I use only the num­ bers before housing costs unless otherwise noted. 32. The reverse is also true. In fact, a common criticism of relative poverty rates by American scholars is that relative poverty can fall during a recession if the incomes of the median family falls more than the income of poor families. 33. Brewer, Muriel, et al. (2009). 34. Mike Brewer (2007, 2008) shows that while relative poverty was falling for families with children, it was rising for other groups not targeted by govern­ ment policy over this period. 35. See Smeeding and Waldfogel (2010). 36. Vegeris and Perry (2003); Lyon, Barnes, and Sweiry (2006); Conolly and Kerr (2008). 37. See chapter 6 for details. 38. See Short and Shea (1995); Bauman (2003); Rogers and Ryan (2007); U.S. Bu­ reau of the Census (2009b). 39. Commission for Economic Opportunity (2006); Center for Economic Oppor­ tunity (2009). 40. Commission for Economic Opportunity (2006); Center for Economic Oppor­ tunity (2009). 41. Center for American Progress (2007). chapter 1 1. This chapter draws extensively on Hills and Waldfogel (2004), who provide a detailed discussion of the background to the reforms. 2. Hills (2004, table 2.5). 3. Stewart and Hills (2005, figure 1.2). 4. In Britain, poverty statistics are calculated in two ways—before housing costs or after housing costs (that is, taking housing costs into account). Since housing costs are not usually factored into U.S. measures, I present statistics before housing costs unless otherwise noted. 5. If housing costs are subtracted from family income, child poverty rates are even higher (see Hills and Waldfogel 2004). 6. For instance, if poverty is defined as income below a fixed real line of 50 per­ cent of mean income in 1996–1997 (the data refer to a period spanning the two years), the child poverty rate was lower in 1997–1998 than it had been in 1979 (24 percent versus 34 percent). These absolute child poverty rates are calculated using an absolute poverty line of 50 percent of mean income in notes 201 1996–1997, adjusted only for inflation; see Department for Work and Pen­ sions (2003a, table H6). 7. Smeeding, Rainwater, and Burtless (2001, figure 5.1); see also Bradbury and Jantti (2001, table 2). 8. This is a lower poverty line than the half­of­average­income amount used in figures 1.1 and 1.2 because, unlike average income, the median is not pulled up by extremely high incomes. 9. The U.S. poverty line is commonly seen as not very generous. However, as John Hills and I explain (Hills and Waldfogel 2004), because U.S. incomes...