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Post by Admin on Jul 3, 2021 23:11:19 GMT
"The Protestant Work Ethic has ruined our society... It has been drilled into people. Basically people now believe if you don't work hard enough you aren't deserving of anything. That anything you get must be from your own labor. And if it isn't then you are cheating and getting something you don't deserve. It's a very sink or swim mentality. No lifesavers will be thrown....No social safety net for you. It's very much rooted also in social darwinism. Only the fittest survive. If you work hard you rise in social status, wealth, and success. And if not that's your own fault. It's totally ridiculous.. all of it. It completely denies primitive societies that were communal and survived by assisting each other. It's like that never existed. Yet it did for thousands of years. And many in the animal kingdom still rely on each other like that.. especially pack animals. There are also still some human societies that are like this too. We really need to get back to our roots as human beings and reclaim our communal nature. Because it's how humans flourish best. We are hard wired biologically to have strong social bonds and to be interdependent to meet our needs, both physical and emotional. As we have strayed away from this, we have become less happy and more sick.. physically and psychologically. Trauma has increased a lot and resulting damage.. just look up Aces... and you will see. Childhood can ruin us for life. We no longer have a village to raise a child. We are in isolation.. alienated from each other. Told to survive on our own. That the measure of our worth is our productivity. And we need to earn our keep. Be self-sustaining, self-sufficient, and self-reliant. And never ask for a "hand out" because then you are a weakling who should be ashamed of yourself. The only person worthy of respect is the person who works for everything they have and never asks anyone else for help. It's the patriarchy personified. But this bootstramp mentality and Calvinism needs to go! The only one who benefits from this way of thinking is the profit stealers.. capitalists. They don't care what happens to us as long as we keep working. They control us because by threat we are forced to work if we want to eat and keep a roof over our head. Our literal existence is dependent on us working. We are forced to do it.. all choice is removed. So they keep us just barely alive so we show up to work.. but soul crushed and often literally crushed eventually.. as we become broken down by repetitive stress injuries to our minds and our bodies and our minds and backs give up eventually. To capitalists we are just cogs in a machine. And if one breaks they just replace us with someone else. We aren't seen as valuable beyond our use. As long as we can be used and exploited to extract profit we are useful to capitalists. People are starting to organize to fight back against these injustices and imbalances of power. And many are starting to realize the bill of goods we were sold is fucking bullshit and we are looking to build community again. To invest ourselves in networks of mutual aid. To help people the corporations and government forgot. To see all people as equal in value regardless of their ability to work. To see us all as worthy of help. And that when we give we get back. The reciprocal relationships are the foundation of a real community. Interdependence is the only real way to survive. And the more interdependence you have the more functional we become, as a society, families, and as individuals. We can only thrive with strong social attachments and help from each other. Why is barely surviving acceptable? People are starting to wake up to the idea that we deserve more. And now we have to fight for that and demand it. And set up as much of it as we can without winning it from corporations or government, until we can win it. The struggle for a better life continues...."
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Post by Admin on Jul 13, 2021 17:11:30 GMT
Ending the UC Uplift Shows that Poverty Is Tory Government Policy By Andrew Kersley Ending the Universal Credit uplift could force up to 1.2 million people into poverty and increase foodbank usage by 20% – but the Tories are pushing ahead because deprivation sustains Britain's low-pay economy. tribunemag.co.uk/2021/07/ending-the-uc-uplift-shows-that-poverty-is-tory-government-policy£20 may not seem like much. Certainly to Tory MPs like Andrew Rosindell, who took to Politics Live to defend the government’s £20 cut to Universal Credit, it’s a luxury that most people just like to have and don’t really need. Of course, outside of Westminster politicians, £20 a week matters. For those on Universal Credit, it can make up 5% or more of their entire income. For many, it can be the difference between making ends meet that month and not. The effects of Downing Street’s decision to forge ahead with ending the £20 uplift of Universal Credit are well documented. Studies from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Resolution Foundation have found that the cut could push anywhere between 500,000 and 1.2 million people into poverty, including between 200,000 and 400,000 children. The Trussell Trust has estimated that the move could increase food bank usage among UC claimants by 20%. The UK already has one of the lowest support packages in Europe, as UC only accounts for 18% of someone’s average earnings. And as is often the case with this kind of approach to policy, the cut makes little fiscal sense – these huge increases in poverty will cause extra spending for other government services, from hospitals to schools and councils, as they are forced to deal with the consequences. Despite interventions by Labour MPs and every former Conservative Secretary of State for Work and Pensions since the party came to power in 2010, the government has stuck to its decision. Even the warning from Macmillan Cancer Care that more than 100,000 people with cancer are struggling to pay for basic essentials already without cuts to Universal Credit fell on deaf ears. In Boris Johnson’s mind, ‘the emphasis has got to be on getting people into work and getting people into jobs.’ That view is underpinned by an argument regularly trotted out by conservatives – that denying people a basic standard of living and a safety net is the only way to encourage people them work; that benefit users are a burden on the system and cutting their support to the point where they can barely afford to feed themselves and their families is the only way to ‘motivate’ them. There’s little evidence that this works – in fact, many assessments suggest the opposite is true. One DWP-backed study from 2016 found that for every pound cut from the income of the long-term unemployed, the chances of them finding work reduced by 2%. Its authors said that the extra burdens of increasing debt, childcare, and fighting to make ends meet that month made making time to look for jobs harder. Indeed, analysis from LSE has suggested that it is the widespread availability of good jobs rather than cuts to unemployment benefits that reduces unemployment most effectively. The logic itself is odd, particularly since while UC includes unemployment support, a huge array of other people need it too. There are 1.6 million UC claimants who can’t or have been told not to work – because they have a child under the age of one, they’re disabled, or, as was highlighted by Macmillan, they’re currently too sick. They will all be affected by these cuts too, even though all the ‘motivation’ in the world won’t help them take on jobs they aren’t supposed to be looking for in the first place. On top of that, there’s the 39% of UC claimants (or over two million people) who have to claim for Universal Credit despite being in work. And that’s where this cut to UC fundamentally highlights one of the saddest facts about modern poverty: work doesn’t always pay. Even before the pandemic worsened things, some 14 million people lived in poverty in the UK. The Jospeh Rowntree Foundation says that around 56% of households living in poverty in 2018 had at least one member in work, compared with 39% 20 years before. We all saw headlines about nurses being forced to use foodbanks during Covid, but across the entire system, one in seven of all people who use food banks are in a working household. Whatever metric you use, it’s obvious that work doesn’t deliver the way it’s meant to. What’s causing this problem? For a start, wages have stagnated badly over the last few years. Mass unemployment has made the pandemic an outlier, but before Covid wages in real terms were still just lower than their 2008 pre-crash peak, and had been stagnant for over a decade. In previous decades, pay tended to increase by 2% in real terms each year, following the trend of increasing economic growth. Then there’s the fact that many are chronically underpaid and underemployed. This comes in different forms. There’s the gig economy, which employed 4.7 million people already in 2019 (the most recent data). Many gig economy employees will be working full time, but the pay doesn’t match even their basic legal rights: the Bureau of Investigative Journalism found one in three Deliveroo drivers made less than the national minimum wage of £8.72 an hour. Around 860,000 workers are on zero-hours in the UK, meaning they have no assured income for any given month. But the issue is throughout the economy, not just at the extremes. Most outsourced cleaners in UK hospitals I spoke to for a previous Tribune article were on so few legally-set hours that they reported needing every hour of overtime they could get to make ends meet – or risk going into debt that month. Lower wages, less hours and more precarious employment work together to mean that the average amount of money coming in for families is going down. And the reduced influence and power of trade unions only makes the problem worse. As take-home pay has gone down in real terms, the cost of living is only increasing. Rising costs for renting, insurance, food, childcare, and more means a growing burden on working people: one calculation for the Times found that the cost of living per person had increased by over 760% in the years 2010-2020. That has only been worsened by a decade of austerity: cuts to services like child care, social care, and Local Housing Allowance have offset the costs onto those who can least afford it. There are also problems with the way Universal Credit is set up. Low-income families who both work and claim Universal Credit end up taking home as much money as someone without a job because UC reduces as they earn more from work. Most Universal Credit claimants only get to keep 37p in every extra pound they earn; some keep even less. The system hurts underemployed and underpaid workers the most. It used to be the case that getting a job was enough to give people stability and security; it was the defence against poverty for normal people. But in the precarious, underpaid, underemployed modern economy, being in a job can mean little for your income. Despite that, we have politicians that still talk about ‘getting a job’ like it’s the solution to every problem – and until they learn to focus on the nature of jobs, rather than solely on the total figures in our employment and unemployment charts, security and safety will remain luxuries extended to fewer and fewer people.
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Post by Admin on Jul 13, 2021 19:06:01 GMT
A new report reveals top-down pressure and 'benefit scrounger' narratives encouraged jobcentre staff to be 'cruel and inhumane'. Jobcentre Staff Were Taught to Inflict ‘Psychological Harm’ on the Unemployed Top-down pressure and 'benefit scrounger' narratives encouraged staff to be 'cruel and inhumane'. by Sophie K Rosa 13 July 2021 novaramedia.com/2021/07/13/jobcentre-staff-were-taught-to-inflict-psychological-harm-on-the-unemployed/When his mother died in 2014, Paul Atherton was forced to choose between attending her funeral and keeping his benefits. He recalls a work coach telling him, “it’s your choice”, before explaining that if he missed a jobcentre appointment the money he had been relying on to live would be taken away – no exceptions. In the end, Atherton, who is disabled and has been homeless for over a decade, lost his benefits for a year. The way he was treated felt “evil,” he says – and characteristic of the cruelty inherent to the benefits system. According to research published earlier this year by Sheffield Hallam University academics Jamie Redman and Del Roy Fletcher, the way Atherton was treated was not only typical, but deliberate. Procedures for out-of-work benefit claims became more “institutionally violent” between 2010 and 2015, they found, with “psychological harm [used] as a technique” to deter claimants and avoid paying out. By carrying out in-depth interviews with ten frontline workers and managers in public and contracted employment services, Redman and Fletcher uncovered “an array of policy tools and hidden managerial methods used during the coalition administration, [which] encouraged frontline staff to deliver services in ways that led to a range of harmful outcomes for benefit claimants.” People on UC have jobs, they’re just crap ones. t.co/NXZSLb8OYB— Novara Media (@novaramedia) July 12, 2021 During this period, Redman tells Novara Media, a combination of “top-down pressures mediated through targets [and] the hierarchy of a bureaucracy,” sometimes along with “benefit scrounger” narratives, pushed employment officers to act in “cruel or inhumane” ways, carrying out “policies which [had] potentially violent outcomes for service users”. In the wake of the 2008 financial crash and ongoing recession, in 2010 the Conservative-Liberal Democrat government enacted