http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 21 Dec 2010 IP address: 130.216.224.153 Social Policy & Society 7:4, 495–505 Printed in the United Kingdom C  2008 Cambridge University Press doi:10.1017/S1474746408004454 From Being to Becoming: The Importance of Tackling Youth Poverty in Transitions To Adulthood Alan France Centre for Research in Social Policy, Loughborough University E-mail: A.P.France@lboro.ac.uk The central emphasis of New Labour’s anti-poverty strategy has been on tackling child poverty. While such an approach is both important and valuable youth poverty has been given limited attention. Low and unstable incomes are a major cause of poverty amongst young people and risks are greatly increased as they try to live independently and move out of the family home. In the discussion that follows, I argue that New Labour’s continued commitment to the social exclusion agenda has marginalised both the problem of youth poverty and the necessary solutions. Social exclusion policy is more concerned with responsiblising families and young people and disciplining them to work regardless of its value. Little attention is given to addressing the problems of youth incomes or providing adequate housing support for those most vulnerable to poverty. Introduction Since the late 1990s tackling child poverty has been at the heart of New Labour’s policy agenda, yet this debate has focused on children aged between nought and 15 (HM Treasury, 1998). It is argued that tackling the poverty amongst 16–18-year olds is being addressed in policy aimed at the development of skills and employment opportunities for 14–19-year olds (Department for Education and Skills, 2004). Yet such an approach does not recognise that youth goes beyond the age of 19 and the problems of poverty, if not addressed, remain. For example, recent evidence shows that the youth phase of the life course is being extended beyond 18 into the early 20s (France, 2007) and that the age of leaving home has been extended creating major difficulties for large groups of young people to become independent citizens (Bynner et al., 2002). But not only is the problem with the narrow age focus of poverty policy but also with how it defines the concept of poverty. Since 1998 the central feature of youth policy has been ‘tackling social exclusion’. This has a fundamental weakness in that it fails to recognise the importance of poverty for how young people make the transition into adulthood. In the discussion that follows, I will show how this policy framework operates, and how it fails to tackle the problems of youth poverty. While this approach claims to aid the inclusion of the young, it can and does undermine not only the routes out of poverty but also vulnerable young people’s transitions into adulthood. This then also increases the risk of poverty for certain groups of young people. Youth, poverty and transitions The United Nations has noted that having a basic sustainable income is essential if individuals are to have access to resources needed to participate in mainstream society 495