Before anyone gets too excited about today's employment news note this from the Resolution Foundation:
Real wages are growing because inflation has fallen.
But the truth is they are back to 2004/5 levels.
And note what happened from 2010 to 2014.
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Average wages hide the stagnant pay at the bottom end due to very high increases for the high end so a better measure would be median wages.
“And note what happened from 2010 to 2014”
They fell, mostly due to high inflation of which a large part was Oil price increases………….and yet when the fall in price brings low inflation you claim this is an excuse.
I have seen this hypocrisy many times today from left of centre commentators, that when real wages fall it is the coalition’s fault…..but when they rise it is no thanks to the coalition but just inflation drops by oil price!
You can’t have it both ways…..
No serious observer on earth would agree with you
There were no pay rises
There were pay cuts
There were pay freezes
And that despite known inflation
But in your callousness you ignore that
I am sure there were………and had real effects on people………but the chart above is for real wages and by far the biggest effect on the drop was higher inflation……to pretend otherwise is a lie.
And I know you like a bit of neo liberal bashing but how is pointing out the hypocrisy in inflation changes a sign of “callousness”?
Or is just challenging you a sign of moral failure now?…..
You are wrong
The drop in wages because wage freezes were imposed despite inflation knowing this would make people worse off
That’s not a lie: that’s fact
The moral failure is yours for supporting that deliberate destruction of well being
I’m sorry but what ill-informed nonsense from Richard no-name above.
Using your logic I must have been living in a bad dream for the last 5 years.
All those public sector colleagues I saw lose their jobs must have been a figment of my fertile imagination!!
The reorganisation and deletion of my post, my pay freeze plus £2000 pa I lost from my wage packet and the Working Families Tax Credit scheme I was chucked out of by the ConDemns must have been an illusion!
And – no – none of my friends and colleagues in other areas of the country have lost up to £8K per year or lost their jobs or have been worried sick (like me) that they cannot support their families.
All that – AND inflation Richard no-name. Your complete failure or even wilfulness in not seeing how these two austerity induced factors might affect people is a ‘moral failure’ of your own my friend along with all those who think like you.
Richard,
Apologies for posting this here (I’ve posted it already under the relevant post on Class Warfare), but feel it appropriate here, as it more than adequately exposes the nonsense of the iniquitous balloting rules that the Tories plan to bring in – arrangements which would effectively neutralize – castrate, would be a better term – the ONLY organizations that can fight for better pay and conditions for working people.
http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/tory-trade-union-turnout-boris.html
Further thought on above: please read through to the end of the excellent piece from “Another Angry Voice” that I’ve posted above, at it clearly demonstrates how the proposed balloting system makes a NON-vote even more powerful than a NO or even a YES vote. A Machiavellian piece of gerrymandering.
What we need is a little more of this:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/gravity-payments-ceo-dan-price-of-seattle-cuts-his-salary-to-boost-company-s-minimum-wage-to-70k-1.3035051
Can’t see this behaviour going viral anytime soon!
Richard
As it has become increasingly clear that Milliband has done much better than expected in the debates, so the Tory press has sought (aided by Robert Peston at BBC) to trumpet our “economic recovery”,
This seems to be based almost entirely on falling unemployment rates. It certainly isn’t based on the GDP which is going no place up.
So, this seems a good point to address what Peston himself has described, in another blog, as the great conundrum. Why is all this employment not increasing GDP? Why are we so much less productive than, e.g., the French?
1 Since 2010 Ian DS has made a policy decision to force people off JSA. They are told in Job Centres that their JSA will be cut, whereas, if they “work 30 hours a week” they can top up their wages with in-work benefits. The obvious answer is to pretend to be busy mowing lawns (that aren’t there), cleaning rooms (the more the merrier), washing windows (likewise).
Did you know in Birmingham alone there are hundreds of ladies claiming to clean the same hotel? I mean, how clean do you need? Howard Hughes or Michael Jackson could’ve stayed there unconcerned.
2 If you do away with one regular office-holder & replace him/her with 3 or 4 people on zero-hours contracts that will, perforce, reduce unemployment.
I don’t hear anyone in the Labour party talking about this. Not sure why.
IF the Tories win this election they will clamp down hard on “benefits fraud” around people claiming to be in, but not really in, work. By then it will be too late to point out that they turned a blind eye to that fraud to win an election.