an austerity programme that saw huge cuts to the social security system. Then-prime minister David Cameron pronounced a ‘broken Britain’, where state support “tolerated, indulged – sometimes even incentivised” apparent ‘immorality’ and ‘irresponsibility’. He said the welfare system as it stood led to “people thinking they can be as irresponsible as they like because the state will always bail them out”. This stigmatisation of poverty as immorality, claim Redman and Fletcher, was woven through the benefits system during the austerity years by design, resulting in more hostile and punitive treatment of claimants by employment services workers. In a related earlier study, the Welfare Conditionality project found that post-2010 austerity reforms increased poverty, exacerbated ill health and discouraged people from accessing state support, and numerous studies linked increased jobcentre processes and benefits sanctions to increased rates of suicide. Some employment officers who were interviewed for the research had “stigma-laden attitudes” about claimants, says Redman. Atherton, a filmmaker and fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, says that his experience of stigma at the jobcentre during the austerity years “contributed to [his] suicidal ideations”. He speculates that, over 2010-2015, workers who felt the way they were made to treat benefit claimants was unethical quit, and those who believed claimants were “scum welfare suckers” trying to “pull a fast one” became managers. Under post-2010 reforms, employment officers had stricter targets for getting people off benefits and sanctioning them. The report’s interviewees described being under pressure from managers, and the overall workplace culture, to stop people’s benefits; one showed Redman a table on which “they put stickers … to represent how many different types of sanctions … they’d hit in relation to the target.” ‘Beaten-down drones in a depressing work environment’. Callum – who became unemployed after a stroke – says that as a result of this punitive approach, “the jobcentre had an atmosphere of fear” during the so-called austerity years. “You could feel your blood simmering,” when you entered, he says. “The whole system was designed to get you off it.” On the one occasion when he made a mistake with his claim, he was “terrified” his money would be stopped. Whilst receiving jobseekers’ allowance during 2010-2015, John was asked to complete a placement in the jobcentre itself, which he says gave him frightening insights into internal operations at the time. “One morning, built up in advance as a ‘treat’,” he tells Novara Media, “I shadowed people in the basement office, who were the local ‘benefits police’”. He was told by his supervisor that these workers were employed to do extensive background checks and surveillance on claimants “following a tip-off by a member of the public”. These investigations – designed to catch claimants out – he says, included accessing bank statements, undercover operations at local pubs, and tapping phones. Atherton says that at the very beginning of the austerity programme, before the reforms came into effect, “I could walk into a jobcentre and know workers by name” who would deal with his case. He says that this face-to-face contact meant the claimant experience felt more humane, and meant he felt more “in control”. Gradually, however, in-person jobcentre appointments were replaced with phone calls, which he describes as “impossible”. Callum agrees, saying the telephone operator system felt hopeless, and the circuitous automated aspects of it made him feel like “even the automated system can’t be bothered with you”. Many employment services workers, of course, do not agree with the way they are told to work. Some of the workers Redman and Fletcher spoke to for their research described how much the benefits system had changed during their often long careers, “from focussing predominantly on wellbeing and employment support, to meeting stringent performance targets”. Some workers said they left the work as a result of this culture change, or stayed but struggled emotionally. One interviewee, says Redman, admitted to forcing terminally ill people and people with complex mental health problems into employment, even when it was clear they couldn’t function on a normal day-to-day level. The interviewee went on to describe how they would “break down in tears sometimes”, because of what they had to do, but they carried on doing it because they didn’t want to be seen as a weaker member of staff at performance meetings. Another interviewee spoke about how they pushed someone into work who then attempted suicide. Though often aware of the impact of their actions, Redman says the intense pressure to perform usually made workers press on with implementing harmful policies. “You always wanted your team to be the best team,” one worker told him. John believes that most employment officers did not “relish their ability to punish,” but were rather “beaten-down drones in a depressing work environment, going through the motions”. Usually, he says, it wasn’t “the [worker] in particular that contributed to an ongoing doomy lack of self-esteem,” but “the system constantly reminding me [through its processes] that I was a shirker. ‘Our lives aren’t safe in Tory hands’. Since 2015, sanctioning rates have gone down – but the benefits system overall is still shaped by reforms introduced from 2010. Historical evidence suggests that employment services play a pivotal role in the economy as “a crisis management institution”, says Redman, meaning the system “tends to become more punitive when there’s a period of economic recovery, to encourage people to get off benefits and to take up low paid jobs, which tend to be created more in a period just after a major crisis.” As such, Redman is worried how the already harsh system today will be reformed in the coming post-Covid, or post-lockdown, period – already, the Tories are rescinding the £20 uplift to Universal Credit. Rather than a social security system of “arcane civil service procedures, endless appointments and a multitude of staff paid to oversee all this,” John would like to see the government implement universal basic income. He would like to see this policy adopted “on a compassionate basis”, as opposed to the prevailing narrative that “people who are out of work are scroungers”. He would also like to see more people accept that whilst most people on unemployment benefits may want to, or at least intend to, find work, a minority like him “genuinely cannot be bothered with regular work under a far-right government pushing hyper-capitalism.” Most of all, says Callum, “we have to make the case that” public spending needs to go up, and that “our lives aren’t safe in Tory hands.” Sophie K Rosa is a freelance journalist. In addition to Novara Media, she writes for the Guardian, VICE, Open Democracy, CNN, Al Jazeera and Buzzfeed.
