The central outcome of the ESRI report, Monitoring Poverty Trends, which represents the first update on the 1996 publication, Poverty in the 1990s, on which the original National Anti-Poverty Strategy – NAPS – targets were based, is that there has been a sharp reduction in the numbers experiencing consistent poverty as targeted by the strategy.
In fact, the proportion of households in consistent poverty fell from 9 per cent – 15 per cent of the population in 1994 to 7 per cent – 10 per cent of the population by 1997 with the NAPS targets for 2007 almost achieved. In light of these very encouraging results, I announced, as part of this Government's social inclusion strategy, ambitious new targets to halve the numbers of people in consistent poverty to below 5 per cent by 2004.
While the ESRI report found that increases in lower incomes did not keep pace with average incomes over the 1994 to 1997 period, it is important to note that there have been substantial increases in all social welfare rates in recent years. For example, between 1995 and 1998, social welfare payments increased by some 13 per cent to 14 per cent compared to a total rise in the Consumer Price Index of less than 6 per cent over the same period. Indeed, all social welfare payments are now at or above the minimum rates recommended by the Commission on Social Welfare, achieving a key policy objective of both the National Anti-Poverty Strategy and Partnership 2000. These substantial real increases have contributed to a sharp reduction in levels of basic deprivation and, consequently, consistent poverty.
Of course, social welfare rates, while important, do not of themselves show the full picture. Having a job is recognised as the best route out of poverty. As such, the dramatic progress which has been made in reducing the numbers of unemployed has had, and continues to have, a very beneficial impact on the overall numbers in poverty. Since this Government has come into office the live register has dropped by 70,000 – 27 per cent – and an estimated 160,000 net new jobs have been created since 1997. The ESRI results show that, while the unemployed and persons on home duties made up a similar proportion of the consistently poor in both 1994 and 1997, these groups have both benefited from the sharp reduction in poverty generally. This is evident from the fact that households headed by an unemployed person and experiencing consistent poverty fell by over two percentage points to just over 3 per cent of the population between 1994 and 1997. A similar outcome was evident for such consistently poor households headed by persons on home duties which comprised less than 3 per cent of the population in 1997 having fallen by over 1.5 percentage points since 1994.