David

Thanks for your comments and offer to supply relevant data.

The housing cost 'estimate' of around £70 a week for the pensioner couple was not mine. The figure is given in the MIS 2012 Report as £77.43 (Table 3), and I agree it seems very high.

With regard to the PSE survey question to respondents about how much a household like their own needs to spend to keep out of poverty, it seems rather pointless asking the question if it is not clear whether or not that is to include housing cost (or child care expenditure).  But, if we were to assume that the response to the question, 'How many pounds a week, after tax, do you think are necessary to keep a household such as the one you live in, out of poverty?' did include one or both then the comparison between what the MIS comes up with using their budget approach, and that given in direct answer to this question then the figures would look like those I have set out in the table below.  MISr is the Minimum Income Standard including rent/housing costs, and MIScc includes both rent and child care costs. 



The answers to the PSE question gives a much lower figure than that of the MIS budget ones for all except the pensioners. The gap is widest for those with children.  Apparently, a couple with 2 children thinks that £436 a week is sufficient for at least a basic standard of living, while the MIS budget gives a figure of up to £362 a week more.

Paul

On 03/06/2014 12:10, Dave Gordon wrote:
[log in to unmask]" type="cite">
Dear Paul Ashton

The problem with these kinds of subjective poverty line estimation questions is that you are uncertain what costs respondents are including in their estimates of the amount of money a household like theirs would need to avoid poverty.  We know from our focus group and cognitive interviewing work that some respondents will include their housing costs and others (probably the majority) will not.

Your housing cost estimate of 'around £70 a week for the pensioner couple'  seems rather high.  The 2011/12 HBAI data (the latest available) estimates that the average FRS/FES extended housing costs for pensioner couples are £29 per week (and £38 per week for single male pensioners and £45 for single female pensioners).

The PSE2012 survey data should become available (as SPSS files) from the ESRC data archive during the summer (depending on how fast they process all these data).  I can of course send you a subset of data as an excel spreadsheet but the data are too large and complex to analyse in their entirety in excel. 

Please let me know (off-list) what variables you would like (the PSE annotated questionnaire includes the variables names in brackets [ ])

see http://www.poverty.ac.uk/sites/default/files/attachments/PSE%20UK%20living%20standards%20questionnaire%20%282012%29%20with%20top%20level%20results_HHld%20%26%20Ind%20marked_2013.pdf

Regards

David Gordon


On 31 May 2014 23:59, Paul Ashton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

David

Many thanks indeed for these figures and comments on them -- very interesting.  Are the figures for the respondents' assessments mean or median averages? Would it be possible to have access to the UK data in a format suitable for excel?

 

The two household types that jump out from the figures are the pensioner ones.  Even though the state's minimum Pensioner Credit income in 2011 exceeded the MIS figures for pensioners in that year (haven't worked out if that is the case for 2012) it is perhaps surprising that the survey shows them with the biggest gap between what they think they need to keep their household out of poverty and that of the MIS's.

 

One possible snag with these comparison, though.  The question asked of the Respondent, 'How many pounds a week, after tax, do you think are necessary to keep a household such as the one you live in, out of poverty?', does not appear to exclude housing costs whereas the MIS figures does. If I were asked that question I would certainly include my housing costs. If this is the case, that would make a big difference -- around £70 a week for the pensioner couple.


Regards,

Paul

On 31/05/2014 22:50, Dave Gordon wrote:
Dear Paul Ashton

We have had the kind of data you are seeking for some time.  For example, the Poverty and Social Exclusion Survey (PSE 2012) asked;

[WeekAm] 'How many pounds a week, after tax, do you think are necessary to keep a household such as the one you live in, out of poverty?'

Similar, questions are asked in all EU countries in the EU-SILC survey and in the UK in the GHS/GLF and more recently the FRS surveys

Analyses of the results from these kinds of questions usually show that the estimated amount needed increases with increasing household income i.e. richer respondents think more money is needed to avoid poverty than poorer respondents.  The average poverty line derived from the answers to these questions are usually much higher than benefit levels i.e. they are usually similar to the Minimum Income Standard (MIS) rather than the State's benefit standard.

I have run some analyses for you on the 2012 PSE survey - since you asked what the UK public think.  The table below shows the MIS in 2012 for different types of household.  The second column shows the average amount the Household Respondent thought was needed to keep a household such as theirs out of poverty.  The results show, that with the exception of large families, the UK public's average estimate of the 'poverty line' is higher than the Minimum Income Standard.  The UK public's estimate of how much money was needed to have an 'acceptable standard of living' would likely be higher than their estimate of the 'poverty line' and therfore probably considerably higher than the MIS.

*Single Person                  £193   £212
*Couple                             £302.  £303
*Single, pensioner            £159.   £288
*Couple, pensioner           £231.  £366
*Lone Parent, 1 child        £276.  £285
*Lone Parent, 2 Children  £362.  £318
*Couple, 1 child                £374.   £401
*Couple, 2 children           £455.   £456
*Couple, 3 children           £555.   £436


MIS thresholds for 2012 are from P46 of http://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/files/jrf/minimum-income-standards-2012-full.pdf

Your own views on the amount of money needed to avoid poverty seem to be out-of-step with the average view of the UK public.

