This is the chart of the latest United Nations Human Development Indicator:
The UK is ranked in the top 20, with this data:
Things are pretty crowded at the top.
The data is based on these variables:
Distribution is not considered, critically.
My point in posting this, however, is simple. If you are at the top of the pile, there is no excuse for poverty in your country. The resources to prevent it, by definition, exist. In that case, if it is prevalent, as it is in the UK, it is by choice, and not by accident or chance. And in that case, we could eliminate it.
Taking further action
If you want to write a letter to your MP on the issues raised in this blog post, there is a ChatGPT prompt to assist you in doing so, with full instructions, here.
One word of warning, though: please ensure you have the correct MP. ChatGPT can get it wrong.
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Plainly there are some comparable countries that have more poverty than the UK and some with less. Where the UK sits – somewhere between (to pick two examples) Norway and the USA – is a policy choice, or at least the result of policy choices.
But are there any countries where there is no poverty?
No
I agree: there is no excuse for poverty in the UK. Poverty is a political choice which is inexcusable and morally repugnant.
Interestingly there is a version of HDI adjusted for inequality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_inequality-adjusted_Human_Development_Index.
I was surprised that the UK didn’t do a lot worse on this index.
The volume of rough sleeping, street begging, food bank use in the UK is incompatible with a civilised society.