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Post by Admin on Jul 11, 2020 16:18:52 GMT
Alston bows out as UN poverty rapporteur with damning verdict on Establishment ‘sleepwalking’ to disaster for poor – though UK walking with full intent skwawkbox.org/2020/07/11/alston-bows-out-as-un-poverty-rapporteur-with-damning-verdict-on-establishment-sleepwalking-to-disaster-for-poor-though-uk-walking-with-full-intent/Alston slammed UK government in 2018 and his final report is no less damning In 2018, UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty Philip Alston travelled around the UK to examine reports of poverty and abuse of human rights in one of the world’s richest countries. His findings were utterly damning. In his withering report, whose publication the SKWAWKBOX attended, Alston found that policies of the Tory government were: abandoning the vulnerable to extreme hardship with next to no support so massively disadvantaged women that they might have been ‘designed by misogynists‘ were entirely ideological, in breach of human rights and created hardship that could have been fixed ‘overnight‘ if the Tories wanted Now, as he bows out and hands over his UN role to his successor Olivier de Schutter, Alston has issued his final report on global poverty – one which he says reveals ‘a decade of misplaced triumphalism’ and self-congratulation by elites ignoring awful poverty and hunger and sleepwalking into a disaster that will only be worsened by the coronavirus pandemic.
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Post by Admin on Jul 12, 2020 15:40:36 GMT
In one of the richest countries in the World - absolutely shameful & disgusting - Cases of child malnutrition in England double in last six months Almost 2,500 children admitted to hospitals in England suffering malnutrition in 2020 www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jul/12/cases-of-child-malnutrition-double-in-last-six-monthsAlmost 2,500 children have been admitted to hospital with malnutrition in the first six months of the year – double the number over the same period last year – prompting fresh concern that families are struggling to afford to feed themselves and that the pandemic has intensified the problem. Freedom of information responses from almost 50 trusts in England, representing 150 hospitals, show that more than 11,500 children have been admitted to hospital with malnutrition since 2015. Almost 1,000 under-16s with malnutrition were admitted as inpatients to Cambridge University hospitals NHS foundation trust alone, suggesting the affluent city has wide disparities in wealth. Liberal Democrat leadership campaigner Layla Moran MP, who collated the responses, said: “These figures shocked me and make me angry that in Britain, in 2020, people can be hospitalised due to malnutrition. We need to move forward and create a system of social security that helps everyone and makes sure no one goes hungry in our country. “It is still widely believed malnutrition is a problem restricted to the developing world,” she added. “Sadly, this is not true. Today, in the UK, thousands of friends, relatives, neighbours and colleagues are at risk of the effects of malnutrition.” Collectively the figures reveal 11,515 cases of hospital admissions of under-16s due to malnourishment. Fewer than two-thirds of all trusts responded, suggesting the real total figure is much higher. The most cases were reported by Cambridge University hospitals trust, which logged 915 admissions, followed by University hospital Southampton NHS trust with 704. Newcastle upon Tyne hospitals NHS foundation trust and Royal Free London NHS foundation trust both had 656.
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Post by Admin on Jul 13, 2020 16:43:35 GMT
Millions in Britain in poverty—and virus will make it worse by Sadie Robinson socialistworker.co.uk/art/50294/Millions+in+Britain+in+poverty+and+virus+will+make+it+worseOver a million and a half more people in Britain live in deep poverty today compared to 20 years ago. A new report from the Social Metrics Commission says that some 4.5 million people live in families that are more than 50 percent below the poverty line, or “deep poverty”. This is 7 percent of all people in Britain. And over a fifth, 22 percent, of people live in some level of poverty. That’s 14.4 million people including 4.5 million children. A full third of children aged four or under live in poverty. The report exposes how the system is failing huge numbers of people. And an “increasingly large proportion” of the population is now suffering “the very deepest level of poverty”. In 2000/01 some 2.8 million people, or 5 percent of the population, were in deep poverty. Had the rate remained the same today, 1.3 million fewer people would be in deep poverty. And more than half of those currently in deep poverty have been poor for at least two of the last three years. You are more likely to be poor if you are disabled or black, or if you have children. Half of all people in poverty live in a family that includes a disabled person.
