youthmoney

It’s nearly a week since the Joseph Rowntree Foundation tried to start a debate about minimum incomes. It published focus group findings – the views of the general public who thought in detail about what was needed for a basic but acceptable standard of living. The best place for the detail is the Minimum Income Standard website.

Most papers reported it. Many featured the headline figures that to participate fully in society a single person needs a pre-tax income of at least £13,400 a year, while a couple with two children require £26,800.

That was the start. Where was the discussion? Not very evident.

The Financial Times treated it as a bit of a laugh. They asked round the office and found some who “regarded the budget of £40 every two years for a suit as somewhat extravagant”. Ho ho, what wags.

A Telegraph columnist was breezily vague and dismissive. “According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, a mobile phone and a night out remain essential items in the average family’s life, but everything else, from the fresh pesto to the Caribbean holiday, is now out of the window.” Eh?

The Times treated it as a news in brief.

The Daily Mail had a longer report. It had the odd slant that single parent families have the easiest route out of poverty. Must be some political agenda there. There has been just one comment on the website – and that rebutting the Mail’s single parent analysis .

Dominic Lawson wrote a meandering piece on envy in the Independent and Polly Toynbee for the Guardian linked it to a piece on social mobility and the failure of education.

If I were Julia Unwin, director of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, I’d be disappointed at the quality of the debate so far. But not surprised.