Changing the definition of child poverty: Right move, wrong motive and mendacious cover

Much has been made of David Cameron and Iain Duncan Smith's latest proposal to alter the definition of child poverty. The current definition states a child is living in poverty if their household income is less than 60% of the median average. Gordon Brown first pledged to do away with child poverty, based on the old measure, but now David Cameron promises the same by altering the definition of the term.

First, let me say where I agree with Cameron. The current definition of child poverty is a nonsense. It is clearly true that in times of recession and depression, where median income falls, child poverty falls right along with it despite that same household having less money. Frank Field has also argued along similar lines. If the measure is simply to determine whether children are doing worse than average in any given year, then the measure does what it claims. If the idea is to determine whether children are better of in real-terms than they were before, then the measure is deeply flawed.

Nonetheless, this is where my agreement with Cameron's plans start and end. I have no issue with a change in definition per se. I do, however, object to both the timing and motive of the move as well as the supposedly superior definition being offered.

First, the timing. It will come as no shock to anybody that statistics due out this month are likely to show a significant increase in child poverty. There can be no doubt that this move has been prompted by such unhelpful numbers for the government. The Prime Minister had just over five years to tackle this problem of definitions but has only been prompted to do so now. All but the most naive  political observers will surely conclude this is a prime example of reality not backing up government plans thus the government seek to alter the statistics.

Second, the new definition proposed by the government is hardly an improvement on the old. In fact, I would go as far as to say it is worse. Rather than focus on household income, Cameron and Duncan Smith suggest we focus on 'life chances'. Instead of determining poverty levels on the basis of actual poverty, they will instead focus on things such as worklessness, educational attainment, drug dependency and family breakdown. Never mind the fact that, under certain circumstances, worklessness doesn't always make one worse off than those in work (1), it is clearly possible to have low educational attainment and make quite a lot of money, drug abuse is often rife (though hidden) amongst the middle-classes and family breakdown does not necessarily imply low income. Despite the flaw in the current definition, the existing measure at least looks specifically at income levels. For what is poverty if it is not linked to the money in your pocket?

A much better (and more creative) definition of poverty is obviously in order. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation offers one such measure. Rather than base their definition on median income (which is liable to change and throws up obvious anomalies) or 'life chances' (which is double-speak for ignoring how much money you actually have), they use a Minimum Income Standard (MIS). This is the minimum income - set by the public, ratified by experts and updated annually - according to costed basic essentials for families with children. This provides a moving measure according to current levels of income whilst not tying the definition to median incomes that will change during times of recession.

Worse than the timing and new definition, however, is the motive behind this move. This is not simply a case of government, once again, massaging figures. Rather, this move is now intended to soften opinion for further benefit cuts to be announced next week. First in line for the chop is working tax credits, largely paid to 'in work' families not given enough by their companies to raise them above the current poverty measure. In one fell swoop, families will have money taken away from them, in the form of tax credits, and simultaneously told that child poverty levels have improved because the measure will take no account of their income. If it be flawed to measure child poverty according to median income because it falls during times of recession, it is down right mendacious to use that as a basis for altering the definition of poverty whilst simultaneously revoking supplementary income for those working in the lowest paid jobs.

Very few will argue that child poverty does not need addressing. However, the way to address it is not to define it away and measure it in anything other than monetary terms. Nor, as Alison Graham from the Child Poverty Action Group pointed out, can any moral mission involve "taking away tax credits for our poorest children, no serious plan for the low-paid begins with making them poorer by cutting their tax credits”. Even if we concede that 'life chances' are a better measure of poverty, surely we can't ignore the glaringly obvious fact that income-levels and life chances are closely linked.

I am reminded that this is very often our approach to sin. If we simply define it away - saying what God calls sin is not actually sin - then our problem is gone forever. Yet, the solution to sin is not to so define it that we can pretend it's not there. The solution to sin is to actually get rid of it but, like poverty, that is easier said than done and not something we can do simply by our own hard work. The means of doing that is by coming to Jesus Christ in faith and having God remove it from us (2). Whether we want to admit it or not, we cannot define our way out of our problems. Whether sin or poverty, the solution must lie in actually tackling the problem by first defining what the problem really is. It is only once we accept the issue, according to a credible definition, that we can really begin to find a solution. 

The solution to child poverty is not to pretend its not there. It's not to measure it against things that define it away. It is to accept that no money makes for poverty. Only when we finally accept poverty is a lack of money which impedes life chances (not the other way around), can we begin to improve life chances by solving the issue of households with no money.

Notes

1. Consider those in work on part-time and zero-hours contracts. Compare inner-London council house subsidies/private landlord subsidies and child benefits to those elsewhere in certain low-skilled jobs receiving tax credits.
2. That is not to say we no longer sin. Rather, that our sin is no longer counted against us because it will have been punished in Christ

4 ways community, fellowship and hospitality will cost us

We talk an awful lot about community, fellowship, hospitality and friendship in our church. In truth, there is no pretending that fostering genuine community - and all that goes with it - is easy. It takes work and it will cost us in one way or another. Here are a bunch of ways it will do exactly that:

Time
Community, fellowship and hospitality will cost us time. There is no getting away from the fact that we call it "spending time together" for a reason. It costs. For most people, time is a precious commodity and we all feel we need more of it. "I'm too busy" is the mantra and can usually be read as "I'm too busy for you". True fellowship requires investment in relationships. It demands our time and, if we are to have it, we must make time for it. Even on a basic level it requires time cooking for people, cleaning up after people, doing favours for people, helping people, listening to people, sharing with people. If we're not willing to invest time, we're not really willing to have fellowship.

Money
Community, fellowship and hospitality will cost us money. When we have people in our homes, we will have to spend money on extra food. We may have to run the heating for the comfort of other people (rather than for the thickness of our wallets). It may cost us money in petrol, ferrying people around here, there and everywhere. It may cost us money when we see friends in need and conclude 1 John 3:17 demands we actually help (rather than do a lot of talking about helping). Real fellowship demands our money. If our wallets are not in it, then we are not really in it at all.

Things
Community, fellowship and hospitality may cost us our things. When we have people in our homes, they may not look after things in the way we would like. We may have expensive furniture that people slouch on, drop food over and spill drinks on. We may have carpets that get worn, or stained, quicker than we might like. Things may get damaged because - as we all know - most people don't care about your things the way you do. Yet, God has given you all those things to enjoy and it is right to share them with others, just as Christ shares the blessings that are his with his people (even though we don't care for them as he does!) It is not terribly warm, friendly or hospitable to give people a list of items they are not touch or go near. To act that way is to treat them as children; it makes your hospitality something closer to patronage. If your things aren't included in your hospitality, then you're not really being all that hospitable.

Emotional energy
Community, fellowship and hospitality will cost us emotional energy. We may be happy to share our things, our time and our money but if we are not emotionally invested we aren't really engaging in proper fellowship. We cannot expect anyone to open up to us if we never open up ourselves. It is a thoroughly vulnerable position to be in - opening ourselves up to scrutiny and judgment - but unless we do so, we cannot expect anyone to make themselves so vulnerable with us. How can we expect people to confess their sin (and grow by putting away with the support of the church) if we continually make out we are perfect? When people are struggling, our emotions must be engaged otherwise we are not really all that concerned. Now, doing that is emotionally draining and tiring. Yet, if our hospitality and fellowship doesn't extend to our emotions, we may as well be hosting business networking events.

Home ownership is not the summum bonum

I am far from often in agreement with the Archbishop Cranmer blog. I do not share his unerring veneration of Margaret Thatcher, I am not perturbed by state intervention in principle and I am not slavishly tied to supporting "the market" come what may. However, despite the hagiographic title, his most recent post touches on a fundamental issue and, in the main, handles it well. The post - 'Margaret Thatcher "gave the Conservative Party intelligence and committed leadership"' - deals with home ownership and the current government's flawed attempts to boost the economy through a specific focus on the housing market.

I first touched upon the issue of home ownership back in March 2010. Here, I sought to explore pertinent issues related to whether Christians could, or should, justifiably own property. To be clear, I am not against Christian home ownership per se. However, I do think many Christians have failed to think clearly about the issues surrounding home ownership and a particularly worldly approach to property has infiltrated the church on some level. Again, that is not to say owning property is wrong per se. Nevertheless, our attitude toward home ownership may have been unduly influenced by our culture.