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Post by Admin on Jul 14, 2020 3:41:28 GMT
Since parents and grandparents are well known to skip meals (or shrink helpings) in order to give younger family members extra, an increase in poorly fed children is a strong indication that whole households are in a desperate state. The Guardian view on England's hungry children: the indigestible truth Editorial A steep rise in the number of under-16s admitted to hospital for malnutrition must prompt swift action www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/13/the-guardian-view-on-englands-hungry-children-the-indigestible-truthThe relief was shortlived. Barely a month ago, campaigners were cheering the success of a campaign spearheaded by the Manchester United and England footballer, Marcus Rashford. Their aim was to force the government to provide meal vouchers for 1.3 million children in the school summer holidays, and they won: a new £120m fund was created to contribute £15 per eligible child, per week. But a fresh cause for concern did not take long to arrive: data showing that hospital admissions for children in England suffering from malnutrition have doubled since last year, to 2,500 under-16s in six months. What would be extremely worrying at any time is particularly so at the moment. Rises in the prices of some basic foods and other essentials have been recorded over recent months. Much steeper increases are predicted by retailers in the event of a no-deal Brexit: the price of cheddar cheese imported from Ireland, for example, could rise by 57%. Combined with the effect of job losses as the furlough scheme winds down, the crisis in the childcare sector and lifting of the eviction freeze, there is every chance that more families could find their finances stretched beyond their limits in the months ahead.
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Post by Admin on Jul 15, 2020 13:19:44 GMT
No DSS’ adverts ruled unlawful in landmark victory for tenants against heartless landlords Posted by June Knight 15th July 2020 4 min read welfareweekly.com/no-dss-adverts-ruled-unlawful-in-landmark-victory-for-tenants-against-heartless-landlords/Heartless landlords will no longer be able to turn down tenants because they are on housing benefit after a judge ruled ‘No DSS’ adverts were discriminatory. Housing charity Shelter hailed the decision as “momentous” and said it should be the “final nail in the coffin” for a policy that has caused difficulties for countless numbers of vulnerable people over the years. The case at York County Court involved a single mother who inquired about renting a two-bedroom property in the city, but was told her application would not be considered as she was in receipt of housing benefit. District Judge Victoria Mark ruled that the prospective tenant had been indirectly discriminated against due to her sex and disability.
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Post by Admin on Jul 15, 2020 20:56:30 GMT
Disabled benefit claimants issue claim for lost income under universal credit system Posted by June Knight 15th July 2020 2 min read welfareweekly.com/disabled-benefit-claimants-issue-claim-for-lost-income-under-universal-credit-system/Disabled benefit claimants issue claim for lost income under universal credit system More than 300 severely disabled people have today issued a claim in the High Court for lost income under the universal credit system. The group, represented by Leigh Day solicitors, say they have each missed out on at least £170 a month since they were moved on to universal credit as the new benefits system has been rolled out across the UK. All of the group were moved on to the system before January, 2019 and lost the severe disability premium which they had previously claimed, which left them worse off. However, severely disabled people who have been moved on to universal credit since January 2019 have not missed out on the severe disability premium. Instead, their universal credit claims have been managed by the Severe Disability premium Gateway system which has been put in place to ensure that severely disabled benefits claimants do not end up worse off under the universal credit system. The claimants argue that they have suffered because of the unlawful implementation of the Universal Credit (Transitional Provisions) 2014, the SDP Gateway Regulations, January 2019, and the Managed Migrations Regulations 2019. They claim they have suffered discrimination under Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The claim has been issued after Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Therese Coffey, failed to substantively respond to a Pre Action Protocol letter sent on the claimants’ behalf by Leigh Day solicitors. They believe that up to 13,000 disabled people in the UK have been affected by the change and may be entitled to make a claim to retrieve lost benefit payments. Leigh Day solicitor Ryan Bradshaw said: “Our clients believe that it clearly cannot be right that they find themselves £170 a month worse off under the universal credit system when other claimants have the assurance that they will not be worse off on universal credit.” The claimants are asking the SSWP for compensation equal to the amount of money they have lost following their transfer to universal credit, for their previous level of benefits to be restored and maintained until a lawful migration scheme is established, and for compensation for the stress they have been caused. ENDS
