poverty
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Zoom Privilege: COVID-19 restrictions are making the rich richer & everyone else poorer
Wall Street, Washington, D.C., and Silicon Valley are swimming in cash and prosperity. 2020 could not have gone better for the country’s elites. The vast majority of Americans, on the other hand, have been forced into financial, physical, and emotional ruin. 2020 served as the year that government dictates — purposed with fighting a disease… Continue reading
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John Pilger: ‘I spoke to impoverished families in 1975 and little has changed since then’
John Pilger interviewed Irene Brunsden in Hackney, east London about only being able to feed her two-year-old a plate of cornflakes in 1975. Now he sees nervous women queueing at foodbanks with their children as it’s revealed 600,000 more kids are in poverty now than in 2012. Continue reading
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Welfare Weekly Newsletter 4 May 2020
4 May 2020 — Welfare Weekly One in five UK households with children go hungry during Covid-19 lockdown UK Government facing mounting pressure to strengthen the social security safety net. Read the post Continue reading
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UK Welfare Weekly 22 February 2020
22 February 2020 — Welfare Weekly Disabled gran ‘virtually housebound’ after DWP slashed her vital benefits lifeline She says the cruel decision has left her feeling “anxious” and “isolated” after she was also forced to return her mobility car. Continue reading
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UK pensioners suffer massive increase in poverty By Thomas Scripps
The proportion of pensioners living in severe poverty, receiving less than 40 percent of median household income, has climbed to five times the level of 1986. This is an increase from 0.9 percent to 5 percent. It is the largest increase among western European countries, taking the UK from one of the lowest rates to… Continue reading
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Cruel Brittannia – The Road To Ruin
By Graham Vanbergen: Britain is, as I have said so many times now, circling the plughole. It’s becoming so … American isn’t it. Corrupt self-serving politicians in bed with bankers and hedge funds are driving the country towards the abyss. And all the indicators for a fully functioning democracy and the society its serves continues… Continue reading
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Nearly five million people in the UK live in “deep poverty” By Dennis Moore
A study by the Social Metrics Commission (SMC) finds that more than 4 million people in the UK are mired in “deep poverty,” with an income at least 50 percent below the official poverty line. Many families in this bracket struggle to pay for the most basic essentials. Continue reading
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UK: Over 1,300 homeless people penalised last year under the 1824 Vagrancy Act By Joe Mount
Thousands of people are being prosecuted every year in the UK under the draconian Georgian-era Vagrancy Act 1824. This outlaws begging and rough sleeping “in any deserted or unoccupied building, or in the open air, or under a tent, or in any cart or waggon, not having any visible means of subsistence.” Continue reading
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UN report on UK poverty – “systemic immiseration” of millions across the UK
Whilst the news headlines are dominated with the continued implosion of the Conservative Party who now aim to have a third leader in as many years whilst Britain circles the plughole, the reality of the crisis of daily life for half the population continues to worsen. Continue reading
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Welfare Weekly 10 February 2019
10 February 2019 Twin brothers found hanging from the same tree after benefits stopped Read more Continue reading
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UK: The 2018 State of the Nation Report
Britain does produce an annual state of the nation report other than one referring to social mobility. The Social Mobility Commission’s 2017 report (see link below) starts with the words: “Britain is a deeply divided nation.” Their report is interesting this year as it ventures more broadly into areas such as education, employability and housing… Continue reading
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She Works Hard for the Money By Philip A Farruggio
She just turned 30, has three children, receives no welfare (except SSI for her Down’s Syndrome daughter), no food stamps anymore (she earns too much at $ 24k a year to get much), has no health coverage for herself (the kids are on Medicaid), and like the Donna Summer’s song “Works hard for the money! Continue reading
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New research documents heightened social inequality in Britain By Simon Whelan
According to research conducted for the UK’s Post Office, the richest fifth of British society have a spare £18,680 annually after living costs to place in savings. This is more than many workers and unemployed have to budget for an entire year. Meanwhile, the poorest fifth of society will spend almost £2,000 (£1,910) more than… Continue reading
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Austerity forces British children into record levels of poverty By Joe Mount
By 2020, an estimated 5 million children—one-third of all children in Britain—will be “sentenced to a lifetime of poverty,” according to new research from the Save the Children charity. An additional 1.4 million children will be forced into poverty during the next six years, according to the research. Continue reading
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The new aristocracy in Britain By Jordan Shilton
Remarking on social conditions at the end of the 18th century, Thomas Paine wrote, “The contrast of affluence and wretchedness continually meeting and offending the eye is like dead and living bodies chained together.” More than 200 years later, Paine’s scathing critique of social inequality can be applied even more forcefully to modern day Britain,… Continue reading
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Britain’s richest 1% own as much as poorest 55% of population By Phillip Inman
Britain’s richest 1% have accumulated as much wealth as the poorest 55% of the population put together, according to the latest official analysis of who owns the nation’s £9.5tn of property, pensions and financial assets. In figures that also lay bare the extent of inequality across the north-south divide, the Office for National Statistics said… Continue reading
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America’s hungry 21st Century By Andre Damon
Feeding America, the US national network of food banks, released its annual report on local food insecurity Thursday, showing that one in six Americans, including one in five children, did not have enough to eat at some point in 2012. Continue reading
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Global Research: The Globalization of Poverty: Inside the New World Order
Michel Chossudovsky takes the reader through an examination of how the World Bank and IMF have been the greatest purveyors of poverty around the world, despite their rhetorical claims to the opposite. These institutions, representing the powerful Western nations and the financial interests that dominate them, spread social apartheid around the world, exploiting both the… Continue reading
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UK continues mass experiment in human despair By John Wight
Food banks don’t lie. Their proliferation over the term of the current government confirmation that Britain in 2014 is a nation in which poverty, destitution, and the inevitable despair which follows on from those maladies is worse than at any time since the Second World War. Continue reading
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Report reveals the new face of UK poverty By Tom Pearse
Figures for 2011/12 show 13 million people are in poverty, with the study warning that this situation will get worse. What the report calls the “calm surface” of current poverty statistics is hiding “a sharp shift downwards.” Noting that pay is still falling relative to prices, and that the real value of benefits will fall… Continue reading
The New Dark Age 