%0 Report
        %A Gazeley, Ian
%A Newell, Andrew T.
%A Reynolds, Kevin
%A Searle, Rebecca
        %T The Poor and the Poorest, Fifty Years On
        %D 2014
        %8 2014 Jan
        %I Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        %C Bonn
        %7 IZA Discussion Paper
        %N 7909
        %U https://www.iza.org/publications/dp7909
        %X We re-explore Able-Smith and Townsend's landmark study of poverty in early post WW2 Britain. They found a large increase in poverty between 1953-4 and 1960, a period of relatively strong economic growth. Our re-examination is a first exploitation of the newly-digitised Board of Trade Household Expenditure Survey data set for 1953/4. Able-Smith and Townsend used only a small part of this data source. We find that Able-Smith and Townsend substantially over-estimated the rise in absolute poverty and also substantially under-estimated the rise in relative poverty. Their and our findings on poverty reflect a large rise inequality in the distribution of expenditure among British households. This rise is related to a rise in the preponderance of pensioner households, who, for instance, account for all the poor households in the 1961 Family Expenditure survey.
        %K Britain
%K poverty
%K inequality
%K 1950s