The Causes of Poverty (1979)

Abstract

Why are some people poor, and what can be done about it? Since incomes come mainly from earnings or from social security, the question turns on the role of each of these. Most, but not all, of the poorest people have little or no earnings, and they are poorer than others because social security incomes are lower than normal earnings. Such people include pensioners, the unemployed and single-parent families. But there are also some poor families where the father is in work but his earnings do not provide much more than social security – even after the addition of Child Benefit, rate and rent rebates and Family Income Supplement. The size and importance of these various groups of people we shall document in a moment, using our analysis of the 1975 General Household Survey.

National Westminster Bank Quarterly Review (February 1979), pp. 30–42. This article is based on work reported more fully in R. Layard, D. Piachaud and M. Stewart, The Causes of Poverty, Background Paper, 5, Royal Commission on the Distribution of Income and Wealth (London: HMSO, 1978). We should stress that we alone (and not the Commission) are responsible both for that paper and for this article. The work was financed by the commission and by the Esmee Fairbairn Charitable Trust.