Cranmer's central argument concerns the government's current Help to Buy scheme. He states:

The Bishop of Manchester-designate, David Walker, said: “Help to Buy is like tackling a food shortage by issuing food vouchers rather than getting more crops planted”. And he is quite right. If any shift were needed, it is either in increasing the building of social housing or in dispelling the shame associated with renting. The Royal Family rents; the Archbishop of Canterbury rents. What is this Tory fixation with owning that which the market determines you cannot yet afford?

With this assertion, I wholeheartedly agree. Cranmer's view of this policy is ultimately correct when he argues:

It is difficult to conceive of a more peccable policy than one which lures you into a state of maximum indebtedness at a punitive rate of interest, especially when debts of such gargantuan proportions built on the shifting sand of inflated property prices were largely responsible for the global credit crunch and the state we’re in. This time, instead of financial institutions selling on the risk of sub-prime mortgages to an ever-cascading carousel of private banks, the taxpayer will act as guarantor of last resort. 

As with the bank bailouts, the shareholder (homeowner) takes the profit in times of plenty, but the poor taxpayer takes the hit in the lean years. It is even more invidious when you consider that those who take out these 95% loans will be subject to a higher rate of interest than those who are deemed to present less of a risk: the repayments will be arduous and the emotional costs very high. This is simply piling Pelion upon Ossa. At these thresholds, the ‘dream of home ownership’ can rapidly become a nightmare trap of negative equity and unsalability: the Englishman’s castle becomes his dungeon. House prices are not guaranteed to go on rising in perpetuity: the easier-credit bubble will surely burst, just as it has always done.

On all this, I agree with Cranmer.

However, it is difficult to support his view that Margaret Thatcher understood this issue well given that he ignores the fact she was centrally responsible for creating this very shame culture. For Thatcher, as with most Conservatives, home ownership represents the highest good whilst renting is for failures, identifiable principally by their lack of earnings and/or savings. Just as Thatcher responded with the words "what a luxury" having asked a student studying Ancient Norse Literature what she was reading at university, the Conservative mindset on home ownership is to justify all things in terms of money. That is, things are only of value if they can be quantified monetarily. Thus, if you do not have enough money to own property you must be of no value, a failure, because achievement is measured in monetary terms both in education (the earning power of your degree is its sole value) and in terms of income (you are of no value if you fail to earn). Indeed, Cranmer argues well that the central shift needed is "in increasing the building of social housing". However, he says this without irony having stated "Margaret Thatcher heralded a revolution in the property-owning democracy with the sale of council homes to tenants".

Underlying this whole argument is the understanding that all people need to live somewhere. The rental market is awash with private landlords covering the cost of second mortgages through the rents of those who cannot afford to buy their first home. Property prices have risen well beyond the rate of rising salaries and the average age of the first-time buyer is steadily increasing. The government's answer to this problem is to loan people a deposit, which must be returned, on a 95% mortgage with unfavourable terms in order to allow property prices to rise even further. A far more simple solution would seem to be the building of more houses, flooding the market with property which would naturally drive prices down. Sadly, successive Tory and Labour governments have singularly failed to build enough housing (social or private). Prices remain high because demand exceeds availability and the government answer, not by increasing house building projects but, by plunging would-be home-owners into ever increasing levels of debt in order to achieve the only thing assumed to be of any value - owning a home. Certainly the Bible has much to say about where we plough our money, the storing up of treasures and the placing of people into debt. 

In truth, we need to move away from the view that property ownership is the ultimate good. We do need to increase social housing - a problem exacerbated by the sale of council housing - but we also need to increase the number of private homes being built too. Moreover, we need to move away from any concept of shame in renting and value inherent in home ownership. Why should housing not be treated in the same way as any other good? Why is a house about the only piece of property to increase in value in perpetuity when almost every other depreciates? This culture - seen almost nowhere else in Europe - causes people to take themselves into untold debt in order to own property they cannot afford whilst simultaneously reducing their living standard and impeding their ability to move freely. At heart, the question we are left with is 'are mere bricks and mortar really worth it'?

