英语

Britain Measuring poverty

英国 衡量贫困

The end of the line

贫困终止

The government sets out to redefine what it means to be poor

政府着手重新定义贫穷

When Seebohm Rowntree, a chocolate-maker and pioneering social researcher, beganmeasuring poverty in York in 1899, he worked out the minimum needed to buy enough foodfor “physical efficiency”. In 1935, when he repeated the study, Rowntree added allowances forcigarettes, newspapers and a holiday. By 1951 he concluded that poverty was on its waytowards being eradicated, with only pockets among the elderly left, and stopped counting.

1899年，当巧克力制造商和社会学家先驱的西伯姆·朗特里(Seebohm Rowntree)在约克(York)开始测量贫困，他提出了“最低温饱线”的理论。在1935年，在反复研究之后，他又推行了关于香烟，报纸以及假期的补贴制度。并在1951年的时候，他得出结论，称除了部分老人外，若按此方法进行下去将会贫困将会得到消除，因此他停下了研究的脚步。

Few now experience the raw penury of Rowntree’s day. But measuring poverty remains anobsession. In its dying days the last Labour government passed a law committing itssuccessors to reduce child poverty. That is causing trouble for the present lot. Under the law,poverty is defined primarily in relative terms: families with less than 60% of the median incomeare considered to be poor. On November 15th Iain Duncan Smith, the welfare secretary, wasset to launch a consultation to come up with a better definition. He wants to include thingsthat he regards as the real causes of want: worklessness, educational failure and drug andalcohol dependency.

现在很少有人能体验到朗特里时代的贫困。但是测衡贫困至今仍是个谜题。在上一届工党最后的执政日子里，通过了一项关于他们下届将会减少儿童贫困的法案。这对当下执政者造成了许多困扰。根据这项法律，贫穷的定义是相当于而言的：当家庭的收入低于收入中位数(median income)的60%时，即被认为是贫困。在11月15日，福利大臣伊恩·邓肯·史密斯(Iain Duncan Smith)着手组织咨询讨论，为其寻找一个更好的定义。他希望能把他认为真正导致贫困的原因加入进去即失业，辍学，吸毒以及酗酒。

There are several problems with the current measure. Because it is relative, it is influenced bychanges in overall earnings. Figures released over the summer showed a sharp reduction inchild poverty over the last year—mostly the result of falling median incomes rather than agenuine improvement. The measure fails to take into account the quality of services thatthe poor receive, such as education and health. Worst of all, from the point of view of a cash-strapped government, huge amounts of money must be spent on tax credits and other welfareprogrammes to raise family incomes up to the threshold.

目前贫困的标准存在几个问题。因为该标准属于相对标准，受整体收入变动的影响。如夏季公布的图表所示，与去年全年相比，今年同期的儿童贫困数量急剧下降，这主要是因为收入中位数的大幅下降并非现实状况的真正改善。这项措施并未将贫困儿童接受补助的质量纳入考虑范围，这其中就包括教育和医疗。对于现金拮据的政府来说，更糟糕的是，他们必须花费巨资在税务抵免和其他福利计划上，才能将家庭收入高于贫困线。

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