in general the literature suggests that a significant reduction in poverty rates is a consequence of economic growth combined with policies to reduce income inequality the joint result of these two effects is that poverty reduction feeds through directly into improvements in the average income of the poorest according to this author the reduction that occurred in the early years of the decade was a consequence of several factors that had differing regional impacts including distributive changes in labour yield and the expansion of welfare benefits the proportion of poor people p fell from in to in a figure that while still high represents a reduction of percentage points