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The Department for Social Development report 'Households Below Average Income 2005-06' is a deeply worrying report. It says that more than half of children in Northern Ireland are living in families with low incomes.
Today’s report from the Department for Social Development is deeply worrying. 'Households Below Average Income 2005-06' says that more than half of children in Northern Ireland are living in families with low incomes.
In fact the proportion of children living in poor homes has risen from 51% to 56% in the last two years, despite government plans to eradicate child poverty. The local figure of 56% compares poorly with the child poverty figure of 49% in Britain.
There is also a disturbing upward trend in poverty among older people; the proportion of pensioner households with low incomes is up from 52% in 2002-03 to 59% this year.
NICVA chief executive Seamus McAleavey said:
"Northern Ireland clearly needs to be far more ambitious in its plans to tackle poverty. This must be a top priority for the Executive and Assembly.
"There is a lot of wealth in Northern Ireland now but urgent action is needed to stop vulnerable families from falling behind. This includes people with disabilities, lone parents, pensioners and children.
"The anti-poverty strategy needs to be taken off the shelf and we need clear policies and targets if we are to achieve our target to end poverty. The task is getting harder each year as income inequalities hit groups at the bottom."
NICVA has looked at the three previous reports to track the proportion of children in what the DSD refers to as the ‘bottom two quintiles of the income distribution’ (the bottom 40%). For each of the last four years the figures are 51%, 51%, 54% and 56%.
We have also looked at the proportion of pensioner households falling into the bottom 40% of incomes; the figures are 52%, 55%, 60% and 59%.
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