John Whittington writes:
"Such a 'relative' official definition of poverty  would certainly seem
to 
be 'asking for trouble' - and clearly is of little/no use when looking 
across a range of countries."

Interesting point. The EU policy statement commits member states to
reducing 'the number of Europeans living below the national poverty
lines' by 25%. The 'poverty line' is thus defined differently in
different countries. However so far there is no indication of how
migrant workers will be treated. For instance, does a low-paid Polish
citizen working in the UK count towards the UK or the Polish target? The
opportunities for obfuscation seem enormous.
Setting these targets at a European level & then expecting them to be
met at a national level (which now applies across a huge range of
economic and social policies) is of course a way of letting all the
politicians off the hook (and obscures the highly contradictory nature
of most of the policies). But it also means that the credibility of such
policies now relies to an unprecedented extent on statistical evidence
and its interpretation. Recent postings on this list do not give cause
for optimism that this will be done intelligently..

Best wishes, Ursula

Ursula Huws

-----Original Message-----
From: email list for Radical Statistics [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of John Whittington
Sent: 09 June 2010 08:00
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: A new approach to the median

At 15:56 07/06/2010 +0100, Ted Harding wrote:
>Hmmm ... The official definition of "poverty line" suggests a simple
>and cost-effective solution.
>
>Take all those with disposable incomes above 60% and up to 100%
>of the median. Reduce all their incomes to below the current 60%
>level. Then, suddenly, many of those who had been below the poverty
>line will be above it, with respect to 60% of the new median.
>With care, none of those whose incomes have been lowered will
>subsequently be below the new poverty line. Thus many will have
>been removed from poverty, none will have been brought into poverty,
>and a profit will have been made. Magic!

Indeed, but the worrying thing about this is that some politicians would

probably 'buy' (or, rather, attempt to 'sell') this idea - particularly 
those whose political ideals favour reducing the disposable incomes of
the 
higher paid by taxation.  One can imagine them proudly announcing (and 
perhaps even believing) that they had done good by markedly reducing the

number of people 'below the poverty line', despite the fact that not one
of 
them would have a penny more than they previously had!

Such a 'relative' official definition of poverty  would certainly seem
to 
be 'asking for trouble' - and clearly is of little/no use when looking 
across a range of countries.

Kind Regards,


John

----------------------------------------------------------------
Dr John Whittington,       Voice:    +44 (0) 1296 730225
Mediscience Services       Fax:      +44 (0) 1296 738893
Twyford Manor, Twyford,    E-mail:   [log in to unmask]
Buckingham  MK18 4EL, UK
----------------------------------------------------------------

******************************************************
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.
*******************************************************

******************************************************
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.
*******************************************************