The latest report of the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission is implicitly damning of the government's economic policy. It says:
With the latest statistics showing that 2.3 million children — more than one child in six — were in relative income poverty and that absolute poverty increased by 275,000 during 2011/12, there is clearly a long way to go if the Government's aspiration to eradicate child poverty is to become a reality. Independent experts predict that child poverty is set to increase significantly over the next few years against both the absolute and the relative measures.
Matters got worse in 2011/12 precisely because of government policy. There is no other explanation when growth was happening until May 2010. The fact that child poverty is set to get worse is the result of the same deliberate policy of imposing austerity on the poorest in our communities whilst delivering increased prosperity for the richest.
If a government sets out to increase inequality that it is relatively easy to deliver its objective. Increasing the rates of regressive taxes like VAT and cutting the top rates of progressive taxes like income tax is a first, short, step to success.
Then you cut the social security payments on which those in greatest need are dependent, as this government has.
You also fail to increase the minimum wage to ensure that people have the most basic level sufficient to live on.
And you go out of your way to ensure that there is significant mass unemployment that guarantees weaker bargaining power for labour in the marketplace so that there is little or no prospect of real wage increases.
Just to make sure that all this happens, you put in place a programme of outsourcing of your own staff to contracting companies known to reduce pay, and sack large numbers of your employees who could otherwise be gainfully employed.
The crisis of child poverty in this country is not something that has happened by accident: it is something that has happened by deliberate design.
That fact needs to be talked about, often.
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I was under the impression that the government cant increase the minimum wage. Instead its set by the Low Pay Commission. So I don’t understand your comment.
If you honestly think that the government’s wishes do not count on this matter then I am a little surprised
Of course fig leaves are used, but the world if both a little more complex, and a little less subtle than that on occassion
Unemployment is falling. However the worst time for the unemployed was in 2008 to 2010, when Labour where in power. DO you have different figures??
It is debatable if unemployment is falling – but I agree, recorded unemployment is declining
Did you not notice a global economic crisis from 2008 to 2010?
Was that all Labour’s fault? Or could there have been other contributing factors?
The question is about the recovery: Labour did start a recovery. Since then it has been very largely wiped out
So unemployment under Tory governments is always deliberate, but unemployment under Labour governments is just bad luck?
Remember, every Labour government in history has ended with unemployment higher at the end of its term of office than at the start. Why is that? Is that also down to “bad luck”?
Labour may or may not have started a recovery, but if they did it was a dead cat bounce, having presided over such a catastrophic decline that eventually growth was bound to pick up for a couple of quarters.
Do you always ignore oil and bank crises when coming to conclusions?
If so, expect to be treated with contempt
Chris-ever heard of NAIRU? Unemployment is clearly deliberate when Governments include in their economic ideology.
Unemployment appears to be being replaced with disguised unemployment. Anecdotal evidence from many sides suggests many of the so-called newly self-employed are really unemployed pretending to work so they can claim working tax credits which come hassle-free instead of Jobseekers Allowance which comes, if at all, with punitive caveats attached. This possibly explains why Duncan-Smith’s not been dismissed as these figures conveniently mean Cameron can stand in the Commons and claim lots of new jobs are being created when in fact the opposite is true.
“Unemployment appears to be being replaced with disguised unemployment. ”
I agree
Indeed-most ‘recoveries’ in recent years have been ‘jobless recoveries’ (see John Quiggin’s ‘Zombie Economics’). The recent ‘drop’ in unemployment has followed a long period of the unprecedented harassment of benefit claimants involving over 900,000 sanctions that have turned peoples’ lives upside down. Many have been ‘forced’ into so-called self-employment whilst earning next to nothing, others are on zero-hour contracts and others have just given up in despair and gone into hiding-if that’s a recovery then I’m a tea-pot!
I am a case in point.
Unemployment is falling due to the massaging of the figures: ZHCs / Sanctions / Workfare Slavery etc. They are as reliable as the Inflation Figures.
And underemployment is rising. Zero hours contracts, part-time, short-time..
too true richard . just found you blog after reading your book so looking forward to reading more !
A few interesting blog entries here, which seem relevant:
http://flipchartfairytales.wordpress.com/2014/06/09/did-the-downturn-start-before-the-crash/
http://freethinkecon.wordpress.com/2014/06/09/when-did-the-great-recession-start/
The absolute truth is that as well as jobs being siphoned off like candy abroad, hi-tech is causing an ongoing and progressively declining loss of jobs especially middle-tier jobs at a very alarming and ever-increasing rate. Hence the disguising and manipulating of the actual unemployment figures. It started with anyone with a partner earning over £15,000 not being eligible for JSA, and now very conveniently for the Government, hundreds of thousands of sanctions reduce the apparent unemployment figures. Yes, many sanctions get appealed successfully as well as the very many that still apply, but overall figures apply include those in the process of being appealed. Never mind the hardship to those sanctioned, if it makes this sham of a government seem to be doing better.
Anecdotally my partner is going self-employed due to mental health issues. He’s too erratic for 9-5 but well enough not to sit on ESA (which is hell to claim when you have schizophrenia anyway along with the stigma).
His business won’t make regular money, at least to start with, but being self-employed offers us a chance at feeling like we aren’t a complete burden.
To me, it was a conscious decision on the part of the government to pursue a squeeze on those on disability. The statistics of fraud on these benefits seem to be small, it must have cost them more to pursue the policy than it’s saved them in payments. So, yes, politically motivated.
The unemployment figures are most definitely suspect.
Good luck to your partner
And yes, the stats are fiddled
I suspect the government are picking on the weak like the disabled and children as at heart they’re not any kind of elite but predators instead. This is exactly how predators behave in the wild, and, it seems, in what we call civilisation too. This is one reason I upset Richard every now and then by suggesting our only real weapon is mass violence, this of the kind which saw the Magna Carta signed, ended dawn till dusk working hours and saw off the poll tax. What do the lions fear, what’s the one thing that drives them off? The wrath of the herd. Remember how Cameron was so shaken by the riots! Mind you, there may be an alternative, read the ‘Liquid Democracy’ passage here http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10881213/The-coming-digital-anarchy.html Perhaps I’m right in suggestng an alternative form of government will be along soon 🙂
Poverty – a method by which the Government can subjugate and terrorise sections of society who do not have the resources to protect themselves from discrimination and victimisation. The way in which the country is governed has been abused by the top 8% of wealthy who own over 40% of the countries wealth. Democracy is being sacrificed at the cost of capitalism. The way in which the county is governed has been abused. To stop this disgusting travesty we must change or remove first past the post system.