Regards

David Gordon




On 31 May 2014 10:19, Paul Ashton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Dave

There is nothing I said to suggest that I had "changed [my] argument re 'society approved' standards of living".  There are several strands to the argument against how they were and are devised and costed.  I am concerned with the use of focus groups to get a consensus on the items regarded as essential for a 'minimum acceptable or 'decent' standard of living (and their meaningless use in determining a 'living wage') and on the way the items are costed. Focus groups, in my estimation, are not only open to bias from researchers but to group 'conclusions' that may well not coincide with the individuals' own beliefs, feeling and views.

I have not suggested fraud in the construction of a 'society approved' budget standards, so I'm not quite sure why you should bother to mention Burt.  If I was to nod in that direction I would have mentioned much more recent cases such as social psychologist Diederik Stapel with his faked or manipulated data in at least 55 publications.

It would be interesting to see the results of a survey of people's opinion on how much money will buy an "acceptable standard of living" for various family types and compare those with the MIS ones.

Paul


On 31/05/2014 00:48, Dave Gordon wrote:
Dear Paul Ashton

I am sure that researchers occasionally mess up a focus group and introduce bias to the focus group discussion/findings.  However, I have never heard of any academic researcher deliberately trying to bias a focus groups discussion - what would be the point?  Focus groups are difficult and time consuming to set up and analyse and researchers who are so prejudice that they 'know' the answers in advance tend to just invent research results.  For example, Sir Cyril Burt 'knew' that the poor were stupid and feckless, so he did not waste his time doing lots of testing of children and adults and statistical analyses - he just invented the results (and even his supposed collaborators).

You seem to have changed your argument re 'society-approved' standard of living' to now focus on the costings of the MIS budget standards.  Sainsbury's may have had some ulterior motives for their 'campaign on healthy diets' beyond the public good?  Who knows? but maybe they were using it as part of their advertising to encourage people to shop at Sainsbury?  After all their 'Live well for less' website (http://www.sainsburys-live-well-for-less.co.uk/) states 'You can live well for less than you thought at Sainsbury's. Based on price perception data, March 2014. © J Sainsbury plc 2014'  Possibly, this is evidence for peer-reviewed scientific rigour? but then again maybe you should not believe everything you read in an advertising campaign?

The MIS team is fairly specific about how they costs the food budgets;

'Although participants were mindful of changing times and rising prices, as in the 2010 review, it was agreed that the food and drink should continue to be priced at Tesco.  There was general agreement that there was not much to choose between shopping at Asda, Tesco, Morrisons and Sainsbury as the cost of cheaper and more expensive items available at each would balance out, and Tesco was still seen as the most prevalent of these. Discounted supermarkets such as Aldi, Lidl and Netto were  thought to offer equivalent products at a lower price, but in all working-age groups, with and without children, participants said that, partly in view of time constraints, people should not need to shop around in order to afford a minimum food basket. Pensioner groups said that although they had more time available to shop around, this was not feasible because of transport issues. All groups agreed that we should still avoid including discounted prices as there was no guarantee that the same goods
could always be purchased at the discounted price. They said that if items were available at a lower price from time to time, the money saved would be used to enhance the choice of items that could be afforded rather than reduce the total shopping budget.' (MIS Report 2012, p12).

Regards

David Gordon


On 30 May 2014 16:35, Paul Ashton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Dave,

I am not so naive as to believe that social scientists have never manipulated focus groups to come to a particular view, whether consciously or not. 

As to the Minimum Income Standards project, I questioned some of its methodology and findings in a small section of a much larger piece on UK Pensioner Poverty a couple of years ago, in which I drew attention to the Sainsbury's campaign on healthy diets.  They ran a series of weekly menus for a family of four worked out by independent dieticians.  They had costed the menus out at less than half the MIS figure for such a family.  I also pointed to how researchers may have different perspectives as to the quality of goods and services than lower income people and exampled David Piachaud's 1981 paper on child poverty which proposed budgets of 'minimum needs'.  He included the cost of children's clothing bought from Marks and Spencers: "Good quality, no doubt, but the fact that he thought low-income families would be buying their children’s clothes from what was certainly then regarded as a somewhat ‘up-market’ shop by such families... demonstrates something of the ‘other worldliness’ that researchers need to avoid." 

Even apart from the questioning of the objectivity of the list of goods and services, there seems to be a big gap between the researchers' costings of these items and the value others may put on them.

Paul
http://www.eastb.freeserve.co.uk/Paul-Ashton/

On 30/05/2014 15:50, Dave Gordon wrote:
Dear Paul Ashton

In the recent PSE surveys a random survey of the public was presented with a list of 72 standard of living indicators and asked their views about if these items were necessities of life or not necessities - even if they may be desirable.


