The Isle of Man has no single official definition of poverty, the Minister for the Cabinet Office has confirmed.
Responding to a question from Onchan MHK Julie Edge, David Ashford stated there is “no single working definition of poverty, either on the Isle of Man or the UK and no single definitive way of measuring poverty”.
He outlined different approaches, including relative poverty, measured as a percentage of median income and metrics based on minimum income standards or deprivation.
One common UK method, which Statistics Isle of Man has now produced for the island, identifies households in poverty if their income is below 60% of the median after housing costs.
Ashford also noted a recommendation from a Select Committee that the Island adopt the Social Metrics Commission’s metric, which accounts for inescapable costs like housing and childcare.
“Statistics Isle of Man are currently working to use data from the Household Income and Expenditure Survey to produce a similar metric for the Isle of Man,” he said, though he cautioned that “limitations imposed by the smaller volume of data available on the Isle of Man prevent a full implementation of this”.
Source: Manx News, 26 November 2025
