Author Description

As the UK government currently has no Minimum Income Standards (MIS) to assess the adequacy of minimum of minimum wages, tax thresholds or social security benefits, Setting adequacy standards reports how the government of 10 countries world-wide set their MIS. The report suggests how MIS can be used among other strategies to combat poverty. This is the first study: of the methods which the government of 10 countries used in setting minimum standards of adequacy for their income maintenance systems and the ideas they were based on; to distinguish between the scientific activity of discovering poverty lines, and the political activity of setting governmental MIS; to report on the disparate ways in which poverty is officially perceived in different countries and their implications for cross-national studies and policy making. Setting adequacy standards concludes by showing how the UK government should go about setting a MIS which is publicly acceptable, methodologically defensible and administratively feasible. The report should be read by everyone concerned about poverty policy and income maintenance at an international, European, national and local level; policy makers and politicians, and academics and students of social policy interested in comparative issues.