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Post by Admin on Jul 14, 2021 7:59:06 GMT
Keep them poor, uneducated and hungry! Peter Benson July 14, 2021 northeastbylines.co.uk/keep-them-poor-uneducated-and-hungry/Iwould like to hypothesis that the greatest success of this ten-year government is to keep the underclass in their place. That is as far away as possible from the elite. And poor, uneducated and hungry. We are run by the elite for the elite. Any other thoughts are pure fantasy. I think that it would take a revolution to change this status. The natural seeds of change, namely education, have yet again been downgraded by the current Tory government. Yet again they show that they care little for those living in under privileged areas like the North East. The ruling class continues to rule and the Eton elitist educational Influences reign supreme. The statistics on poverty Deprived areas have lost out on government funding intended for ‘levelling up’ according to a recent report by the National Audit Office (NAO). The (NAO) said that since the introduction of a national funding formula for England there has been a “relative redistribution” of resources to schools in better-off areas. In contrast, it said, almost 60% of the most deprived fifth of schools have seen a real-terms reduction in Government funding since 2017-18. Whatever happened to the government’s levelling up agenda? Research published during 2020 from the Education Policy Institute showed that the rise in the proportion of pupils who live in persistent poverty was up from 34.8% in 2017 to 36.7% two years later. In some areas the gap was even wider. Poorer pupils in Blackpool, Knowsley and Plymouth were more than two full years of education behind their peers by the end of secondary school. In addition Gypsy/Roma pupils were almost three years (34 months) behind white British pupils at GCSE level. Chinese pupils were two whole years ahead. What do the statistics tell us? The statistics confirm a two-tier education system in the UK. For the ‘haves’ it a healthy lifestyle, good jobs, nice houses and in some areas access to a grammar school. It also includes additional resources such as private tutors, laptops and money. These factors generally result in strong educational attainment and future job success. For the ‘have nots’ there is a stark contrast. It means more depravation, low educational attainment, lack of money and resources and often persistent hunger and housing issues. Lack of education leading to poor job skills and low wages compleres the never ending vicious circle. Could you go to work every day hungry and concentrate on your job and be successful? Why do we allow so many school children to do this on a frequent basis? A huge divide In an earlier article I wrote about the steep rise in the number of children turning up hungry in London schools at the start of the September 2020 school term. It was replicated right across the country as the pandemic started to impact on families as so many had lost their jobs. There is a massive divide in our society from North to South from abject poverty to extreme wealth and riches. There is also a vast middle area between these two and so many are ‘just about managing’. This became a political slogan but was ultimately meaningless as became fast neglected during the pandemic. The government did something good… The government did some good things during the pandemic. One was to increase Universal Credit by £20 a week. The others were the Job Retention Scheme (Furlough scheme) and the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme. These moves made an immediate positive impact on families really struggling to eat and buy essentials. They were widely welcomed and appreciated by so many. However, the Furlough and Self-Employment support plus the extra £20 per week disappear soon. This means that we can expect a fresh explosion of demand on food banks to stave off hunger for hundreds of thousands right across the country. Universal Credit increase removed… and the future Six million families benefited from the Universal Credit increase. What’s will happen to them come September? Is there any point in getting angry these days and joining a protest against this government? The answer is an emphatic yes. We must never just accept what is thrown at us when it is both unjust and unkind. We have a civic duty to participate fully in our democratic way of life. This might be through the ballot box or through protests and activism. Breaking the cycle and working for change There are no real geographical barriers to poverty. It is everywhere, even though it may be hidden in some areas. However, there is a solution. We must really focus on breaking the endless cycle of poverty. The current government really has done an outstanding job of keeping people poor, uneducated and hungry, and in some areas more than others. We must do all in our power to change that.
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Post by Admin on Jul 15, 2021 13:47:59 GMT
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Post by Admin on Jul 16, 2021 4:37:47 GMT
More than one million children from key worker families living in poverty say TUC By Paul Knaggs -July 14, 2021 labourheartlands.com/more-than-one-million-children-from-key-worker-families-living-in-poverty-say-tuc/Study finds more than one in five children of workers employed in the frontline of the pandemic live below breadline The report, produced by Landman Economics, used the government definition for key workers and found that over a million children of key workers across the UK live below the poverty line. The trade union federation general secretary Frances O’Grady declared that “every key worker deserves a decent standard of living for their family, but too often their hard work is not paying off like it should”. “The Prime Minister has promised to ‘build back fairer’. He should start with our key workers. They put themselves in harm’s way to keep the country going through the pandemic. Now, we must be there for them too,” she said. “This isn’t just about doing right thing by key workers. If we put more money in the pockets of working families, their spending will help our businesses and high streets recover. It’s the fuel in the tank that our economy needs.” The research found that in some areas more than a quarter of children in key worker households are living in poverty, with the North East of England showing the highest rate at 29%. The North East is followed by London (27%), the West Midlands (25%) and Yorkshire and the Humber (25%). In total, the study found that there are 1,062,586 children of key workers living in poverty across the country. In the East Midlands, the rate matches the national average with 21% in poverty. That number is higher in the West Midlands (25%) and highest in the North East (29%). The TUC claim the main reason for poverty in the families of key workers are low pay and insecure hours. The TUC said that as well as pay and hours, high housing costs were reducing the amount of money key worker households could spend on groceries and utility bills. Support through universal credit, due to be cut by £20 a week in the autumn after a temporary pandemic uplift, was not enough to guarantee that families avoid poverty. Current government policies were likely to increase child poverty rates, because as well as cutting universal credit ministers had capped pay rises for key workers in the public sectors, leading in some cases to cuts in wages when adjusted for inflation. The TUC said these policies would put brakes on Britain’s recovery, because curbs on household spending would restrain business activity and have knock-on effects on wage growth for other workers. Both Conservative MPs and Labour have urged the government to rethink the £5bn cut, while charities have warned that the decision will hit six million households across the country and push 200,000 more children below the poverty line. The TUC has warned that the Universal Credit cut along with the public sector pay cap will likely worsen child poverty rates and “put the brakes on the nation’s economic recovery by curbing household spending”. It has called on ministers to: Raise the national minimum wage to £10 per hour immediately; End the public sector pay freeze give all public service workers a decent pay rise; Give outsourced public sector workers a real living wage and ensure parity with directly employed staff; Cancel the planned cut to Universal Credit; and Set out plans to increase child benefit above inflation each year this parliament. According to the Child Poverty Action Group, 4.3 million children were living in poverty in the UK in 2019-20. This represents 31% of all children or nine in a classroom of 30. The figure for children in single-parent households was 49%. The campaign group found that 75% of children growing up in poverty lived in a household where at least one person is in employment and that children from large families or from Black and minority ethnic groups were more likely to be in poverty. TUC Midlands Regional Secretary Lee Barron said: “All our key workers in the East Midlands deserve a decent standard of living for their family. But too often their hard work is not paying off like it should. And they struggle to keep up with the basic costs of family life. “The prime minister has promised to ‘build back fairer’. He should start with our key workers. They put themselves in harm’s way to keep the country going through the pandemic. Now, we must be there for them too. “This isn’t just about doing right thing by key workers. If we put more money in the pockets of working families, their spending will help our businesses and high streets recover in the East Midlands. It’s the fuel in the tank that our economy needs.”
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Post by Admin on Jul 17, 2021 8:46:24 GMT
Norky’s ramblings: poverty and deprivation Peter Norcliffe 17 July 2021 yorkshirebylines.co.uk/norkys-ramblings-poverty/True stories from ‘Norky’ who comes from Scapegoat Hill, a small, isolated farming village, high on the Pennines in West Yorkshire. You can catch up on his ramblings so far via his author page. My experiences during my work as a technical officer within a council housing grant system, and while I was a building clerk of works for a local city property serviced department, certainly showed me how very much better off I was than many. People with nothing have no idea how the rich manage to spend their millions, and the rich have no idea how people get by on tuppence. Some of the homes I visited showed what poverty and deprivation really looks like. Poverty and social care Several of the homes I would visit had filthy half-naked children running about in filthy rooms where the carpet was covered with rubbish and all too often animal excrement. Invariably, the parent would be clashed out on something, and I wouldn’t be unable to get a coherent conversation. Contractors are a very hardy bunch, and are prepared to work in conditions where others would never tread. This means they are often the first to identify extreme poverty and take the necessary steps to get help for the people concerned. I recall one team of contractors asking me to check out a property, with a view to getting the tenants some sort of help, or perhaps moved into better accommodation or social care. Signs of deprivation and poverty are usually visible from the outside of a house. These can feel like signs of impending doom as you approach the door. Rough, unkempt gardens with rubbish strewn everywhere, curtains closed … or, as in this case, an old blanket fastened to the inside of the lounge window. I knocked on the door and an elderly gentleman opened it. I was immediately hit by the overwhelming smell. He had obviously not been in contact with soap for some time, or indeed a comb, razor or barber. He was wearing a paisley shirt and woollen trousers but they had been worn for so long that they had taken on a leather look. On entering the lounge we found an elderly lady sat on the couch. She had no legs and was confused and upset that we were there. Between the couch and the fireplace were two buckets that were used as toilets; one was full the other half full. It was very difficult to breath in the pungent atmosphere. I was in no doubt that the couple were in desperate need of help, and I referred the case to the council care department. They were soon moved out into a setting where they could be properly looked after. Council housing and deprivation For a grant to be successful, it had to include details of all the improvements needed in the house, to bring it up to a decent living standard. So I would have to inspect every room of a property. I visited a house on one occasion and a woman answered the door. As I entered and went into the lounge/dining/kitchen area, I noticed a huge, overweight German Shepherd dog that was finding it difficult to move about. There were empty, licked clean plates all over the floor, and the sink was piled high with many more licked clean plates and crockery. It looked as though very little traditional washing up was done, and instead the householder just kept buying new plates. The dog obviously enjoyed all the leftovers. Eventually I entered the master bedroom. As was often the case, the lights wouldn’t work, and once again there was a blanket fastened to the window. I stepped inside and waited for my eyes to become accustomed to the darkness, and to my shock I noticed a pair of grubby, decaying feet sticking out from under the bed covers. I looked for some signs of life, but for all the world it appeared to be a body with a sheet covering it entirely except the feet. I stood there for ages hoping for some sort of happy outcome, but suspecting the worse. Eventually, and to my great relief, a man finally turned over with a groan. I never did see any other part of his body, nor did we enter into any sort of conversation. The small adjoining bedroom that contained a pair of bunk beds had a rope fastened between the door handle and the banister rail so that the door could be tied shut. This case also went to a higher authority. Hoarders I visited another house that was occupied by a man who was in hospital at the time. Before he was released back to his home, I had to inspect it to assess his needs during recovery. What we found was a house stacked with stuff from floor to ceiling. A very narrow passageway led from the front door, to the kitchen, downstairs toilet and lounge chair where he slept. There were piles and piles of papers and boxes. We couldn’t get upstairs, but from the back garden we could see that the rear bedroom window was missing. Not just a glass pane – the whole window frame was resting among the brambles in the garden. The garden was so overgrown that the greenhouse was buried up to the very tip. I learned from the NHS officials that the occupant was a landscape gardener. It must have been awful for him to have allowed the house and garden to decay to that extent. He never did return to his home, his family decided that he was better off in residential care. It might have been nice if they’d visited from time to time before it reached that point. But perhaps they did, and I’m being unkind. It’s possible he simply refused help until his health became so bad that the family could make the decision for him, which is often the case. Many people slip through the net for all sorts of reasons. As a society, and as families, it is up to us to make sure we love and care for all our people, no matter how great or small to prevent poverty and deprivation.
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Post by Admin on Jul 27, 2021 20:55:59 GMT
UK Has Highest Poverty Rate In North West Europe – And It’s About To Get Even Worse "The UK is suffering from a growing Tory poverty crisis - with the worst levels of any country in north west Europe." Shared by Steven Preece July 16, 2021 welfarejournal.com/uk-has-highest-poverty-rate-in-north-west-europe-and-its-about-to-get-worse/#Figures compiled by the SNP reveal that the UK suffers from the worst levels of poverty of any neighbouring country, and has done for almost all of the past twenty years – and it’s about to get even worse. The analysis from the House of Commons Library shows that the UK has the highest poverty rate of every country in north west Europe, with 11.7% of people living in relative poverty under the OECD definition. This puts the UK in a worse position than all thirteen neighbouring countries, including Iceland (4.9%), Denmark (6.1%), Finland (6.5%), Belgium (8.2%), the Netherlands (8.3%), Norway (8.4%), France (8.5%), Sweden (8.9%), Ireland (9.0%), Switzerland (9.2%), Austria (9.4%), Germany (10.4%), and Luxembourg (11.4%) The figures, using OECD data, show that the UK has a significantly higher poverty rate than the average for independent countries of Scotland’s size or smaller (7.7%), and has had the worst or second-worst poverty rate in every single year since UK data was first recorded in 2002. It comes as Chancellor Rishi Sunak refuses to heed calls not to slash Universal Credit payments for six million families by £1040 a year from September, despite recent research showing that it will leave millions unable to afford a basic standard of living. The move has been described as “catastrophic” by the Children’s Commissioner for Scotland, who has warned the cuts would “effectively knock out the benefits that the Scottish Child Payment brings”. Commenting, SNP Work and Pensions spokesperson David Linden MP said: “The UK is suffering from a growing Tory poverty crisis – with the worst levels of any country in north west Europe. “Rishi Sunak’s plans to slash Universal Credit payments by £1040 a year for six million families, and impose a public sector pay freeze, will inevitably make this crisis even worse and push more people into hardship and deprivation. There must be an urgent U-turn. “The cold hard reality is there will be no fair recovery at Westminster. The only way to keep Scotland safe from Tory cuts and build a fairer society is to become an independent country, with the full powers needed to secure a strong, fair and equal recovery and eradicate poverty. “For every step we take forward to tackle poverty in Scotland, Westminster is dragging us backwards again with Tory cuts. “The SNP government is putting money into people’s pockets with progressive policies like the Scottish Child Payment but Tory cuts to Universal Credit will effectively cancel this out – wiping out progress we’ve made. “Tory plans to impose another round of austerity cuts demonstrate that Scotland is increasingly vulnerable under Westminster control. “It is essential that Scotland becomes an independent country, so we can protect ourselves from Tory cuts and build a fairer future.”
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Post by Admin on Aug 2, 2021 13:46:47 GMT
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Post by Admin on Aug 6, 2021 8:23:46 GMT
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Post by Admin on Aug 6, 2021 19:40:18 GMT
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Post by Admin on Sept 6, 2021 14:24:06 GMT
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Post by Admin on Sept 12, 2021 7:18:59 GMT
UK: Planned cut to Universal Credit heralds savage assault on workers’ living standards Thomas Scripps 8 September 2021 www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/09/09/ucut-s09.htmlYesterday, Britain’s Conservative government pulled a vote planned by the Labour Party on scrapping the £20-a-week increase to Universal Credit brought in last year. The uplift is due to end on October 6, on the final day of the Tory Party’s annual conference. Cabinet Minister Jacob Rees-Mogg will give an update on the decision to pull the vote today. Universal Credit is a social security payment rolled out since 2013 as a combination and replacement of several different welfare benefits. It is set at such a pitifully low level that ending the £20 increase will plunge millions of people, including millions of children, into desperate financial circumstances overnight. The withdrawal is the largest one-off welfare spending cut in British history, outstripping the Tories’ 1988 slashing of housing benefits and even the 1931 cut to unemployment benefit during the Great Depression—carried out by the National Government under former Labour leader Ramsay MacDonald. Roughly six million people receive Universal Credit payments, in households containing 3.4 million children. The benefit is a punitive system, offering minimal support, often delayed, and reduced by a host of possible sanctions, reductions and caps. The standard monthly amount for a couple over 25 is £509.91, with an additional £237.08 for a first child. Someone with a disability or health condition which limits their capacity to work, a definition policed with abysmal cruelty, can claim an additional £342.63 a month. The Joseph Rowntree Federation (JRF) estimates that the government’s £1,040 a year cut will immediately throw half a million people into poverty, including 300,000 children. In fact, families with children—especially single-parents—will be disproportionately impacted. The majority of those affected are working families. In its statement, the JRF used the example of a typical family of five receiving Universal Credit—with three children, one parent in full-time work and one in part-time, living in a medium-cost area—to show the devastating effect of benefit cuts in recent years. In 2013/14, the family would have scraped through at £271 a month above the poverty line. Today, even with the £20 increase, they are below the poverty line. After the cut, they will be £150 a month below. Action for Children has carried out a similar analysis and reports that the typical low to middle-income sole-earner family two children will