For the last 50+ years, Western governments have largely acted to funnel wealth from the poor to to the wealthy. Each economic crisis seerms to have ushered in a big jump in inequality. The OPEC oil crisis, 1987, recessions in the 1980s and 1990s, the dot-com bubble, the GFC and Covid.
Ultimately this is going to correct. My preference is that it corrects by governments enforcing a fairer distribution because otherwise it's going to end violently and we're rapidly approaching a point of no return where the wealthy hold so much power and there's nothing left to steal. Basic human necessities like food, water and shelter are being eroded.
You can look at a bunch of warnings like this. Food bank usage, claims for various forms of welfare (such that it is), homelessness (and housing insecurity more generally), levels of debt, etc.
Sadly, I personally believe we're beyond the point of no return where it comes to solving these problems with electoral politics. The world is going to sink deeper into fascism and for awhile "order" will be maintained with ever-increasing police states.
In the UK in particular, Labor has predictably completely failed to address affordability issues. Keir Starmer will likely be ousted in a leadership challenge and the likely winner of the next election is Reform.
All so a handful of people can have even more wealth they just don't need.
The title was edited for some reason, the actual one is:
"Budget 2025: how inflation and the two-child benefit cap has increased poverty"
And indeed this is an article against the 2-child benefit cap.
This is obviously full of warm feelings but ignores the tough question of the individual responsibility not to have more children than one can afford. The article interviews a family with 4 young children and apparently no money, for example...
Regarding poverty in general, I think the main issue in the UK is that there has been no economic growth since the financial crisis and GDP per capita is decreasing, i.e. people are getting poorer, which bites those on low/no income first and most.
People made the decision to have each child at least 9 months before the child was born. And in the subsequent years and 9 months anything could have happened, eg illness or losing a job. So even careful planners might be unlucky enough to need food banks?
The problem with that view is that it’s not the children’s fault, and the cap punishes them and messes with their life chances because of decisions made by someone else. If there are kids going hungry, that’s somewhere you usually want the government to step in and take the strain.
It’s a very difficult area to navigate, politically. While it’s entirely understandable that there’s public discomfort with the idea that a family could bring in more in benefits than the average national wage (like, why the hell am I bothering with working in a system like that?! Am I the sucker here?), you also have to take into account that kids are going to need a certain amount of support, just to stand a chance in life.
So how do you ‘punish’ the parents, or even just balance the feeling of what’s ’right’, while not punishing innocent parties?
I agree though - the underlying cause is that the UK is stagnating, the average national wage is really not good anyway. And that’s the driver of a lot of the problems we see with anti-migrant sentiment, with benefits restrictions, with all sorts of stuff. If the country was thriving it wouldn’t be so much of an issue.
That's a very morality based argument. In general, those types of arguments aren't great and don't really serve a purpose outside of letting the individual take the moral high ground for whatever reason.
I had to rely on food banks when my parents kicked me out at 16. I had to again my second year of marriage while I was still in graduate school and our car got hit, forcing us to use our food budget (and we did have a budget that we followed) for the family.
For the second time, I had kids, I had a good job, so did my wife, I was seeking higher education to advance in my career. But times were tight due to factors out of our control, and we needed help.
What is the point of having a civilization if we can't afford kids? Sure, if it was this or that couple, maybe it could be mere irresponsibility, but now the entire west (and plenty of non-western countries) is below replacement.
When I was 8 years old my father got ill. He lost his ability to work, lost his business, and eventually we lost our house and ended up in social housing. Then three years later, when I was 11 years old, my father died leaving my mother with 3 kids to raise and no income.
If the two child benefit cap was in place then, we would have been in food poverty in one of the richest nations on earth.
Not every situation is as mind numbingly simple as you paint it. Most people don’t have additional children in an attempt to game the system. That’s a moronic point of view.
This reads like either the author believes all the propaganda they read or they are willing participants in it.
> political willpower is not enough
That the economy is in terrible shape shouldn't get in the way of the rich getting richer. No one knows where all that money is coming from but people are also miraculously to poor to buy, build or rent a home. With all that nice scarcity in the market, whatever units are left make a lovely investment opportunity to put all that extra money into which again feeds into the scarcity. So much winning it's tiring!
It will only get worse whilst costs are not regulated of essentials such as housing, food, utilities, and public transport. The rich need to be taxed on all UK based assets and income no matter where you live and we need to restrict profit and pricing accordingly. We can't keep being held hostage by those who wish to increase their bank balance year on year. Now we have no incentive right now as those who are in government make far too much from the status quo. We need to remove this current governmental style by removing the option to have multiple jobs and remove the ability to be given cash or any benefits from private companies whilst working for the public. Capitalism is failing the vast majority and we need to realise that.
It's not capitalism, but corruption. Subsequent governments have been shovelling billions to tax avoiding multi national corporations without checks and balances. "Taxing the rich" is a distraction. Correct action is investigate corruption and cut spending. For instance NHS reliance on agencies - they pay agency for a nurse £2,500 a day, nurse gets £500 from agency if lucky, £2k goes offshore. That's how our money is sucked out of the economy. Multiple that by every local authority to government departments and you'll see billions are going to waste. But current government is too corrupt to do something about it.
Soon they'll claim we have best food banks in the world and support for working people... whilst corporations are laughing all the way to the bank.
Blaming capitalism for government failures while stating the solution is more and bigger government seems to be a misunderstanding of what the root cause is.
Oh, yeah. Regulating the food prices is the trick here. That went really well in the Soviet Union and Mao’s China... just to name a couple of examples.
It's funny that for some people, the answer of the enormous failings of Marxism is always "We need even more Marxism!"
