Captain Haddock wrote:Please take this up with statisticians at the ONS.
Oh Captain, my Captain, as well you know the ONS spreadsheet lists a gargantuan array of statistical categories and, therefore, a plethora of figures relating to each subsection - which of these are you citing?
The effects of tax and benefits data is indeed from the Office for National Statistics’s (ONS’s) Living Costs and Food Survey (LCF),
a voluntary sample survey of around 5,000 private households in the UK. Furthermore, as with all survey-based sources, the data is subject to some limitations. The LCF is known to suffer from under-reporting at the top and bottom of the income distribution as well as non-response error. I think you'd have to agree (especially as that is the verbatim caveat direct from their "extensive" [my quotes] data study).
If you don't agree with me, I suggest you read section three entitled:
Things you need to know about this release.
Let's not be economical with the truth.