Lessons for America from Britain's War on Poverty

Child poverty in Britain has been dropping for years, even as it rises in the United States. So what are they doing right across the pond? To find out, I interviewed Columbia University professor Jane Waldfogel, whose new book, Britain's War on Poverty, chronicles the United Kingdom's many successes in improving the economic well-being of its children and their families. I asked Waldfogel about the lessons we can learn from Britain's ongoing struggle.

Change.org: What personally inspired you to research Britain's anti-poverty efforts?

Jane Waldfogel: I spend a fair amount of time in Britain and happened to be there when [Prime Minister] Tony Blair made his surprise pledge to end child poverty [in 1999]. I can tell you that everyone in the audience that day was thrilled. I never thought I'd see the day when a government leader would pledge to end child poverty. And as I followed the reforms after that, it was clear that Gordon Brown was if anything even more committed. This was a serious effort and it seemed to me one that we in the U.S. could learn from.

Change.org: Your research identifies a three-prong approach that the U.K. has used to fight poverty over the past ten years. What are these prongs, and how do they differ from the U.S.'s anti-poverty strategies?

JW: Britain's effort included steps to promote work and make work pay, measures to raise incomes for families with children even when parents are not working and a very ambitious set of investments in children. The first component, the steps to promote work and make work pay, is of course reminiscent of the U.S. welfare reforms of the 1990s, but the other two components are quite different. Raising family incomes even when parents are not working means increasing rewards to work but also raising benefits for those who are not working (perhaps because they have a young child, or have a disability, or can not find work). This is not something we have done in the U.S., but it's something that a government must do if it is to reduce child poverty even among families where parents do not work (or do not work all the time).

The third component, the investments in children, also stands in contrast to what we have done in the U.S. I list in the book a host of investments in preschool and school-age children that the government made. They felt strongly that if they were to reduce poverty in the next generation, they had to do more to improve health and development for the current generation of children, who are after all the parents of tomorrow.

Change.org: The causes of poverty are both structural and personal. Which aspects of the fight against poverty has the British government left in the hands of individuals and families?

JW: The British policy was based on a healthy appreciation for the importance of parental choice. Quite a few of the reforms involved putting more money in the hands of parents and letting them decide how best to spend it on behalf of their children. I have looked at how parents spent the money and that trust in them was well-placed — parents spent the extra money on things like books and toys, children's shoes and clothing, and fresh fruit and vegetables. They also spent more money on ensuring that they had a car and a phone, and spent less on alcohol and tobacco.

Change.org: Are there any extra governmental measures that need to be taken during a recession as more families go from low-income to no-income?

JW: The recession confirms the importance of having a safety net for families that is not tied only to parental work but that also supports low income families when parents can not work.

Change.org: It was in 1999 that Prime Minister Tony Blair pledged to end child poverty within 20 years. Just ten years after this promise, President Obama made a similar pledge: to end child hunger by 2015, just five years away. What lessons can America learn from Britain if we hope to eliminate child hunger — a key step in ending poverty overall — in just five years?

JW: I think the two pledges — and goals — are quite different. But what I take away from the British experience is how powerful a pledge can be. When Blair pledged to end child poverty, and Brown followed that up with a pledge to cut poverty in half in 10 years, the government did not have a detailed plan as to how it was going to fulfill those pledges. But the fact that the pledges had been made acted to mobilize government departments to develop strategies and to invest real funds to make those goals a reality.

Change.org: You write that Blair's pledge to end child poverty initially surprised, but then motivated, the rest of Britain's political community. Months after President Obama announced his goal of ending child hunger by 2015, few concrete steps have been taken to achieve this end. What can our readers do to make ending child poverty a priority for the current administration?

JW: As I said, I think the pledges are quite different. And I also think that quite a lot of what President Obama is doing under the rubric of helping middle class families, and helping struggling families during the recession, will help reduce child poverty. We've seen increases in support for families and increases in investments for children (for example, expansions in programs such as Early Head Start and Head Start).

But in terms of what readers can do to support the government doing more to reduce child poverty, they can let their representatives and senators know they support these kinds of policies. It's a well-recognized fact of political life that children can not vote for their interests at the polls. So we need to do it for them.

Photo credits: Michal Osmenda, Columbia University