We have oligarchic corporatism, not democratic capitalism, though I guess that is what is meant by the phrase ‘late stage capitalism’. The problem is that we already have regulatory capture, a more powerful regulatory system leaves us with fewer ways to escape the oligarchs control.
unfortunately a growing segment of people see food banks as a place where you can grab goodies for free, a-la 'you'd be stupid not to!'. i think they had a similar problem in Canada.
ultimately its a very politically difficult situation since you're entering the quagmire of what constitutes being poor. that's a discourse where political careers go never to return - easier to just throw your hands up in the air and just give everyone as much free food as they want.
ofcourse this then leads to the discussion of "wait... why don't we just do that anyway? arne't we a first world country?" but then you wind up with a whole enterprise of getting food for free (or steep discount) only to sell it to another community that doesn't have access to it and taking a profit. i think a similar problem (?) exists in the US, with SNAP food rations being (re?)-sold to latin americans.
jasoncartwright|3 months ago
https://www.givefood.org.uk/
https://www.givefood.org.uk/api/
graeme|3 months ago
https://worksinprogress.co/issue/why-britain-doesnt-build/
jmyeet|3 months ago
Ultimately this is going to correct. My preference is that it corrects by governments enforcing a fairer distribution because otherwise it's going to end violently and we're rapidly approaching a point of no return where the wealthy hold so much power and there's nothing left to steal. Basic human necessities like food, water and shelter are being eroded.
You can look at a bunch of warnings like this. Food bank usage, claims for various forms of welfare (such that it is), homelessness (and housing insecurity more generally), levels of debt, etc.
Sadly, I personally believe we're beyond the point of no return where it comes to solving these problems with electoral politics. The world is going to sink deeper into fascism and for awhile "order" will be maintained with ever-increasing police states.
In the UK in particular, Labor has predictably completely failed to address affordability issues. Keir Starmer will likely be ousted in a leadership challenge and the likely winner of the next election is Reform.
All so a handful of people can have even more wealth they just don't need.
ukrefugee|3 months ago
also self entitlement, reliance on the government is at the highest, individual autonomy is at the lowest ever
mytailorisrich|3 months ago
"Budget 2025: how inflation and the two-child benefit cap has increased poverty"
And indeed this is an article against the 2-child benefit cap.
This is obviously full of warm feelings but ignores the tough question of the individual responsibility not to have more children than one can afford. The article interviews a family with 4 young children and apparently no money, for example...
Regarding poverty in general, I think the main issue in the UK is that there has been no economic growth since the financial crisis and GDP per capita is decreasing, i.e. people are getting poorer, which bites those on low/no income first and most.
wood_spirit|3 months ago
Nursie|3 months ago
It’s a very difficult area to navigate, politically. While it’s entirely understandable that there’s public discomfort with the idea that a family could bring in more in benefits than the average national wage (like, why the hell am I bothering with working in a system like that?! Am I the sucker here?), you also have to take into account that kids are going to need a certain amount of support, just to stand a chance in life.
So how do you ‘punish’ the parents, or even just balance the feeling of what’s ’right’, while not punishing innocent parties?
I agree though - the underlying cause is that the UK is stagnating, the average national wage is really not good anyway. And that’s the driver of a lot of the problems we see with anti-migrant sentiment, with benefits restrictions, with all sorts of stuff. If the country was thriving it wouldn’t be so much of an issue.
Loughla|3 months ago
I had to rely on food banks when my parents kicked me out at 16. I had to again my second year of marriage while I was still in graduate school and our car got hit, forcing us to use our food budget (and we did have a budget that we followed) for the family.
For the second time, I had kids, I had a good job, so did my wife, I was seeking higher education to advance in my career. But times were tight due to factors out of our control, and we needed help.
What should we have done differently?
blfr|3 months ago
louthy|3 months ago
If the two child benefit cap was in place then, we would have been in food poverty in one of the richest nations on earth.
Not every situation is as mind numbingly simple as you paint it. Most people don’t have additional children in an attempt to game the system. That’s a moronic point of view.
GeoAtreides|3 months ago
quite the juicy implication there, chief
6510|3 months ago
> political willpower is not enough
That the economy is in terrible shape shouldn't get in the way of the rich getting richer. No one knows where all that money is coming from but people are also miraculously to poor to buy, build or rent a home. With all that nice scarcity in the market, whatever units are left make a lovely investment opportunity to put all that extra money into which again feeds into the scarcity. So much winning it's tiring!
ktallett|3 months ago
ukrefugee|3 months ago
If you still don't have enough, it's out of sheer incompetence and greed
unknown|3 months ago
[deleted]
varispeed|3 months ago
beeflet|3 months ago
Also, removing the option to have multiple jobs?
sixtyj|3 months ago
But as housing has been commoditized, it will be very tough fight to change it. Even people in governments can be land lords…
All other branches are commoditized as well and owned by big players who own markets.
newsclues|3 months ago
wtcactus|3 months ago
It's funny that for some people, the answer of the enormous failings of Marxism is always "We need even more Marxism!"
cjbgkagh|3 months ago
unknown|3 months ago
[deleted]
webdevver|3 months ago
ultimately its a very politically difficult situation since you're entering the quagmire of what constitutes being poor. that's a discourse where political careers go never to return - easier to just throw your hands up in the air and just give everyone as much free food as they want.
ofcourse this then leads to the discussion of "wait... why don't we just do that anyway? arne't we a first world country?" but then you wind up with a whole enterprise of getting food for free (or steep discount) only to sell it to another community that doesn't have access to it and taking a profit. i think a similar problem (?) exists in the US, with SNAP food rations being (re?)-sold to latin americans.