Thought for the Day, 3 July 2008

Oliver McTernan

In order to afford a minimum standard of living in Britain today, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation claims that a single person needs to earn at least £13,400 a year before tax and a couple with two children need to be able to spend in addition to their rent or mortgage £370 a week.

These figures published in a report this week are based upon what those surveyed would regard as necessary to be able feel part of our society. Cars and cigarettes were not regarded as essentials but a weekly bottle of wine, a trip to the cinema and a one-week self catering holiday in the UK each year are included for what the report defines as "a socially acceptable standard of living".

These new benchmarks for poverty in Britain could seem almost obscene when compared with the realities people have to cope with elsewhere in the world. Take Zimbabwe for example, where, according to aid agency Oxfam, nearly nine out of ten have no job; or Ethiopia where three quarters of the population struggle to exist on less than $2 per day; or Gaza where the majority depend entirely on UN food handouts.

These of course are extreme examples of human deprivation and as such risk distorting our image of what is acceptable. The Rowntree report therefore is extremely important as it reminds us that there is more to poverty than just the lack of the minimum of food, clothes and shelter needed to survive. It redraws the poverty line to take account of the opportunities and choices necessary to participate in society. By so doing it recognizes that as human beings we are worth more than just the sum of our physical needs.

The great Jewish prophets Isaiah and Amos who constantly condemned the oppression and social injustices that were endemic in their society were driven by a similar awareness. Poverty for them was wholly reprehensible as it failed to recognize the God given dignity of each and every individual. They preached the need for inclusiveness that allowed people to engage and warned of the consequence of indifference.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation report is aimed at encouraging debate and building a public consensus on the level of income no one should have to live below. Hopefully it will be recognized that in our globalized world the standards we set for ourselves should be equally applicable to the peoples of Zimbabwe, Ethiopia and Gaza.