Why poverty was re-discovered in Britain in the late 1950s and early Essay

Why beggary was re-discovered in Britain in the late 1950s and early 1960 - Essay display caseBritains share of world trade fell from 13.9% to 10.8% during this time. Taxation increased from 32% of GDP to 43% of GDP. Economic planning had failed and this failure precluded major sociable planning despite the fact that some social reforms such as the launch of comprehensive education, reorganization of public transport, development in health and topical anaesthetic government.Abel-Smith and Townsend are credited with the rediscovery of need in the 1960s noticed that certain categories such as, families with children on low incomes and retired couples often lived in difficult circumstances. The definition of poverty adopted by Abel-Smith and Peter Townsend in their 1965 study, was the concept of The Poor and the Poorest. They concluded that poverty was entirely a relative concept, and defined households to be in, or at the margins of, poverty if their income was less than 140 percen t of the then current National Assistance scale plus rent. In 1960, 17.9% of households lived below this relative poverty standard. An unknown, but significantly smaller, share of the population had incomes below the physiological efficiency or human needs poverty lines. (Ian Gazeley, Poverty in Britain 1900-1965)There was a strong case for saying that socially deprived families are frequently found in confined geographical areas identifiable by certain physical and social characteristics. Examples of these characteristics geographical location, twilight zones near a citys business area areas populated by immigrants overcrowded and poor amenities, Victorian housing bloodline areas with a high percentage of unskilled and semi-skilled workers higher than average proportions of families on State benefits higher than normal percentage of large families large number of unparented families areas with little play space and recreational facilities areas with poorer health high percentage of child deprivation and delinquency.