1. ONS data and analysis on poverty and inequality
Glenn Everett
10th February 2015

2. Introduction
Complementing DWP’s HBAI statistics, ONS produce a range of data & analysis on poverty, inequality and related concepts
ONS also play an important role in international coordination
Aim of today is to update on what ONS currently does and what we’re aiming to do in the future
Including internationally, nationally and locally – plus other developments in improving our understanding of poverty and inequalities

3. Influencing internationally: UN Sustainable Development Goals EU Statistics on Income & Living Conditions UNECE Task Force on Poverty Measurement

4. What are Sustainable Development Goals?
The successor to Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which finish in 2015
SDGs - also known as Post-2015 development goals - were one of the outcomes of the RIO+20 conference
Intended to be more global than MDGs – likely to have some UK national targets and UK contributions to global targets
United Nations leading and driving forward the international agenda
ONS asked to lead and coordinate work statistical work on SDGs in UK - DfID coordinating on policy
Intergovernmental negotiations currently under way
SDGs to be agreed in September 2015
Indicators to be monitored form 2016

5. SDGs: possible indicators
Goal 1:
End poverty in all its forms everywhere
Possible poverty indicators:
Percentage of population below $1.25 (PPP) per day
Percentage of population living below national poverty line
Poverty gap ratio
Share of poorest quintile in national consumption
Percentage of population in extreme multidimensional poverty
Percentage of population covered by social protection programs

6. European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC)
Provides income, poverty and material deprivation statistics for all EU members on a comparable basis (since 2005)
Produced jointly by ONS & DWP in UK
Range of analysis published by EC, ONS and academics
Cross Sectional
Headline indicators published within 11 months of end of year
Ad hoc module each year
e.g. well-being, access to services, child material deprivation
Used to understand size & characteristics of population at risk of poverty/ social exclusion
Longitudinal
Individuals aged 16+ tracked over 4 years – interviewed each year
Headline indicators published within 15 months of end of year
Some monitoring purposes but also used to understand policy measures needed to reduce poverty sustainably

7. Revision of EU-SILC
European Commission planning major overhaul of EU-SILC
Intention to ensure better meets policy needs and can be more responsive to future priorities
Proposals include:
move from 4 to 6 wave longitudinal design
Annual nucleus with core variables required every year
3 and 6 yearly rotating modules on topics including children/childcare, labour/housing, health, well-being & wealth/debt
Opportunity for UK to influence EC’s detailed proposals is now.
Keen to better understand user views on these proposals so we can ensure it best meets needs of the UK

8. UNECE Task Force on Poverty Measurement
Objective: “develop guidelines and provide recommendations for improving international comparability and availability of statistics on poverty and related metadata.”
Prepare inventory of poverty indicators.
Define coherent set of indicators to measure absolute/relative poverty in CES countries.
Develop guidelines on the definitions, methods and data sources of defined poverty indicators.
Provide recommendations on documentation of metadata.
TF membership includes country representatives, international organisations & other experts
ONS & DWP representing the UK

9. Recent National developments: Guide to Earnings & Income Sources Economic Well-being

10. GSS Guide to earnings & income data sources
Wide range of sources of information on earnings/income in UK – each designed to meet particular user needs
Potentially confusing for those less familiar with area
ONS, with DWP, HMRC & others published new guide for users
For each source:
What does it measure?
What information is published? What data are available?
What are the key uses and strengths?
What are the key limitations?
Feedback welcome – will revise in summer based on responses
Guide will be regularly updated

11. Economic Well-being
ONS recently developed new economic well-being framework plus dashboard of headline indicators
Highlights multidimensional nature of economic well-being
Brings different data on income & material living standards together
Aim to supplement more traditional measures such as GDP to give a more rounded and comprehensive basis for assessing changes
New quarterly publication – first release Q (published 23rd Dec 2014)

12. Providing the local perspective: Small area income and poverty estimates

13. Small Area Income Estimates and Households in Poverty Estimates
Model based estimates of average weekly household income for & the proportion of households in poverty
Available for middle layer super output areas (MSOAs) in England and Wales
Four income measure:
Total income
Net income
Net equivalised income before housing costs
Net equivalised income after housing costs
Poverty measure:
% of households with net equivalised income AHC below 60% of median

14. Small Area Income Estimates and Households in Poverty Estimates
Produced using FRS data combined with Census & variety of administrative data sources.
Income estimates and households in poverty estimates are usually published trienially
Next set of small area income estimates to be published in Q2 2015
Next set of households in poverty estimates will follow after the income estimates
To provide the closest link to Census data, estimates will be for 2011/12

15. Understanding the context: Variations in the inflation experience of households Incomes of the self-employed

16. Variation in the inflation experience of UK households (1)
Uses micro-level expenditure data and detailed price indices to estimate inflation rates for:
Expenditure and income deciles
Households with and without children
Retired and non-retired households
First UK paper to do this on a CPI consistent basis
Provides a possible starting point for a future annual publication.
Note: 1= lowest income, 10= highest income
Price of goods and services bought by lower income (& expenditure) households has increased more rapidly
Retired households have also experienced higher price increases than non-retired households

17. Income from self-employment
Self-employed account for a growing proportion the workforce, but accurate and timely information is a known gap
Significant conceptual and definitional challenges associated with collection of data
Ability of respondents to provide accurate/timely information is also important issue
Improved access to HMRC data could provide benefits, but there is a significant time lag from Self-Assessment tax returns.
Questions piloted on the LFS, but not continued due to significant non-response, and because many were unable to identify their income sufficiently accurately.
ONS plan to explore the range of options for improving information on self-employed income, alongside other priorities for earnings and income statistics