Eriugenus -the same ‘fraud’ is going on in America where (according to Richard Wolf) only about a quarter of those unemployed are registered as such due to different regulations in different states.
In this country, the Tories have contrived it differently:
1) By creating an environment of near persecution in the job centres (known as ‘sanction centres’ by many)-remember the Easter egg bonuses?:-
“Jobcentre staff have since contacted the Guardian to say that it is widespread practice for managers to set targets for removing benefits, sometimes under the guise of benchmarks or expectations for the number of sanctions levied. A separate investigation suggests there is evidence from jobcentres around the UK that pressure is being applied on staff to remove more people’s benefits.
It was also reported that staff in a jobcentre in the West Midlands were this week told that the team who submitted the most Stricter Benefit Regime “Refusal of Employment” referrals would be rewarded with Easter eggs. The staff were told there was drive on this particular type of sanction.”(Guardian)
2) The Atos scandal where people MANIFESTLY incapable of regular work were deemed fit. Remember the disable man in Bolton?:-
“A GRIEVING widow was told the appeal against the loss of her husband’s incapacity benefit was successful – four months after his death.
Graham Shawcross, of Coleridge Avenue, Radcliffe, died of a heart attack on February 17 aged 63.
Yvonne, his wife of 23 years, claims the stress of losing more than £400 a month in benefits and launching an appeal against the decision caused his death.” (The Bolton News 4th July 2014)
3) People were hounded into self employment and now almost 80% are living in poverty as Richard has pointed out:
”
Nearly 80% of self-employed people in the UK are living in poverty, according to recently updated government statistics from the 2012-2013 tax year.
The HM Revenue and Customs data, which was updated on 30th January, assessed the earnings of approximately five million self-employed people between 2012 and 2013, including income from other sources such as full-time employment and pensions.
However, even when these other earnings are taken into consideration, 77% of self-employed people live in poverty, according to analysis by Richard Murphy of Tax Research UK.” (Newsweek)
4)Zero hour contracts:”Nearly 700,000 people are on zero-hours contracts in their main job – a rise of more than 100,000 on a year ago – according to new official figures.
The rise is likely to trigger renewed debate over the widespread use of contracts that offer no guarantee of hours and only those benefits guaranteed by law, such as holiday pay.
Analysis In Britain’s labour market ‘flexibility’ means letting employers off the hook
The idea that zero-hours contracts somehow benefit staff is undermined by the fact so many people on them wish they weren’t
Read more
The Office for National Statistics said the number of people estimated to be employed on a zero-hours contract in their main job was 697,000, representing 2.3% of all people in employment. In the same period in 2013, the figure was 1.9% of all people in employment, or 586,000.”
Apparently Duncan Smith wants to rename these contracts:’flexible hours contracts’ because it allows you a better ‘work-life balance’!!!!!%$£.
5) Food banks use reaches 1 Million (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/one-million-britons-using-food-banks-according-to-trussell-trust-10186142.html)
6) Those IN work still needing Housing Benefit:
“The number of working people relying on housing benefit to boost their income has doubled in five years, at a cost of billions of pounds to the taxpayer, a new analysis has disclosed.”
How on earth could the IMF and German spokesperson refer to this as a jobs miracle -did they pay them as handsomely as Labour payed Axelrod?
I have just noted that the praise for the Coalition’s jobs achievement comes from Lagarde and Scheuble-I think that speaks for itself-you don’t get more neo-lib that that.
When Greece paid back some of their debt recently, Lagarde flippantly intoned @I’ve got my money back’ as if the human catastrophe behind all this was of no note.
As for Scheuble….I don’t want to use terminology that would oblige Richard to delete me!
I think we get the message
Richard
Still it comes back to this problem. IF Osborne’s “economic miracle” is a dud, & all evidence suggests it is. Why aren’t Labour talking about this ?
It baffles me.
Me too
My explanation to my self is:
1)Cringing fear of the vox populi
2) They’ve been subconsciously suckered by the dominanat narrative
3) They haven’t been suckered completely but have accepted that financialised capitalism rules the world (and has ousted democracy) and the best they can do is tinker with the outermost fringes.
4) They are truly ignorant of alternative understandings of modern money.
5) They are not ignorant but electability and careers come first.
6) Craven cowardice of the worst sort.