TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Gazeley, Ian
AU  - Newell, Andrew T.
AU  - Reynolds, Kevin
AU  - Searle, Rebecca
        TI  - The Poor and the Poorest, Fifty Years On
        PY  - 2014/Jan/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 7909
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp7909
        AB  - 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.
        KW  - Britain
KW  - poverty
KW  - inequality
KW  - 1950s
        ER  -