Managing Poverty: Great Britain in Comparative Perspective

This article examines the record of the British Labour Party's flagship policy aimed at reducing poverty and social exclusion in one of the most unequal societies in western Europe. It seeks to show that, despite an increasingly refined official view of poverty-as a multidimensional phenomenon-and despite extensive measures involving educational and labour market reforms, new activation strategies and considerable fiscal transfers, social mobility and persistent poverty remains stubbornly resistant. The article ascribes these disappointing outcomes to the simultaneous pursuit by New Labour of macro-economic policies which promote income inequality.