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
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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
So the poor will always be with us, and we are talking about policies that increase or decrease poverty, not eradicating it entirely. Another angle on the same problem is inequality. And ultimately maintaining conditions that support wellbeing of the many, not the few.
By these metrics, the UK is doing badly, and worse than it has in the past.
If we do not aim to eradicate poverty, we fail.
What is wrong with trying when it is possible, and it is pleonexia that is preventing it?
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.