Bermuda needs a national plan to help increasing numbers of people below the poverty line, according to campaigner Sheelagh Cooper.Four years ago, the Low Income Threshold for Bermuda Households in Need study found 11 percent of families fell below the poverty line of $76,000 per year for a family of four.Mrs Cooper, executive director of the Coalition for the Protection of Children, believes price increases since then, coupled with job losses and dwindling wages, make for an even worse picture today.“The Coalition has been raising awareness for many years regarding the increasing cost of living that is outpacing many Bermudian’s income,” she told The Royal Gazette.This newspaper’s The Cost of Living series has shown how electricity bills have gone up 70 percent in eight years, and the price of staple foods have increased by more than 50 percent in a decade.Mrs Cooper said: “But where have wages gone? Certainly not up anywhere near that amount. Never mind the job losses.”A Mindmaps poll found one in ten registered voters lost their jobs in 2010, a trend Mrs Cooper says has continued in 2011 and 2012.“The evidence we have seen at the Coalition is that it is constantly becoming more and more difficult to make ends meet for our clients, especially now with the economy being the way that it is,” she said.“This is because while wages at the bottom quartile of the income scale have changed very little in the last ten years, if one adjusts for inflation the wages have actually gone down significantly.”She said some unskilled and semi-skilled employees make as little as $8 or $10 per hour, a wage which until the mid 1990s was enough to support a very basic subsistence.“In 2012, however, a wage like that if you have a family to support is well below the poverty line,” she said.“Compounding this situation are the rising costs of fixed deductions like HIP and social insurance which can be up to 50 percent of wages for those at the low income end.“But this is not really new information for Bermuda as of 2012. Generally, people now seem to know the cost of living is increasing, they know the employment situation, they see/hear/read about the violence.“It is not a matter of people not knowing or believing, as it perhaps was a few years ago. Poverty is becoming increasingly accepted and acknowledged.“So now, it is really about what we are going to do about it. The Coalition believes Bermuda needs a national plan to address poverty.”Mrs Cooper said all developing countries are required to have a poverty reduction strategy plan in order to receive aid and humanitarian assistance.Such plans set out how the country will promote growth and reduce poverty through specific economic, social and structural policies over a period of three years or longer.They encourage the population to help create policies, implement programmes and allocate resources to the areas they’re needed the most.“The intent is to culminate a degree of national consensus, thereby creating a poverty reduction strategy that is more representative of stakeholder’s interests,” said Mrs Cooper.“Bermuda should consider creating such a strategy that would take a holistic view to the problem and its root causes and map a plan for how Government, the private sector, the charitable sector and those most affected by poverty can work together.“Government needs to spearhead the process but should involve all stakeholders in the creation of the plan. Bermuda’s poverty is relative, but it is a significant and growing problem. We need to have a plan to tackle this that takes global trends and costs into consideration.”She said the plan would give consideration to minimum wage guidelines and establish more affordable housing, putting more emphasis on training and education at all levels.