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Post by Admin on Jul 18, 2020 16:28:42 GMT
At this time of national crisis, we need the Department for Work and Pensions to be supportive not punitive www.politicshome.com/thehouse/article/the-dwp-must-learn-from-the-lessons-from-being-ruled-to-be-acting-incompatibly-with-human-rights-legislationThe DWP has been ruled to be acting incompatibly with human rights legislation. The government must learn from this case – and work to build an improved system which supports people into employment This week, Parliament passed legislation that will re-instate the right to a fair hearing for jobseekers, who between 2011 and 2013 had lodged an appeal of a sanction decision but who had the right to have their appeal heard removed by the 2013 Jobseekers (Back to Work Schemes) Act 2013. I welcomed this legislation, but it is extraordinary that we got here in the first place – and has been the result of a punitive DWP culture that has prevailed since the days of the Tory-led Coalition Government. The Remedial Order passed on Tuesday is a route through which an Act of Parliament can be amended when there is an incompatibility between domestic law and a right under the European Convention on Human Rights. The cases in question go back to 2012, when Caitlin Reilly, an unemployed geology graduate, and Jamieson Wilson, an unemployed driver, brought a legal challenge against the Department for Work and Pensions on the basis that it had forced claimants to take on unpaid work for private companies or risk having their benefits cut through being sanctioned. Ms Reilly was told by her jobcentre advisor that if she did not attend an unpaid work placement in a Poundland store, she would be sanctioned, and her Jobseekers Allowance would be cut. Yet at the time, Ms Reilly has just completed a paid work experience placement at a museum, where she continued to volunteer with ambitions of pursuing a career in the field.
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Post by Admin on Jul 24, 2020 19:55:24 GMT
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Post by Admin on Jul 25, 2020 6:36:46 GMT
The right to buy: the housing crisis that Thatcher built Now revived by David Cameron, the right to buy social housing was a key Conservative policy in the 80s: populist, profitable, and with its disastrous effects yet to come www.theguardian.com/society/2015/aug/26/right-to-buy-margaret-thatcher-david-cameron-housing-crisisIn August 1980 Margaret Thatcher’s first government, barely a year old but already deeply unpopular and bogged down by problems, produced a Housing Act. Even more than most legislation it was prolix and repetitive, but its bold intention stood out: “to give ... the right to buy their homes ... to tenants of local authorities”. It envisaged a revolution in how a large minority of Britons lived. That revolution – which David Cameron’s government controversially hopes to revive by extending the right to buy to housing association tenants – had been an awfully long time coming. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, cleverly sown by the Conservatives in 1980 and doggedly cultivated by rightwing Britain ever since, selling off council homes was not a sudden stroke of genius by the Thatcher government. The idea was as old as council housing itself. “Nineteenth-century housing legislation required that council-built dwellings in redevelopment areas should be sold within 10 years of completion,” point out the historians Colin Jones and Alan Murie in their little-known but revelatory 2006 book The Right to Buy. During the 1920s council homes were sold “on a small scale”. During the 50s sales accelerated: 5,825 in May 1956 alone. By 1972 even a distinctly leftish Tory environment secretary, Peter Walker, could declare to his party conference that the ability of council tenants to buy their homes was a “very basic right”, and that they should be offered a 20% discount on the market price. Later in the 1970s, now a backbencher, Walker went further, suggesting that municipal properties should simply be given to their tenants. Michael Heseltine, the Conservative shadow environment secretary from 1976, who was close to Walker and like him had a populist side, agreed.
