by Jonathan Portes on (#3J4NE)
Tax and welfare changes introduced by George Osborne in 2010 will continue to push children into poverty unless we rethinkOn Tuesday, the chancellor announced that the government’s debt would start to fall relative to GDP – a target originally set by George Osborne in 2010. Back then, the then chancellor said “We’re all in this togetherâ€, while in 2012 his chief secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, told delegates at the Liberal Democrat conference: “We simply will not allow the books to be balanced in a way that hits the poorest hardest.†On Wednesday, the Equality and Human Rights Commission publishes our research, which contains the most detailed and thorough assessment yet of those claims.Our analysis shows that, contrary to Alexander’s pledge, changes to taxes and welfare payments since 2010 have indeed hit the poorest hardest, whether you look at the record of the 2010-15 coalition government or that of the Conservative government elected in May 2015. Some changes, such as increases in the personal allowance and the minimum wage, have boosted incomes; but others, especially cuts to benefits and tax credits, more than offset this.The precise mix of reforms was a political choice. It was not inevitable that the most vulnerable would bear the bruntThe main poverty indicator used in the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's study is the number of households that have income levels of less than 60% of median income. Using the same measure, the UK was ranked 22nd out of 35 in an international league table of child poverty rates in rich nations put together by Unicef in 2012.Related: Philip Hammond can’t ignore the anger caused by austerity | Matthew d’Ancona Continue reading...