No one has ever dared dispute the statement by the Good Man of Nazareth that the poor shall be with us always. But, who exactly are the poor? If we look outside ourselves, to the regions and countries where the wretched of the earth exist on little more than thin air, it is not possible to miss them. Within ourselves, it is less easy to identify them at a glance. In social and economic terms we speak of the relative and the absolute poor.

The absolute poor are those who must make do and get by with less than a given amount of income. That amount varies. It may be the minimum wage for an individual. It may be a given amount per member of the household in terms of social statistics. A society might not have too many absolute poor, people living below the breadline. Yet there will be the relative poor, who are less well off in comparison to others, even if their income and capital are above the minima that define the relative poor.

So what, one might say; all this is leading to a very dry read. Dry, yes, but not unimportant. For a good knowledge and awareness of how many are absolutely and relatively poor in a society is very much worth having. On the social side, it helps form the social conscience of society at large. In economic terms it sends out strong signals about comparative wages and how long these are likely to last in the political context. In the latter context it tells politicians what socio-economic policies of redistribution they have to come up with if they want to mitigate inequality and increase social justice.

Still too dry? Well then, may the knowledge that the poor shall be always with us comfort you when you realise that your conscience is not quite as developed as it should be, if not outright blunted.

For many years the issue was not of primary interest to the compilers of our national statistics. Social data, starting with proper studies of income and wealth distribution, were almost inexistent. At the political level, references to social justice were based more on ideology than on scientific analysis as a basis for sound social policies.

Come to think of it, that situation has deteriorated. Nowadays much political discourse comes across as if the political class believes that the bulk of the votes lies among typical middle class families, who have to be massaged with constant spoken or written rhetoric.

Come to think further of it, the common political talk is that the middle class is under attack, is stressed, is ignored, is disadvantaged. That class, not the poor, is the focal point of politics. Go for the middle ground, inhabited mostly my the middle class, perceived to me made up of middle-of-the-roaders who abhor the extreme commitment of sincere ideology - it's votes that count!

That is not to say that any politician, centre-right, centre-left, extreme-right or as lost as a drunken lord, dares aver that there are no absolute poor to speak of. And, yes, there are politicians who make it clear that the poor will always be up front in their thoughts. But in terms of policy, though trying to be all things to all folk, the parties unashamedly target the middle class.

What exactly constitutes the middle class is left to the imagination. It is not social conditions that underlie the term, as of old, in societies where one might have become as poor as the sub-Sahara inhabitants, but still retain the social veneer of manner and speech that distinguish him from the common folk.

In Malta class is narrowly defined by income. Anyone clustered around the average-income indicator is classified as being middle class, rather than as a middle-income earner. And once the class tag is given, the rest follows - in terms of choosing paying schools, taking out private health insurance, opting for a better type of car and changing it before it becomes a museum model, and such like.

It is a case, one might say, of politicians jumping to conclusions on the basis of a circular argument - you are middle income, and so middle class, and therefore expected to behave slightly grandly, and to complain that you never had it so bad from the government, and obviously to impact on the formulation of competing policies by a political class thirsty for your vote.

Which is all part of what goes around, goes around and the way politics is plated nowadays, with policies being drafted on the basis of what people want for themselves as individuals rather than boldly on the basis of what thinkers believe is good for society as a whole.

That explains, I guess, why it is that the political class does not stand up as one and demand that the National Statistics Office start collating and publishing with suitable analysis which non-professionals can follow data regarding who we are and the way we live.

Social data come mostly from two sources. The NSO has taken it on itself to carry out surveys on income and living conditions, and to publish the result in driblets, or sporadically. That is a useful exercise, in the absence of something better. It is based on what takes place in the rest of the European Union and in countries considerably more advanced than us in this.

It is not quite the best approach, nor is it enough. Surveys in Malta do not tend to give results that are really representative of the whole of society, whether in terms of its current political opinion, or on its earnings, capital and living standards. Moreover the NSO itself now and then advocates care in interpretation, because the sample in the survey may not be representative enough.

The second source of social data comes in the form of parliamentary questions, placed, as likely as not, by members of the Opposition. Thus, over a year ago the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Charles Mangion, placed a question which tried to glean information on income tax returns by specified income groups. Whereas a few weeks ago Marie Louise Coleiro Preca, who shadows social affairs, placed a question about declared mean income and variances in segmented income brackets, classified by marital status, over a number of years.

In both cases the Prime Minister and Minister of Finance gave detailed information. In the first case collated from tax returns; in the second from the NSO's Labour Force Survey datasets. The detailed data was summarised in a few newspaper reports. I am not aware that it was extensively analysed and commented upon, whether by academics, politicians or those who comment in the media about cabbages and kings and whatever else not.

No one asked, for instance, how it could be that the Labour Force Survey showed that in 2005 there were an estimated 37,067 employees who declared that they received an income below Lm4,000, while this number dropped sharply to 30,656 in the following year. Why did that happen? And how come that the change between the same two years in the number of those in the next income bracket (Lm4,000 to Lm5,000) actually dropped by 238?

There might be a valid explanation, though I couldn't find it in a ripple effect within the successive income groups. My point is, why was there such little interest in it? And why not give it? Incidentally, the PM's reply to Ms Coleiro Preca was qualified by a warning regarding under-represented figures due to small sample size.

The density of the figures manfully given in such written parliamentary replies surely deters journalists from attempting some analysis. There should be no such deterrent to academics and students who are following courses of study in which economics and social policy play a part. In the 15 months since Prime Minister Gonzi replied to Dr Mangion there may have been some analytical exercises carried out. If so, I do not believe they have been made available to the public.

Nor has detailed comment come forth from within the political class itself, though politicians nowadays have expert teams to assist them, which is all to the benefit of better politics.

Whoever comments, or does not comment, I believe that the NSO should take up this issue itself. In recent years the office has progressed a great deal, though it remains a pity that it has lost the services of the excellent Dr Gordon Cordina. That loss is of greater consequence because, one should think, it tends to inhibit Gordon from analysing critically and publicly salient points from the stream of data the NSO puts out.

Such data are nowadays being taken as given, though at times there is a clear need for clarification, as in the case of the relationship between disposable income and consumption as portrayed in the release on income and living conditions, contrasted with the National Accounts.

But such grey areas aside, the NSO is a valid and valiant purveyor of statistics. It would add to its weight if it began publishing social statistics regularly, along with readable analysis. That would contribute to the development of greater awareness of how we love the absolute poor among us, and the relationship between the various income groups, irrespective of their accent, sartorial style and culinary preferences.

The poor will still be with us always. But we'd be able to assess a little bit better what is being done in their regard, relative to those who are more fortunate.

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