Friday links
Some links if you need some reading X
The government isn’t waging a war on poverty. It’s waging a war on the poor.
Perhaps, there was a time when governments declared war on poverty. After all, no economy can flourish whilst masses are in poverty and can’t buy the goods and services produced by businesses. Now, the British state has declared war on low and middle income families.
The squeeze on workers has reduced their share of the gross domestic product (GDP), in the form of wages and salaries, from 65.1% in 1976 to around 50% at the end of second quarter of 2023. Between1980 and 2014, real GDP growth averaged around 2.2% per year and the economy has grown sporadically since then. However, most people have seen little benefit of that growth.
One study estimates that “if wages had continued to grow as they were before the financial crash of 2008, real average weekly earnings would be around £11,000 per year higher than they currently are – a 37 per cent lost wages gap”. The real average earnings are unchanged since 2005.
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The war on the poor cannot provide economic or social stability. It has destroyed lives and inhibited social development. The institutions of government need to listen to saner voices, trade unions and non-governmental organisations to build a fair and just society through redistribution, higher public investment and by freeing themselves from the shackles of neoliberal economics.
Prem Sikka is an Emeritus Professor of Accounting at the University of Essex and the University of Sheffield, a Labour member of the House of Lords, and Contributing Editor at Left Foot Forward.