UK poverty targets set to change for kids

The Government has no hope of meeting its targets to abolish child poverty independent experts warned yesterday, as ministers announced a controversial plan to change the way the number of poor families is measured. Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, was accused of “moving the goalposts” in a bid to hide the Coalition’s expected failure to meet its goal to eliminate child poverty by 2020. Duncan Smith announced plans to scrap the way poverty has been defined since the 1970s – below 60% of the median income. He argued that it would be better to tackle poverty “at source” and to take account of other factors such as drug addiction, worklessness, welfare dependency, debt and family breakdown. The Work and Pensions Secretary pointed to the latest figures released yesterday to 2010-11, which showed that poverty fell because median incomes dropped in the recession.from gulf times.