The list of items were developed using a rigorous process including

1) Systematic literature review
2) Expert review
3) Focus group discussions
4) Cognitive question testing

There are of course effectively an infinite number (or at least a very large number) of questions the public could be asked about standard of living.  However, statistical theory tells us that it is not necessary to ask every possible question about any subject in order to produce a reliable estimate of the correct answer.  Both Classical Test Theory and Item Response Theory analyses show that these 72 questions produce highly reliable results.  This means that if you were to ask additional questions about standard of living and/or completely different sets of questions about standard of living you would effectively get the same results.

We have produced measures of deprivation and standard of living using similar methods to that used to produce examination tests e.g. a multiple choice test in Mathematics may include a 100 questions - but there are an infinite (or very large number) of questions that could be asked about Mathematics.  Measurement theory allows examination boards to show that the answers to the exam this year (and the relevant pass marks) are effectively identical to the examination results in previous years, etc.

I presume that you do not believe that you have passed multiple choice tests in the past because you just got lucky and they happened to include the 'right' questions.  I assume that you believe that you have passed exams because you were taught well, worked hard and have some academic abilities?  Or was it all just dumb luck?

Regards

David Gordon


    On 30/05/2014 15:10, Dave Gordon wrote:

 

    Dear Paul Ashton


No this is not what happens in 'academic research work' and it is certainly not what happens  'in constructing a 'society-approved' minimum standard of living'.   Nor is there an   issue in poverty research in 'manipulating focus groups' - what on earth would be the point in trying to do this?

If you want to know how focus groups looking at the issues of poverty, exclusion, minimum standards of living, etc. are conducted then relevant reports are available, for example at;


http://www.poverty.ac.uk/working-papers-result-analysis-poverty-measurement-social-exclusion-necessities-attitudes/public

or

http://www.poverty.hk/index.php/focus-groups

 

All the materials (anonymised transcripts, protocols, topic guides, vignettes, etc.) from these focus groups are being deposited at the ESRC Data Archive.

The research team will also be presenting the results of this focus group and other Poverty and Social Exclusion Project research at a free conference at the Conway Hall on the 19th and 20th June if you wish to ask any questions about this work?

see http://www.poverty.ac.uk/take-part/events/final-conference

 

Regards

David Gordon

On 30 May 2014 11:09, Paul Ashton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
I believe that the construction of a 'society-approved' standard of living is dependent on members of the public having to select from a pre-determined list of goods and services provided to them. I would be happy to be disabused of that belief.

Paul Ashton

On 30/05/2014 10:25, John Veit-Wilson wrote:
The short answer to Paul is, no it's not the same with academic poverty research. Market research methods are not designed for the same purposes as academic social research methods. The ICM survey Robert reports is an example of the use of crude market research methods. I assume methodologically sophisticated list members are familiar with the differences, though I admit I didn't encounter them myself until I worked in business.
 
John.
 
------------------------------------------------------------
From Professor John Veit-Wilson
Newcastle University GPS -- Sociology
Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, England.
Telephone 0044[0]191-208-7498.
 
 

From: email list for Radical Statistics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Paul Ashton
Sent: 30 May 2014 09:49
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: ICM survey

Isn't that what happens in other academic research work too -- for example in constructing a 'society-approved' minimum standard of living.  And then there's the issue of manipulating focus groups...

Paul Ashton

On 30/05/2014 09:34, Martin Bland wrote:
I think most surveys are like this.  So often we hear national news stories of the type "32% of people think the prime minister is called Mickey Mouse".   They have been given a list and told to pick one, they have not volunteered this information.  Subtlety cannot be addressed in them.  I think the recent "a third of people are racially predjudiced" story was a case in point.  

Martin


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Dave Gordon
Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research
University of Bristol
10 Woodland Road
Bristol BS8 1TZ, UK

E-Mail: [log in to unmask]
Tel: +44-(0)117-954 6761
Fax: +44-(0)117-954 6756

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Dave Gordon
Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research
University of Bristol
10 Woodland Road
Bristol BS8 1TZ, UK

E-Mail: [log in to unmask]
Tel: +44-(0)117-954 6761
Fax: +44-(0)117-954 6756

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Dave Gordon
Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research
University of Bristol
10 Woodland Road
Bristol BS8 1TZ, UK

E-Mail: [log in to unmask]
Tel: +44-(0)117-954 6761
Fax: +44-(0)117-954 6756

****************************************************** Please note that if you press the 'Reply' button your message will go only to the sender of this message. If you want to reply to the whole list, use your mailer's 'Reply-to-All' button to send your message automatically to [log in to unmask]. Disclaimer: The messages sent to this list are the views of the sender and cannot be assumed to be representative of the range of views held by subscribers to the Radical Statistics Group. To find out more about Radical Statistics and its aims and activities and read current and past issues of our newsletter you are invited to visit our web site www.radstats.org.uk. *******************************************************



--
Dave Gordon
Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research
University of Bristol
10 Woodland Road
Bristol BS8 1TZ, UK

E-Mail: [log in to unmask]
Tel: +44-(0)117-954 6761
Fax: +44-(0)117-954 6756

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