Some types of poverty growing, says ESRI

Relative poverty has more than doubled since 1994, while the depth of poverty being experienced has increased substantially, a major new report from the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) has found.

Authors of Monitoring Poverty Trends in Ireland: Results from the 2001 Living In Ireland Survey, describe as "striking" the increasing risk of relative poverty for older people, particularly older women, the ill or disabled and those tied to the home such as single mothers.

Social welfare recipients, while they have seen substantial increases in income, fell further into relative poverty.

While the report's authors stress that much has been achieved - for example, consistent poverty has been almost eliminated - they report that those groups who find themselves below relative income poverty thresholds are increasingly "stuck" and unable to move out of poverty.

Relative income poverty is defined as living on an income of less than 50 per cent of the average. Consistent poverty is income deprivation combined with going without such basics as a warm coat and heating for the home.

The report is a complex analysis of the changing nature of poverty in Ireland. It uses a number of measurements to provide a broad overview of the different dimensions of poverty.

The proportion of people in median relative income poverty - i.e. on incomes less than 50 per cent of the median - has more than doubled since 1994.

It has grown from 6 per cent in 1994 to 8.6 per cent in 1997, 9.9 per cent in 1998, 12 per cent in 2000 and 12.9 per cent in 2001.

However, when the authors looked at real income against an income line based on the 1994 poverty line updated each year to take account of inflation they found that relative income poverty fell from 30 per cent to 6 per cent.

This uses a different base line against which to measure low incomes, i.e. the line rises with inflation rather than with national incomes.

The authors write: "This analysis demonstrates the manner in which real incomes have improved over the period across the population".

However, they go on: "Real income measures do not reflect the relative nature of poverty which, as the National Anti-Poverty Strategy definition makes clear, is predicated on current norms and expectations."

Mr Christopher Whelan, one the report's authors, said yesterday the relationship between welfare trends and average incomes must be considered very seriously.

Although welfare increases had been ahead of inflation, they were well behind increases in real incomes.

"In the long term social welfare rates are not keeping touch with the rate at which incomes are growing," he said.

There was a concern that significant groups were drifting from what would be considered a reasonable standard of living.

Standards of living had increased across the board. What was regarded as necessary to "participate in society without shame and with dignity" required higher incomes.

Not being able to led to a day-to-day life of economic brinkmanship, financial strain and psychological distress, said Mr Whelan.

The report argues for the inclusion of new indicators to measure "consistent" poverty.