Technology news, comment and analysis |...: Britons can't live without home internet

Technology news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk Latest news and features from guardian.co.uk, the world's leading liberal voice Britons can't live without home internet 6 Jul 2010, 12:01 am Domestic web connection joins holidays, mobile phones and fridge-freezer among necessities of modern life, Joseph Rowntree Foundation finds A computer and an internet connection at home are no longer viewed as luxuries but as essentials, according to research published today. The latest Minimum Income Standard report released by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the social research charity, gauges what members of the public think people need to achieve a "socially acceptable standard of living". Participants decided that a computer and internet access at home were now vital for all working-age households to enable people "to participate in society", both to access job opportunities and to get discounts on services. The Minimum Income Standard differs from the government's official poverty line (which is set at 60% of the median income) because it looks beyond money and focuses on what a household has to budget for. It is an attempt to determine what, aside from physical necessities such as food, warmth and shelter, people need to allow them to feel part of society. Participants confirmed that fridge-freezers, DVD players and mobile phones are "such an integral part of modern life that everyone should be able to afford them". Everyone should have enough money to allow them to buy birthday presents and to go on a week's holiday a year (not abroad), they said. A car, however, is not seen as essential: it was judged that a minimum budget should cover only public transport. The inclusion of a computer and internet connection echoes the government's drive to get more people online – a campaign motivated partly by the desire to streamline public services and partly by a drive to foster digital inclusion. The Race Online 2012 strategy calculates that 10 million people in the UK have never been online – four million are among the country's most socially excluded, it says. The Rowntree paper reveals that a single person needs to earn at least £14,400 before tax to afford a basic but acceptable standard of living. A couple with two children would need £29,200. Because the price of food, council tax and public transport have outstripped official inflation, families on a low income have seen their benefits dwindle. The report calculates a single person whose income had risen by only the official inflation rate would have experienced a 10% fall in his or her standard of living over the past decade. "Without action to combat these effects, social and economic exclusion are likely to rise," the report concludes. According to Rowntree's calculations, basic out-of-work benefits provide less than half the minimum income for an adult with no children and about two-thirds for families with children. Those in work need to be earning £7.38 an hour – well above the national minimum wage (£5.80) to achieve this minimum standard. Internet Work & careers Social trends Computing Amelia Gentleman guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds A-home-computer-linked-to-001.jpg (image/jpeg) You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed.