Cost of Living crisis

30 million in UK ‘priced out of decent standard of living by 2024’

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Image of cash and pre-payment meter key
Image of cash and pre-payment meter key

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/dec/12/30-million-in-uk-priced-out-of-decent-standard-of-living-by-2024

Thirty million people in the UK will be unable to afford what the public considers to be a decent standard of living by the time the current parliament ends in 2024, according to a study.

The New Economics Foundation, a left-leaning thinktank, said rising prices, below-inflation increases in earnings and projected increases in unemployment would result in 43% of households lacking the resources to put food on the table, buy new clothes or treat themselves and their families – a 12 percentage point rise compared with 2019.

The NEF said its calculation that by 2024 almost 90% of single parents and 50% of workers with children would fall below a minimum income standard showed the need for a radical overhaul of the welfare system.

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Continue Reading30 million in UK ‘priced out of decent standard of living by 2024’

Jeremy Corbyn clearly illustrates why nurses’ pay demand is affordable

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Image of Jeremy Corbyn MP, former leader of the Labour Party
Jeremy Corbyn MP, former leader of the Labour Party

https://leftfootforward.org/2022/12/jeremy-corbyn-clearly-illustrates-why-nurses-pay-demand-is-affordable/

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The prime minister Rishi Sunak has argued the RCN’s inflation-busting pay claim is “unaffordable”.

However, the former leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn has summed up why this is palpably untrue. He tweeted, “The cost of meeting nurses’ demand for an inflation-busting pay rise: £1.6 billion. The cost of Rishi Sunak’s bank tax giveaways: £7.3 billion. If we can afford handouts for the rich, we can afford to meet the basic needs of those who keep this country afloat.”

While the government is content to give tax breaks and handouts to the mega-rich, they’re leaving the people who keep the NHS running to chose between heating and eating.

Continue ReadingJeremy Corbyn clearly illustrates why nurses’ pay demand is affordable

Millions of pensioners face ‘winter from hell’ as temperatures drop below freezing

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/millions-older-people-face-winter-hell-temperatures-drop-below-freezing

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Age UK says research has revealed that more than 10 million older people have already cut back on heating in their homes for fear of soaring bills.

Energy prices in the UK last month became the highest in the world.

Caroline Abrahams, Age UK’s charity director, said: “We know that rising energy prices will put nearly a third of older households in fuel poverty this winter, meaning older people in approaching three million homes will be worrying about how to keep warm as temperatures plummet this week.

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Continue ReadingMillions of pensioners face ‘winter from hell’ as temperatures drop below freezing

Pre-payment meters are forcing people to live in cold and damp homes, research reveals

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Image of cash and pre-payment meter key
Image of cash and pre-payment meter key

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/pre-payment-meters-are-forcing-people-live-cold-damp-homes-research-reveals

PRE-PAYMENT meters are forcing people to live in cold and damp homes, more than half of whom have poor health or disabilities, research by campaigners revealed today.

Some 64 per cent of customers on pre-payment meters are vulnerable, even before the predicted cold snap kicks in and increases energy bills, with 51 per cent having health conditions or disabilities, according to the figures collected by YouGov for the Warm This Winter campaign.

More than 10 per cent of customers on those meters have effectively self-disconnected by massively reducing their energy use.

More than 30 per cent of such customers now live in cold damp homes, more than the national average of 19 per cent.

Among the people on pre-payment meters and classified as vulnerable, 14 per cent are disconnecting and 36 per cent now living in a cold, damp home.

Publication of the research coincides with recent reports revealing that energy firms have secured almost 500,000 court warrants to instal pre-payment meters in the homes of customers in debt since the end of the coronavirus lockdown.

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Continue ReadingPre-payment meters are forcing people to live in cold and damp homes, research reveals

Hundreds of renters protest outside letting agents across London calling on government to freeze rents

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London Renters Union members protest outside a Foxtons letting agents Image: London Renters Union

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/hundreds-of-renters-protest-outside-letting-agents-across-london-calling-on-government-to-freeze-rents

HUNDREDS of renters protested outside letting agents in six London boroughs on Saturday to demand Britain implement an emergency rent freeze similar to that of the Scottish government.

The renters from the London Renters Union (LRU) were also highlighting the “human cost of the rental crisis” the “key role” letting agents play in “gouging rents well above inflation,” the LRU said in a press release.

The organisation has reported an average rent increase of 20.5 per cent or £3,378 per year. Those numbers are based on 150 rent rises which have been reported to the union since September 20.

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Continue ReadingHundreds of renters protest outside letting agents across London calling on government to freeze rents