be £1,800 a year poorer come October 6 than they were in 2010. According to the Citizens Advice Bureau, 2.3 million people will be pushed into debt after October 6 in order to afford essential bills. Save the Children report that 47 percent of people are concerned they won’t be able to live on the money they have left, and another 18 percent were unsure. One hundred different organisations, including charities, children’s doctors and public health experts, have written to the government opposing the cut, warning it will cause “immense, immediate and avoidable hardship”. Not only are the Tories proceeding, they have refused to publish the analysis of its impact, demanded in a Freedom of Information request by the Poverty Alliance, claiming it would not be in the public interest. For huge numbers of people, the sudden withdrawal of vital support will come as a painful shock. Surveys have found that between 18 and 36 percent of recipients are not aware of the planned cut, rising to over 40 percent in Greater London and over half among young people. The axe will fall just six days after the scrapping of the furlough job support scheme at the end of September. The Resolution Foundation estimates than some 900,000 people will still be on the scheme when it ends and, if they do not find a job or leave the labour market altogether, will be moved onto Jobseeker’s Allowance at £74.70 a week for the over-25s and £59.20 a week for under-25s. The effect of these attacks could be far worse than predicted, coming amid a sharp rise in the cost of living. Rents outside London grew 5 percent in the year to the end of July, according to property website Zoopla, an increase of more than £450 a year for the average bill—the largest the site has seen. In areas like Wigan, Greater Manchester, Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, Hastings, East Sussex and Norwich, the figure is closer to 10 percent. Falls in already sky-high rents in London, as a result of the pandemic, have bottomed out and rents are expected to begin climbing again later this year. More than 1.5 million households receiving Universal Credit in February 2021 were private renters, 55 percent of whom already did not receive enough housing support to make the rent. Last month, the UK’s energy regulator Ofgem lifted the price cap on energy tariffs to its highest-ever level, leading to the biggest rise in energy bills in a decade for as many as 15 million customers and their families. Eon UK, Scottish Power, Ovo Energy, EDF Energy and British Gas all announced increases of 12 percent—roughly £139 a year. Petrol prices reached their highest level since 2013 and diesel their highest since 2014 in July. RAC fuel spokesman Simon Williams commented, “Right now it’s hard to see what it will take for prices to start falling again.” The cost of food is also expected to increase, with the Financial Times reporting, “UK retail trade signals prospect of higher food prices”, and Nestle, Procter and Gamble and Unilever all warning of hikes. Prior to the £20 increase, 43 percent of Universal Credit recipients were food insecure. At the end of August, co-coordinator of the Independent Food Aid Network Sabine Goodwin wrote in the BMJ (formerly, British Medical Journal) to warn “a perfect storm is brewing”. Food banks, she said, were preparing for “the busiest and most difficult winter on record” as result of the Universal Credit cut and price rises. “The scale of the disaster about to unfold cannot be overestimated.” The Tories are pushing workers and their families over a financial cliff edge as a whip to enforce their herd immunity-inspired return-to-work agenda and to create as exploitable a labour force as possible as the economy is fully reopened. Confronted with a manifold economic crisis due to COVID and Brexit, the ruling class is seeking to resolve it through a brutal assault on the working class. Not a peep of opposition has been heard from the Labour Party. The party is a trusted pillar of British capitalism, but the degree to which it categorically refuses to associate itself, even rhetorically, with the slightest suggestion of a redistributive policy is remarkable. Through its efforts, political debate is kept wholly within the bounds set by Johnson’s Tory government—the most right-wing in British history. While pledging to vote against the Universal Credit cut, Labour has done absolutely nothing to mobilise opposition. Its alternative policy, set out by shadow work and pensions secretary Jonathan Reynolds last month, is to rename the benefit and tinker with the taper rate at which it is withdrawn as people earn more income. In Reynolds’s words, “We think the way the system operates, it interacts with people who are in low-paid work, does not work sufficiently well for them.” Asked by how much Labour would reduce the taper rate, Reynolds did not answer, saying he would need to “cost that properly.” Asked whether Labour would reintroduce the paltry £20-a-week increase, he replied, “I can’t give a specific commitment on that at this stage.” It should be remembered that this is the same party touted by pseudo-left groups like the Socialist Workers Party just a few years ago as having undergone a radical social democratic rebirth under former leader Jeremy Corbyn, whose manifesto offered “a glimpse of jobs, homes and public services for the 99%, protection for our environment—and making the capitalist class pay,” according to the Socialist Party. The truth is that Corbyn did not change a spot on the Labour Party. His departure as leader has revealed what he, the SP and the SWP did their utmost to conceal—that he spent his tenure in close political collaboration with a party of Thatcherite monsters who cannot distinguish themselves from the likes of Boris Johnson. The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) warned from the moment of Corbyn’s election as Labour leader: “No one can seriously propose that this party—which, in its politics and organisation and the social composition of its apparatus, is Tory in all but name—can be transformed into an instrument of working-class struggle.” This prognosis has been confirmed. The task now for workers and young people is the building of the SEP to lead the working class in the immense class battles that lie ahead.
