Inter-Generational Inequity

It is now a commonplace for even Tory politicians to acknowledge that the under-thirties [on average] have a less affluent lifestyle than the over-sixties. There are, of course, obscenely wealthy young people in sport, entertainment, entrepreneurship [especially in 'technology'] and in the arts: but the median and the average for the age group indicate a lower level of home ownership, a higher level of debt, lower real income and lower expectations than were common among their parents.

There are, of course, desperately poor old people and middle-aged people whose fate can be ascribed to the inhibitions of their ethnicity [especially among low-aspiration native British] or to illness, or to having been failed by the education system [including careers advice], or to drink, drugs, inappropriate social relationships or pure bad luck. Sadly, all these causes of relative poverty afflict a significant proportion of the under-forties [and, indeed, the under-twenties] as well as their grandparents' generation.

More than ever is spent on pensions, schools, the heath service and benefits each year: but the 'deprived' cohorts continue to increase and state provision misses millions of cases of need. The idea that we have  a welfare state is no longer uttered: 'universal credit'  as a pair of words should imply a sort of superior welfare state that reaches everybody who needs it and makes sufficient wealth available for every recipient to have a modestly comfortable lifestyle; but it has no such resonance.

The great benefit that universal credit is meant to confer on its recipients is that it provides them with an absolutely minimal standard of living whilst they are goaded into taking a minimum-wage job. Thus it is part of the downward escalator by which the British people are being habituated to lower expectations, as economic growth stalls and productivity continues to plummet.

The current crunch-point that is having the greatest political wind-space at this moment is housing, and it is almost certain that the upcoming budget will offer increased spending on housing. The key fact to remember about the house building sector is that they have satisfied their market very satisfactorily since the credit crunch: in the sense that the people who have [or can borrow] the money to buy flats and houses have had plenty to choose from. In some areas they can not find exactly the sort of property that pleases them, because all the pretty cottages with roses round the door have been bought already, and conservation zones have not been upset by much development; but in general the affluent have been able to buy more-or-less what they wish. The great lack is of 'affordable' housing, which in the welfare state era was provided largely on a rental or rent-to-buy basis by local authorities and housing associations. In one of the many cretinous supposed 'achievements' of the Thatcherites, the local authority housing was largely sold at knock-down prices to existing tenants [thereby breaking the cycle by which tenants saved the money with which to pay a deposit on their own home, and thus they freed the house for the next aspirant]; and then the government banned the local authorities from spending the pittance they received for the sold houses on building replacements. The reduced stock of social housing very largely became occupied by the 'hereditary paupers' who were created by the destruction of industry. Everybody with any social awareness knows the nature of the housing crisis. Blairites and the Cameron-Clegg clique ignored it. Now it is so acute that it is a major electoral concern, as is evidenced in all the opinion surveys.

Some pathetically inadequate steps will be announced in the upcoming budget, which the infinitely-untrustworthy John McDonnell will mock as he repeats his promise to borrow to spend to solve social problems.

Behind this lie the simple facts that the present socio-economic disaster that is epitomised in the housing situation was politically created, at the behest of Economists. In Economists' terms, the housing market works well: those who can afford to buy houses and flats can get houses and flats, more or less where they want them. But the mass of the rising generation cannot afford to buy the houses that are available: their purchasing-power is insufficient because of the failure of the economy to achieve the necessary state of productiveness. Many of them have been taken so far down the scale of real incomes that they cannot even afford to hire clean, safe accommodation at a reachable distance from where they could hope to get a genuinely remunerative job. Nothing that the current Tory deadbeats can countenance will solve the problem.

Housing is the touchstone of a much more general social and economic failure - by the political system. The inequity to which is gives rise works hardest against the young: but the older generations of their families are increasingly drawn in to sharing the consequences. The voters'revolt, as it grows, will include more parents and grandparents: they are less likely to be conned by Corbyn and McDonnell; so the political means by which this societal problem - like the Brexit crisis - will be resolved is yet to become apparent. Time is short.

Poverty: What Poverty?

The IFS [a highly respected think-tank] has guesstimated that the standard of living of a significant proportion of the UK population will decline in real terms [in purchasing power] by around 7% by the end of 2013. Price increases have been accelerating as the Bank of England has pumped more money into the stagnating economy, as key commodity prices have risen globally: while incomes have not compensated for the those price increases. This is compounded by a steady decline in the value of the pound against other currencies.

It all makes nonsense of past and present governments' declarations that they plan to 'eliminate child poverty', because low-income households with children will figure prominently in the data on declining real incomes.
There is no precise definition of 'poverty': the basic assumption is that a household that is not receiving  60% of the median income is 'poor'. This formula causes the number of impoverished people to rise quickly when salaries are increasing rapidly, because increases in benefits lag behind salaries even if they are indexed to inflation. This is really just a statistical device.

Few children arrive in school these days without shoes, hungry and suffering from hypothermia; as many did in the early day of compulsory attendance in the nineteenth century. But there are many indicators of profound and serious  relative deprivation: and these are becoming more common. Parents are increasingly depriving themselves of everyday products and experiences to ensure that their children are adequately maintained; but in a society where standard of living expectations are driven by social media and advertorial promotions many children complain bitterly about not being able enjoy the lifestyle that seems to them to be a norm. Thus the pressure on parents and the tension within families increases, and this is predicted to affect millions more parents and children within the present decade.

Behind the statistics lies an intensification of pressure points within households that cannot be fixed by any of the measures that have failed over recent decades or by Ian Duncan Smith's proposals. The process of impoverishment will inexorably increase domestic friction and the incidence of depression  among increasing swathes of the population who will be powerless to change their situation. Physical manifestations such as chillblains and boils will serve as omens for more alarming evidence of undernourishment and sleep deprivation through coldness. Simple statistics may serve as the mileposts on the route; but social outcomes - leading to medical situations - will be the more potent proof that the apparently inexorable increase of poverty is advancing.