It says something about Badenoch and her media supporters that this is considered a clever point.
Relative poverty just tells you what proportion of households earn below 60% of median income. That’s not a measure of poverty at all.
It is a bad measure because in a booming economy, as incomes rise, more people can be classed as being in poverty even though their real income is rising.
And then during a recession like we had under the last Labour government, where GDP collapsed and unemployment went through the roof, relative poverty fell even though we were all poorer.
It's obviously partisan bullshit that she thinks he has to go back to 2009 for falling real incomes- that happened at various times from 2010-24 (though flukily for Cameron, not in 2014-5). But nobody seriously thinks that you solve child poverty by inducing a recession. It's almost like the experts have thought of this point, and have a variety of measures of income and poverty.
If she doesn't want to do this percentage, perhaps she can use cash figures. Real enough for her?
- By Abernathy