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Post by Admin on Sept 25, 2021 6:01:44 GMT
Disabled people are staging a ‘riot’ over Tory and DWP persecution www.thecanary.co/feature/2021/09/24/disabled-people-are-staging-a-riot-over-tory-and-dwp-persecution/Disabled people will be holding a “riot” on Tuesday 28 September. It’s over persistent Tory and Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) attacks on chronically ill and disabled people and social security. But the group organising it won’t be smashing up the streets. Because, instead, this is an ‘audio riot’. DPAC is back Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) is a grassroots activist group. It’s been groundbreaking in terms of its approach to fighting for disability rights. From blocking Westminster Bridge to throwing balls at Boris Johnson via occupying parliament’s central lobby, DPAC has never shied away from taking direct action. Most recently, DPAC has been at the forefront of fighting against the DWP’s £20-a-week Universal Credit cut. It will hit various people hard, including 660,000 low-paid key workers, 3.4 million children, and six out of 10 lone parent families. The cut will plunge a further 500,000 people, including 200,000 children, into poverty. Trade unions and campaign groups have expressed fury over the cut. And DPAC isn’t happy either. It said that: The government isn’t listening… when we say Stop The Cuts to Universal Credit and give #20MoreForAll So, the group is back on the streets – and back telling the Tories that enough is enough. We predict an audio riot DPAC is staging its audio riot outside Kings Cross station, in the courtyard in front of it, on 28 September from 11:30am: It said: Join our #AudioRiot and make some noise about the devastating changes to benefits which will have a huge impact on millions of peoples lives, including disabled people. Bring everything you can that makes noise. DPAC will be providing materials for you to take part too – but don’t let that stop you bringing: Drums Whistles Cymbals Bells Klaxons Loudspeakers DPAC has issued a health warning about the demo. It said: We suggest that people joining in this action bring along ear protection such as ear plugs or ear defenders, it’s going to be extremely loud and it may damage your hearing without protection. We do will have some ear plugs to hand out to those who don’t have them but we only have a small number, so if you can, bring your own please. DWP chaos It’s targeting the audio riot around several topics, all DWP-related. It wants people to “make some noise about the”: £20 cut to Universal Credit coming in September. Reintroduction of sanctions and conditionality returning in October. Discrimination against those on legacy benefits who never got the £20 to begin with. Minimum income floor, the local area housing allowance and so much more Disgraceful state of benefits in the UK overall. There will also be online actions people can take part in. The audio riot forms part of a week of action from DPAC. It starts with an online rally from 7:30pm on Friday 24 September. Local actions will be happening on other days. Then, after the demo on 28 September, DPAC will take the fight to Downing Street. On 30 September from 5:30pm, DPAC and other groups will rally outside Johnson’s front door over the Universal Credit cut. More details can be found here. A court case delayed Meanwhile, DPAC was meant to be staging a vigil outside the High Court. But this has been cancelled because the court case in question has been delayed: #20More4All#IncreaseLegacyBenefits t.co/JU8m6pErCCRoyal Courts of Justice The Strand London WC2A 2LL — DPAC (@dis_PPL_Protest) September 11, 2021 The vigil was in support of a legal case. As The Canary previously reported, two disabled people are taking the DWP to court. It’s over the department’s failure to apply the £20-a-week increase seen for Universal Credit to legacy benefits like Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). The case will argue that this is discrimination under the European Convention on Human Rights, because the claimants are disabled people. Osbornes Law is representing the claimants. But the hearing has now been delayed. It was supposed to be on 28 and 29 September. But the High Court has now pushed this back to November. Osbornes Law told The Canary that the court claimed this was due to “judicial availability”; a shortage of judges. The Canary will be looking into this further. Enough is enough DPAC member and disability rights activist Paula Peters told The Canary: DPAC has called an #AudioRiot series of online rallies, social media activity and street protest to collectively raise our voices. We want to force the government to listen to the impact of £20 per week uplift cut to Universal Credit will have on millions of families. Also, we want to force it to listen to the #20More4All campaign. Because 2.2 million legacy benefit claimants were not included in £20 uplift during the pandemic. Three quarters of legacy benefit claimants are disabled people, many of whom were shielding. Yet the cost of living rose very high: food prices, energy prices, PPE equipment and online delivery shopping costs. This left disabled people having to make stark choices whether to heat their homes or eat. Being unable to meet the most basic of living costs caused further distress when isolated while shielding. We are telling the government we will not be silenced on the appalling impact of 12 years of austerity, and the impact of the pandemic which has cost many lives – especially disabled people. So, however people can, support us online and on the street. Let’s make lots of noise and tell this government enough is enough. DPAC has a history of inventive direct action. It’s able to raise the profile of surrounding disability rights and social security issues in a way many other groups can’t. So, if you can take to the streets on the 28 and 30 September in solidarity, then do so. Because the Tories and DWP need to know that we won’t take their callousness lying down.
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Post by Admin on Sept 27, 2021 14:39:55 GMT
Universal credit and access to justice: applying the law automatically September 2021 Written by Lynsey Dalton and Sophie Howes About this report In 2019, Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) published a report series, Computer Says No, which focused on the problems with information provided to people claiming universal credit (UC), and the problems claimants experience when they try to challenge a decision about their UC award. Many of these problems relate to the fact that UC is a ‘digital first’ benefit, and the vast majority of claimants make and manage their claim online. Since publishing these reports, CPAG has been conducting research into access to justice and the digitalisation in UC, funded by the Legal Education Foundation and Open Society Foundations. Findings from this research will be published in 2022. This report shares some initial findings emerging from this research together with evidence from our Early Warning System, which collects case studies from frontline practitioners working directly with families on the problems they are seeing with the social security system. cpag.org.uk/sites/default/files/files/policypost/Universal_credit_and_access_to_justice_0.pdf
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