§ Mr. JenkinTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security when the next edition of the households below average income statistics will be published.
§ Mr. LilleyThe new edition of the households below average income—H BA I—statistics covering the years 1979 to 1990–91, has been published today and copies have been placed in the Library.
The figures show that average disposable household incomes have grown in real terms by 35 per cent. between 1979 and 1990–91. Increases were not confined to a few top earners, and there have been appreciable increases in average income for all family types and all economic status groups. Pensioners have done particularly well, with pensioner couples showing an increase in average income of 48 per cent. after housing costs.
A complex picture emerges in the outcomes for the lower income groups. This is because of changes in the composition of the bottom 10 per cent. of income distribution, the particular point in the economic cycle captured by this edition, and the peculiarities in the way the incomes of the increasing number of self-employed are reported in the family expenditure survey from which this analysis is drawn. There are also strong indications that income results for the bottom 10 per cent. of the income distribution do not reflect their true standard of living. There has been a marked increase in their possession of consumer durables and three quarters of those who reported zero incomes spent more than the average for the population as a whole. The results shown in HBAI for the lowest income group cannot, therefore, be interpreted simply and should be treated with some caution.
The new family resources survey, which is due to replace the family expenditure survey as the data source for HBAI, will place special emphasis on gathering information from households on low incomes and so should help to improve the reliability of the data.