1st April 2024
Poor families with children suffer more than most
In Britain, one of the world’s richest countries, one in six children in 2023 lived in families deemed to be suffering food insecurity, in plain terms, they did not have enough to eat. One in 40 children lived in a family that had accessed a food bank in the previous thirty days.
Relative poverty is defined as households with incomes of less than 60% of the median. Almost one in three children live in relative poverty in Britain. Absolute poverty is defined as households with less than 60% of the median income in 2011. One in four children live in such households in Britain. This represents the fastest rise in child poverty in almost 30 years.
Figure published by UNICEF show that last year child poverty in Britian rose fastest between 2012 and 2021 out of 39 OECD and EU counties, many of which actually succeeded in reducing child poverty over the same period.
At the same time the Sunday Times Rich List for 2023 identified 171 billionaires in Britain, their wealth having grown by £31 billion. For the Tories and the British ruling class this is no doubt something to herald as a success. That ‘success’ however is built at the expense of working class families who suffer disproportionately under capitalism. Not only is their labour exploited in order to extract the surplus value which results in the obscenity of billionaires, the tax and benefit systems designed by successive governments plunge them further into poverty and debt.
Tory tax and benefit reforms between 2010 and 2019 saw the poorest 10% of households lose 10% of their income, the biggest impact being felt by children with families, losing £4,000 per year over the period, or 20% of their income.
While local government services are starved of resources, and Councils around the country face draconian cuts or bankruptcy, the rich continue to rake it in. In the recent budget Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, announced further tax cuts which will benefit middle and high income earners the most, taking the amount forecast to be spent on tax cuts over the next five years to £65 billion. This is hardly surprising coming from a man who has recently stated that a salary of £100,000 a year is not such a high income. Tell that to the families in poverty losing £4,000 a year!
While inflation may now be at 3.4%, which only means that prices are going up by slightly less than they were before, a wide range of basic services are set to see price rises this month. The increase in Council tax, forced upon local authorities by cuts from central government, will be 5% on average. Broadband and phone contracts, now essential for most people, are set to rise by an average 8% while car tax and TV licence fees are also set to rise. Dental charges, for those lucky enough to be registered with a dentist, are also set to go up.
In spite of the scandalous profits and management failings of the water companies, bills are set to go up, in order to cover their losses and lack of investment. Instead of spending on renewed infrastructure and modernising ageing systems, shareholders have leeched billions in dividends out of the water companies over the years, while ordinary consumers are left to pay the bill. Added to the scandalous rise in the cost of other utilities, while the energy giants continue to make eye watering profits, it is easy to see how working class families are struggling to survive.
This is the true face of capitalism, where the many suffer and pay, while the few get richer and make hay. Previous Labour governments have attempted to mitigate the worst excesses of capitalism by introducing social programmes, improving access to education and having a less punitive benefit regime, while not presenting any fundamental challenge to capitalism as a system.
An incoming Labour government, led by Kier Starmer, is not even likely to go this far. There will certainly be no challenge to capitalism, that is guaranteed, but there will be little by way of mitigation either. Shadow Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has made it clear that she will not help Councils facing bankruptcy, for example. The commitment to investment in green infrastructure to create jobs and boost the economy has been diluted to virtual insignificance. There is no commitment to take back control of the key utilities, to prevent profiteering in essential services and exploitative bill rises.
With a General Election looming, getting rid of the corrupt Tory government must always be a priority. More than ever, that goal needs to be allied to mass extra Parliamentary action to pressurise the Labour leadership into actively pursuing policies, which will not just bolster the position of Britain’s billionaires, but address the needs of those accessing food banks, struggling to feed their families and being forced in the winter months to choose between heating and eating. Anything less and a Labour victory will be nothing more than pyrrhic.
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