{"id":39514,"date":"2017-11-20T11:05:35","date_gmt":"2017-11-20T11:05:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=39514"},"modified":"2017-11-20T11:06:13","modified_gmt":"2017-11-20T11:06:13","slug":"the-chancellor-must-end-austerity-now-it-is-punishing-an-entire-generation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2017\/11\/20\/the-chancellor-must-end-austerity-now-it-is-punishing-an-entire-generation\/","title":{"rendered":"The chancellor must end austerity now \u00e2\u20ac\u201c it is punishing an entire generation"},"content":{"rendered":"

I co-signed this letter published in the Guardian<\/a> this morning:<\/em><\/p>\n

Seven years of austerity has destroyed lives. An estimated 30,000 excess deaths can be linked to cuts in NHS spending and the social care crisis in 2015 alone. The number of food parcels given to impoverished Britons has grown from tens of thousands in 2010 to over a million. Children are suffering from real-terms spending cuts in up to 88% of schools. The public sector pay cap has meant that millions of workers are struggling to make ends meet.<\/p>\n

Alongside the mounting human costs, austerity has hurt our economy. The UK has experienced its weakest recovery on record and suffers from poor levels of investment, leading to low productivity and falling wages. This government has missed every one of its own debt reduction targets because austerity simply doesn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n

The case for cuts has been grounded in ideology and untruths. We\u2019ve been told public debt is the outcome of overspending on public services rather than bailing out the banks. We\u2019ve been told that while the government can find money for the DUP, we cannot afford investment in public services and infrastructure. We\u2019ve been told that unless we \u201ctighten our belts\u201d we\u2019ll saddle future generations with debt \u2014 but it\u2019s the onslaught of cuts that is punishing an entire generation.<\/p>\n

Given the unprecedented economic uncertainty posed by Brexit negotiations and the private sector\u2019s failure to invest, we cannot risk exacerbating an already anaemic recovery with further public spending cuts. We\u2019ve reached a dangerous tipping point.\u00a0Austerity\u00a0has failed the British people and the British economy. We demand the chancellor ends austerity now.<\/p>\n

Joseph Stiglitz\u00a0<\/strong>Professor, Columbia University<\/em><\/p>\n

Ha-Joon Chang\u00a0<\/strong>Professor, University of Cambridge<\/em><\/p>\n

David Graeber\u00a0<\/strong>Professor of anthropology, LSE<\/em><\/p>\n

Ann Pettifor\u00a0<\/strong>Director, Prime Economics<\/em><\/p>\n

Danny Dorling\u00a0<\/strong>Professor, University of Oxford<\/em><\/p>\n

Saskia Sassen\u00a0<\/strong>Professor, Columbia University<\/em><\/p>\n

Sir Richard Jolly\u00a0<\/strong>Emeritus professor, Institute of Development Studies<\/em><\/p>\n

Mike Savage\u00a0<\/strong>Co-director of International Inequalities Institute, London School of Economics<\/em><\/p>\n

David Blanchflower\u00a0<\/strong>Professor of economics, Dartmouth College<\/em><\/p>\n

Richard Murphy\u00a0<\/strong>Director of Tax Research UK, City, University of London<\/em><\/p>\n

Kate Pickett\u00a0<\/strong>Professor of epidemiology, University of York<\/em><\/p>\n

Richard G Wilkinson\u00a0<\/strong>Emeritus professor of public health, University of Nottingham<\/em><\/p>\n

And many others<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I co-signed this letter published in the Guardian this morning: Seven years of austerity has destroyed lives. An estimated 30,000 excess deaths can be linked
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[127,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-budget","category-economics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39514\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}