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Times are Tight.
Other | Thursday 17th October 2013 | Alex
How many times as a child were you ever told to get a job when asking for an advance on that pocket money of yours? Well, expect to hear that a lot more often now. The BBC has a story running this morning after findings by the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission which found that working, actually, may not be a route out of poverty, and Alan Milburn, ex-Labour minister, is leading the rallying calls.
Good Morning, Britain, here’s a really depressing story to start your day off right.
Obviously, this is a fairly damning read and it doesn’t get much better as you wade through the political jargon coupled with miserable statistics. Allow me to break it down.
Social mobility tsar: ministers not doing enough to tackle inequality and poverty http://t.co/ZX8yyT0sba
— Society Guardian (@SocietyGuardian) October 17, 2013
The report outlines a number of fairly horrifying facts about the working and middle classes in the UK today. For example: we now have an estimated 5 million people earning less than £7.45p/h, which is considered to be the living wage outside of the M25, solid evidence that wages have stagnated in the last 10 years, and that, if employers want to help their employees in this situation they’ll have to pay a higher minimum wage. This will shortly be followed by Arsene Wenger having seen whatever it was, Gordon Brown revealing that he does, in fact, have the horns of the Devil atop his grey barnet, and Kanye West admitting that his leather jogging pants chafe terribly…
If we compare this with Channel 4 broadcast TUC’s “Britain’s Livelihood Report”, broadcast in June, 2011, that outlined just how much of a difference there had been in a raise in wages in the last 30 years, the picture gets ever bleaker. For instance, in this report, it stated that Bakers’ pay had decreased by 1% and that Forklift drivers’ wages had gone down by 5% in the three decades whereas those in legal professions, ie. Lawyers, Judges, etc., had seen a raise of 114%. Not bad work if you can get it, eh?
So what does all this nonsense point towards? Well, it would seem that while the middle and working classes are seeing their wages treading water, or in a state of retrograde, the highest earners are earning even more while the number of people earning less than £11.09 (the median living wage) has doubled since 1977. Furthermore, we’ve seen that British Gas is, yet again, increasing their prices by 10.4% for electricity and 8.4% for gas since 23rd of November, 2012. Seems like those of us on the lowest wage are going to be paying the highest portion of our income so as to have a hot shower or keep the lights on.
It’s not the most pretty of pictures overall, is it? Just last week, the government were patting themselves on the backs after discovering that unemployment fell to 2.49 million in the UK in the June/August period this year. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that more people are finding work, but if this work isn’t paying enough and you’re more than likely to be financially dependent on your parents for a longer period of time then something’s rotten in the system.
Hopefully, one day, we’ll see a more equal distribution of this nation’s GDP not just going to the top 10% of earners. This sounds like a “We Are the 99%” rant but, when the facts are laid bare it’s tricky to get around.
Alex Taylor.
