In their book chapter, published in Reducing Inequalities by Palgrave, Orsolya Lelkes and Katrin Gasior highlight the methodological and normative assumptions beyond the ‘lead’ indicator of poverty and show the actual empirical implications of these. What is the significance of the specific poverty threshold chosen? What does it imply for cross-country comparison? They discuss the issue of poverty monitoring over time and make a case for the use of the poverty rate with a threshold ‘anchored in time’, and demonstrate the significance of this choice with country-specific evidence. The chapter concludes with data on the situation of migrants, indicating that social disparities within a particular country are of specific relevance in the use of this indicator. The analysis is based on EU-SILC data from the years 2005–2014.
