IDEAS TO TACKLE POVERTY FOR THE LONG TERM article critique

This article was first published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in the year 2015. In the same year, it was also published by the Institute for Public Policy Research due to the weight it has and the usefulness of its contents. This paper aims to critique and analyse the article, highlighting the main contents and also reviewing other works that have been done in this area in relation to this module as well as the article. The title of the article “Ideas to tackle poverty for the long term, An IPPR Approach to Reducing Poverty” is the most appropriate because the contents that are in the paper briefly give the way forward to solving poverty problem in the United Kingdom. The ideas that the article gives are a good example of how to solve this pertinent social issue that has left devastating effects on society.

The author majorly addresses the uncertainty associated with the pace of the future expansion of the United Kingdom’s economy. The first point on how to boost social investment and wages is through the offering of quality childcare. Through the elimination of the gender inequality which has contributed to immense levels of inequality in the distribution of resources, poverty can be pinned alleviated (Warwick-Booth, 2018, p. This is only possible through the use of a social investment strategy as the cornerstone of the economy. Although the United Kingdom is among the top developed countries in the world, she still lags behind in the social equality in terms of balancing the availability of opportunities to both genders. However, statistics show that it is only one in 20 families whereby the two parents are fully engaged in employment.

In some of the cases, the father is fully engaged such that he is in full-time employment. The mother is engaged in part-time jobs such that she only works some few hours within a day or a week (Slater, 2014, p. However, most of the families are single earner households. This means that either the mother or the father has engaged in income generating activity. Only a percentage of 35 of the disabled workers in the United Kingdom compared to the able-bodied people who work and whose percentage is 75 (JRF, 2018, p. It has been established that these 35 percent of the disabled who are actively engaged in employment are employed in different organizations and government offices because of their physical status. It is a fact that work is not the only solution to attaining the fruits of the anti-poverty program.

Nonetheless, addressing the inequalities as far as the disabled are concerned so that they also become engaged and earn some income is crucial to the antipoverty strategy. The United Kingdom must wake up to the reality that supporting the disabled is key to attaining the goal to eliminate poverty in the country (Jenkins, 2018, p. Despite the statistics showing that the unemployment of youths has been decreasing each year, there is still about a million youths who are unemployed. They are of the age of 18 – 24 years (Dreyer et al. , 2016, p. These unemployed youths cannot be accounted to be in the training institutions or in colleges but they just lie idle for lack of meaningful economic activities that they can engage in. of these youths, 45 percent of them do not even have the minimum GCSE qualification while 24 percent have never been engaged in any kind of income-generating activity.

The author finally argues that the provision of low-cost credit services to households is fundamental to the elimination of poverty. This is because increased availability of credit generates investments which could be used by the households to provide employment opportunities to their members to increase their income. More so, the availability of savings is also fundamental because without a good savings plan, then availability and accessibility of credit facilities would be impossible (A’Hearn et al. , 2016, p. 12) However, this is not possible because many households are used to spending heavily and saving little. Lastly, the author gives a summary of the main points to help in identifying the important points. Reference List A’Hearn, B. , Di Battista, F. and Vecchi, G.

 Old questions, old data, and a new approach: Poverty in the United Kingdom at the rise of the 20th century. Poverty and social exclusion in North and South. Gordon, D. and Pantazis, C. eds.  Breadline Britain in the 1990s. Routledge. Jenkins, K. Energy poverty and vulnerability: A global perspective| Energy poverty and vulnerability: A global perspective, N. Simcock, H. Thomson, S. Kenworthy, L. and Marx, I. In-work poverty in the United States. In Handbook on In-Work Poverty. Edward Elgar Publishing. and Kesteloot, C. Neighborhoods of Poverty. Palgrave Macmillan. Pantazis, C. Policies and discourses of poverty during a time of recession and austerity. Sissons, P. , Green, A. E. and Lee, N. Linking the sectoral employment structure and household poverty in the United Kingdom.