We've all heard it, whether from the media or friends; the benefit-scrounging narrative is a cliche. From young mums on the make to the disabled layabouts, the labels are harsh and anecdotal. This pains me, as a NatCen researcher – I don't see any evidence of such a group in the report we at have released today, Poverty in Perspective.

Sadly though, the narrative of undeserving benefit scroungers has been cemented in the public mind. Three-quarters of us think that parents with an addiction (ie drugs or alcohol) are a key cause of child poverty today. About two-thirds think child poverty is a result of parents unwilling to work. But these views simply don't reflect the statistical reality.

Our work with the thinktank Demos gives an accurate and detailed account of Britain's lived experienced of poverty by breaking down the low-income population into groups. From a 2010 dataset, we distilled five groups affected by child poverty: the grafters, vulnerable mothers, full house families, pressured parents and managing mothers.

Together these low-income groups made up about 30% of the UK population – hardly a hidden underclass, with the largest group being the grafters. As the name suggest, this group is a far cry from the stereotype. Some of them are the long-term working poor, while others are self-employed or have recently been made redundant. They own homes, have qualifications and are unlikely to be single parents. They don't conjure up an image of broken Britain, but they certainly are poor.

When you start to measure poverty in a holistic way – as we did – factoring in all the variables, it is very difficult find a group that deserves to be poor, and doesn't deserve help.

Take the vulnerable mother group, perhaps most comparable to the "mums on the make": typically single parents under 24 with young children who represent about 5% of the population as a whole. When you take into account that they are likely to be physically or mentally unwell and have the lowest skills of all the groups affected by child poverty, it is difficult to attach blame. And, importantly, they have aspirations beyond claiming benefits; they want to save money, but cannot afford to.

Or perhaps it's the full house families who are fleecing the taxpayers? Large households with multiple adults and young children, whose biggest problem is overcrowding. Again, on closer inspection, it seems unlikely. This group doesn't fall behind on bills, nor do they have mental health or money problems to the same extent as other groups.

What about the pressured parents group? Low-skilled and low rates of employment could suggest a bunch of scroungers looking to spend more time on the sofa. But they are also more likely to have a disabled child to care for or a child with a health condition, or to experience physical or mental health problems themselves.

And then there are the managing mothers. Qualification rates are good and they tend to think that they're getting by. Although half are out of work, most see unemployment as a temporary problem and have a strong work ethic.

With the government consultation on child poverty taking place, and the search for a new measure of poverty under way, it has never been more important to base our debate on evidence. The idea of the benefit scrounger clearly sticks in the collective British mind, but most of us still think that the government should be responsible for us when we fall on hard times.

Today's report sheds light on these hard times, describing and eliciting the challenges faced by those on low incomes. There are "types" of poverty and we can quantify and measure deprivation, but we cannot separate one group from another as being deserving or undeserving of benefits. Most importantly, these fact-based typologies offer little evidence of a scrounging section of the population.