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Post by Admin on Jul 26, 2020 10:08:27 GMT
Proof that poverty is not failure but a trap Torsten Bell Research in Bangladesh reveals the tipping point under which the poor can’t break into higher-income opportunities www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/26/proof-that-poverty-is-not-failure-but-a-trapPoverty matters and it lasts. It reduces wellbeing today and limits life chances tomorrow. That’s why it’s a disgrace that in the UK the incomes of the poorest families actually fell in the pre-crisis years, leaving them no higher in 2018-19 than in 2001-02. That’s not what progress looks like, but is what big benefit cuts produce. For developing countries, the big question is why poverty lasts. That’s true between countries, where economic theory tells us incomes should converge but economic reality shows huge, lasting gaps. More than 700 million people lived in extreme poverty in 2015. But there are also debates about why poverty lasts for individuals in poorer countries when opportunities exist to earn more. Now innovative research on poverty in Bangladesh debunks the idea that individual choice or failure is the explanation. Instead, it is a poverty trap. Brilliantly using data from a programme that gave significant resources to poor families, the authors show there is a tipping point at around $500 (£391) under which people cannot sustainably break into higher-income opportunities. The idea of a poverty trap is far from new, but such clear evidence that big pushes are needed to break out of poverty traps very much is. As the authors write: “It is not their intrinsic characteristics that trap people in poverty but rather their circumstances.” The lesson? If circumstances are the problem, then those circumstances can and should be changed. • Torsten Bell is chief executive of the Resolution Foundation. Read more at resolutionfoundation.org
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Post by Admin on Jul 26, 2020 10:15:21 GMT
UK Government study into Social Mobility reports “vast geographical inequalities in opportunity and prosperity” in the UK. voicebritannia.co.uk/uk-government-issues-with-social-mobility/The results of the study is a wake-up call to Government, as it very clearly shows that the UK has major issues with Social Mobility; with data showing that if you the best chance of career success, with or without higher education, you have to move to London or another hot area. The Mobility commissions study also shows that those from more privileged backgrounds are more likely to move to prosperous areas and that they have better opportunities than those from poorer backgrounds. Although, there is a ray of light for those who would prefer to ‘stay at home’. The report documents how those who choose to stay in their home area often benefit from greater well-being and sense of community. As much as 64% of those who stayed owned their home, while only 55% of movers own property. It is thought that the homeownership leads to lower living costs, more personal connection (friends) and in general a Quality of life. In conclusion, the report clearly shows that social mobility in the UK is in a bad shape; with people forced to literally be mobile, as opposed to experiencing social mobility (ie into a better job, better home, more wealth and happiness); with some areas of England, like the North-east, seeming more like a social island that people have to emigrate from to the far-off English hot-lands if they want the best chance of being ‘successful’.
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Post by Admin on Jul 26, 2020 11:02:31 GMT
Trump, Congress condemn unemployed to starve 24 July 2020 As talks continue between the Trump administration and Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress, it is now clear that the $600-a-week extended federal benefit for the unemployed, in effect for the past four months, will be allowed to expire this week. Tens of millions of workers will suffer an outright cutoff of these benefits, and any restoration will take place only after weeks, if not months, and at a much lower level, if it happens at all. This is all the more significant in light of Thursday’s report that the number of workers filing new claims for unemployment compensation rose last week to 1.4 million, the first week-to-week rise in four months. Together with the 16.1 million workers who have continuing claims to unemployment compensation, those whose state claims have been exhausted but are still eligible for federal benefits, and those covered by Pandemic Unemployment Assistance for contractors and self-employed workers, the total number of workers now receiving federal payments is about 30 million: one in every five workers. The continued wrangling over the exact dimensions of an unemployment compensation extension already insures that millions will lose benefits beginning next week, simply because state unemployment offices will need a period of time to reprogram their systems, first to eliminate the $600 weekly federal supplement, then to restore the supplement at some much lower level if it is eventually approved. Workers in some states have still not received their initial payments based on the CARES Act passed in late March because antiquated computer systems collapsed under the impact of the largest and fastest surge in unemployment in American history. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has told his Republican caucus that no final deal will be approved by Congress until August, guaranteeing that tens of millions of workers will lose their federal supplement. Unemployment compensation payments will fall back to the grossly inadequate level paid by the states, averaging only $300 per week, and as low as $144 per week in Tennessee. This represents a cut of 64 percent in the weekly income of the typical unemployed worker, according to an analysis by the House Ways and Means Committee. McConnell and other top Senate Republicans were still discussing with the White House the proposed outlines of a Trump-backed plan to reinstate the federal supplement at a much lower level, as low as $200 a week, which Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin described as “based on approximately 70 percent wage replacement.” Even this plan—for an average 30 percent wage cut for workers laid off because of the coronavirus pandemic—would depend on bankrupt state governments raising unemployment compensation to partially offset the cut in the federal supplement. www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/07/24/pers-j24.html
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Post by Admin on Jul 26, 2020 15:55:30 GMT
The U.S. Inequality Debate Public policy experts call income and wealth inequality one of the defining challenges of our time. Recent crises have accelerated these divisions, and the coronavirus pandemic looks set to deepen them further. www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-inequality-debate
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Post by Admin on Aug 1, 2020 22:52:35 GMT
How the poor are made to pay for their poverty Barbara Ehrenreich for TomDispatch, part of the Guardian Comment Network Even the government now has discovered that pauperising people who already have little can still be a profitable business www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/may/18/how-poor-made-pay-for-povertyIndividually, the poor are not too tempting to thieves, for obvious reasons. Mug a banker and you might score a wallet containing a month's rent. Mug a janitor and you will be lucky to get away with bus fare to flee the crime scene. But as Businessweek helpfully pointed out in 2007, the poor in aggregate provide a juicy target for anyone depraved enough to make a business of stealing from them. The trick is to rob them in ways that are systematic, impersonal, and almost impossible to trace to individual perpetrators. Employers, for example, can simply program their computers to shave a few dollars off each paycheck, or they can require workers to show up 30 minutes or more before the time clock starts ticking. Lenders, including major credit companies as well as payday lenders, have taken over the traditional role of the street-corner loan shark, charging the poor insanely high rates of interest. When supplemented with late fees (themselves subject to interest), the resulting effective interest rate can be as high as 600% a year, which is perfectly legal in many states. It's not just the private sector that's preying on the poor. Local governments are discovering that they can partially make up for declining tax revenues through fines, fees, and other costs imposed on indigent defendants, often for crimes no more dastardly than driving with a suspended license. And if that seems like an inefficient way to make money, given the high cost of locking people up, a growing number of jurisdictions have taken to charging defendants for their court costs and even the price of occupying a jail cell. The poster case for government persecution of the down-and-out would have to be Edwina Nowlin, a homeless Michigan woman who was jailed in 2009 for failing to pay $104 a month to cover the room-and-board charges for her 16-year-old son's incarceration. When she received a back paycheck, she thought it would allow her to pay for her son's jail stay. Instead, it was confiscated and applied to the cost of her own incarceration.
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Post by Admin on Aug 1, 2020 22:55:08 GMT
The Great Debt Lie and the Myth of the Structural Deficit christchurchlabourparty.wordpress.com/2014/11/18/the-great-debt-lie-and-the-myth-of-the-structural-deficit/The case for austerity measures rests on the Great Debt Lie and the myth of the structural deficit. The 2008-9 recession was the worst we have had globally, for sixty years, and it was predicted by no-one. The Labour Government responded to the global crisis with fiscal stimulus. From the start of the financial crisis, Labour took decisive and clear action (including temporarily cutting VAT to boost demand), and it has become increasingly clear that it was this decisive action that brought about the green shoots of recovery (Radeke, 2009). This, combined with the usual effects on GDP of a recession, meant that the budget deficit rose. But without such swift action we simply would not have the signs of tentative recovery that we saw as a result. So what went wrong? What happened to the green shoots of recovery that were carefully nurtured by the last Labour Government? That…
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