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| 22.01.2009 |
New SIFO publication |
| Low income and ‘poverty lines’ in Norway |
| Borgeraas, Elling & Espen Dahl (2009). Low income and ‘poverty lines’ in Norway : a comparison of three concepts. International Journal of Social Welfare |
 Read the abstract and buy the article
In this article we address the question of how well three concepts of 'poverty' correspond with each other. We have compared three different measures of 'poverty' in Norway: income poverty and two measures of a minimum budget standard, one scientifically and one politically defined. The three measures rest on different underlying concepts, serve different purposes and yield significantly different poverty lines. If followed by the municipal social services, the governmental norms for social benefits will, paradoxically, leave the beneficiaries in income poverty as defined by that same government. The most generous poverty line of all three measures is provided by the minimum budget standard developed by the National Institute for Consumer Research in Norway, which rests on the assumption that a household's income has to give a sustainable financial situation in the longer run. Neither of the two other poverty measures have this property. All numbers pertain to the year 2005. Some political and practical implications of the findings are discussed. |
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