Treasures on earth?

In our modern culture there seems to be an expectation that people should seek to buy property. There is a sense in which one should buy a house, wait for its value to increase and then sell it in order to move into a bigger property. It is on this basis that the recent credit crunch was portrayed as an utter disaster. Mortgage lenders restricted lending and the value of property dropped. Many are now struggling to get a foot on the property ladder, those who already own houses are concerned that their property value has severely decreased and ultimately that they have lost money.


This culture seems to have found its way into the Church. There is an expectation, even amongst Christians, that one would naturally seek to get a foot on the property ladder and even move into bigger property as the value increases. Many show their bias towards this thinking by referring to renting as 'dead money' but buying as 'an investment.' Some even seek to spiritualise the decision by claiming that buying a house is 'good stewardship.' However, how far can we say that this is really true?


Of course, if we are offered the choice between owning or renting a house, both houses having minimal differences and the cost being identitical, it is perfectly reasonable for us to buy. However, how often is this the case? In reality, to buy a home we must firstly save up a sizeable deposit, then take out a mortgage often 4 or 5 times our yearly salary and then pay interest on top of the value borrowed for 25-35 years. When one factors in the costs of maintenance and building insurance on top of this the price of buying a property is mammoth. Can we justify this amount of money as Christians?


The first point to consider is that the money spent on our property benefits only ourselves. When we tie up considerable sums in owning property we tie up money that could otherwise be directed to Christian work. If we rented, instead of bought, how much more money would we have available to give to the church, missions and evangelistic outreach?


We must also consider our motives for buying a house. Some cite the need to own property in order to provide for their old age. Jesus told us, however, not to worry about tomorrow (Mat 6:25-34) and not to store up treasures on earth (Mat 6:19). If we are concerned about the future and are sinking vast sums into our homes as a result we are failing to heed Jesus' command. Some buy into the culture of getting larger and larger properties. This, however, runs contrary to the parable of the rich fool (Lk 12:16-22). Indeed, how much more would we have to give to the Lord's work if we did not tie our money up in our homes? Moreover, is it right for us to put our money into our home in the hope that it will increase in value so that we can get a larger one? It seems that the teaching of the Bible is clear on these points.


It is also possible to argue that taking out a mortgage is a form of gambling. Many people find themselves in dire financial straits because they have calculated the affordability of a mortgage based on current rates of interest but, when interest rates change, they are unable to maintain payments. People gamble that the rate of inflation will stay low enough for them to afford mortgage repyaments. Not only is there risk involved in taking out a mortgage but the stakes with which we are playing could not be higher. Ultimately, this could run into the tens of thousands.


We must also consider how much more difficult it is to answer God's call when we are tied into property. To be called to overseas mission or into the pastorate in another part of the country is all the harder to follow when we first have to concern ourselves with selling our house. In fact, it is quite conceiveable that many would consider themselves unable to answer the call if they could not first find a buyer for their home. How skewed our logic becomes! The call of God becomes second to the sale of our property.


This skewed logic runs deeper. Some in the Church argue that going into debt is wrong. Nevertheless, where their mortgage is concerned they have a blindspot. They encourage people to take out sizeable mortgages on the one hand whilst sneering at the use of a small overdraft facility or loan on the other. Such a view is hugely inconsistent! It is almost as if a mortgage is, by some token, not considered debt despite the mammoth sums involved. If we do not believe mortgages are wrong then we cannot suggest that these other types of loan are wrong. If we insist that loans are wrong then we must equally insist mortgages are wrong. We cannot have it both ways and yet because of the property culture we seek to make it so.


So, can we as Christians really justify buying houses? It may be possible, in certain circumstances, to say that it is justifiable. Nevertheless, we must conclude that a worldly culture has infiltrated the church. Instead of relying on God we rely on our investment for the future. Instead of giving from the first of what we have, when our salary initially comes in, we give from what is left over, when we've made our mortgage payments. Is this the culture we should have adopted in the church or should we seriously reconsider whether it is right for us to buy our own home?