Most people in poverty in the UK are white. According to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) report on UK poverty published in March, a whopping 81 per cent of those individuals in households with income of less than 60 per cent of the national median are white.

Individuals of Pakistani or Bangladeshi origin, on this metric, do far better: making up just 5.5 per cent and 2.5 per cent of the in-poverty population. What we really need then, is to have our government start prioritizing reducing white poverty.

To put it simply: most people in poverty are white because, well, most people in the UK are white. Clearly, what really matters is not the raw numbers, but the relative risk of being in poverty. Judged by this metric, the real story is the complete opposite of that implied: just 15 per cent of white people are in poverty in the UK, compared with 38 per cent of Pakistanis and 39 per cent of Bangladeshis.

Of course, moving into full-time work is easier said than done for many people. Those already in full-time positions are more likely to be the highly skilled, experienced and productive. Even if everyone currently in poverty looked for full-time work, they would be unlikely to find it.

Read the source article at Cato Institute