POVERTY STRICKEN MILLIONS

'More working households were living in poverty in the UK last year than non-working ones - for the first time, a charity has reported. Just over half of the 13 million people in poverty - surviving on less than 60% of the national median (middle) income - were from working families, it said. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation said low pay and part-time work had prompted an unprecedented fall in living standards.' (BBC News, 8 December) These figures  underestimate the extent of the problem as the JRF's annual Monitoring Poverty and Social Exclusion report was written by the New Policy Institute and tracks a range of indicators, including government data and surveys covering income, education and social security, and has a very frugal concept of what poverty is. In the 2011-12 period, the amount of earnings before a household was said to be in poverty was £128 a week for a single adult; £172 for a single parent with one child; £220 for a couple with no children, and £357 for a couple with two children. How many of the "we are all in this together" MPs could survive on £128 a week? RD