News Shorts & Other Busyness

More Families Below Poverty Line

Squall 5, Oct/Nov 1993, pg. 24.

The United Nations Children’s Charity, UNICEF, has just produced a survey of the health and welfare of the world’s infants. Britain does not come out well in the survey, which claims that Anglo-American countries in general are showing a “weak and eroding commitment” to child welfare, reflective of policies that “privatise child rearing”.

Britain’s starkest statistic is the rise in the number of families living below the poverty line (defined as 40% of the national median disposable income). According to the UNICEF report, the number has risen by 40% during the eighties.