How much worse can the cost of living get before society breaks down?

[TheGardenRose]

I'm genuinely getting worried. Weekly shop now £72. It was around £40-50 not so long ago.

It's already breaking down. Go to most towns in the UK. There's a long way down though

There’s quite a lot to break down, so crumbling will last for ages.

Actual civil unrest? I could draw you a map of the likely usual flashpoints. First big riots I remember was as a child in 1981. When I was at University I met someone who had actually lived in one of the areas they were in. He remembered the fires of Toxteth as a small child.

Countrywide civil unrest sort of revolution style? No that’s not happening anytime soon. People may be really struggling and places may be a bit grim but we are far from that. There is an argument that The welfare state is not there purely for altruistic reasons it’s to make people behave.

Until civil unrest reaches the leafy suburbs that politicians live in it will remain the same. Their kids don’t tend to go to schools where gangs reign supreme, I’m sure loads pop discreetly to private medical appointments, they don’t live like the majority of people. An example of this is the Labour MP Diane Abbot put her child through private school and I remember the furore about that coming out after she had criticised other MP’s for using the private school system.

The flashpoints tend to be places where the poorest live so they just destroy each others properties. Obviously you get the occasional protest go very wrong in London.

We are nowhere near it.

The USA are far more likely to break down way before us due to spiraling costs and no safety nets.

I’m 67 and lived through two (noticeable) recessions. My take is slightly different.
If you can afford to eat something, have enough (of any) clothes for the weather, a home to live in and some form of power (for most of the time) you’re living.
Anything else we’ve become used to, all those things that used to be a desirable, has now become thought of as a necessity. Take away coffees, Deliveroo and the like. Fast fashion. So many things .
During the recession in the seventies we are very simply, heated just the one room with a coal fire, and due to power cuts, did homework by candlelight. And just a battery radio as no power. But we survived, elected a different government and things swung to be so much better.
The majority will grumble but only a few will riot. What worries me is the underclass created by weak willed politicians refusing to legislate over the last few years. Thank goodness I don’t live in a town.

A lot more.

the uk has riots on a relatively regular basis - I’m old and I remember the early 80s plus lots more.

the government generally stamp on them bloody hard.

the best analogy to our times now is the 1970s when there was also oil crises.

they had the three day week, lots of inflation.

it’ll take a LOT to properly break down law and order in this country.

fuel rationing etc I could see being easy to bring in though

You can still afford to eat and will continue to be able to afford something. Societies have survived hyperinflation.

In reality all these price rises are nothing in comparison to how these rises are impacting other parts of the world. It's thought that the current crisis is liable to cause significant issues with potential famine in areas were one meal a day survival level subsistence is the norm (due to issues with fertiliser).

It's unrest and further crisis in these areas from this potential issue that you need to be worried about not your cost in your trolley now.

Food riots happen when people are literally starving or there is nothing to buy in the shops, not when the big shop costs a little more than it did a couple of years ago.

The developing world may find this soon if the situation in Iran is not resolved as they rely on the oil for fertiliser.

The situation is awful, people in the developing world will die - all because of Trump's ego and malignant nacissim

So I'm not allowed to be worried because I'm not in other part of the world. Thanks.

Shoplifting will increase but breakdown of social order? we are far from that. Many people are mortgage free or have small mortgages so whilst higher food & utilities costs are frustrating they still have the spare cash.

I do think we may see more young skilled people leaving the country which will exacerbate demographics but it’s not unexpected.

DD was recently in Turkey and she was shocked at the inflation rates they’ve been facing.

Not the point but imagine going through all.that public abuse and fighting to give your child the best future you son STILL ends up a drug addict arrested for assaulting NHS staff and police officers...

To answer OP. Its been coming for a while... everything sown to people not bothering to indicate when driving (whyyyy it takes close to no effort!?!) are signs its all unravelling.

I used to think gated communities were hideous... now I see the appeal...

Everyone says about the cost of food and that’s definitely a big thing, but the other day I rang up about my electricity and health insurance and asked about my bills. I said ‘I paid x off last month and now the next bill is pretty much the same’ (our car broke down and heating so are behind in a lot of bills at the moment and paying extra instalments. Both people said it had gone upon the last month. It had been in the news but paying a large amount off and it doing nothing … it’s insanity. And we’re in Ireland where the government has ONLY JUST acknowledged they might need to help, up until now it was just unfortunate but it’s in line with the rest of the Eu being trotted out

This is an absurd statement.

GDP in the US is now more than 50% higher than it is in the UK (it was only about 20% higher in the early 90s). Their economy is CONSIDERABLY stronger than ours and is not anything like as susceptible to the cost of living issues we're currently facing.

Unfortunately successive governments have made our economy so much weaker now that it's caused potential civil unrest problems - massive taxation, massive spending on welfare and massive spending on Net Zero is to blame.

This interactive is interesting, showing the share of expenditure spent on food
vs. total consumer expenditure for different countries. Have a play around with it.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/food-expenditure-share-gdp

In the UK, we spend only 8.7% of our total consumer expenditure on food. That is more than the USA' (6.8%) but noticeably less than our European neighbours: eg Italy (14.7%), France (12.6%), Sweden (13%) or Japan (15.8)...and much, much less than less wealthy but still stable countries such as Turkey (22.8%), India (29.9%), Egypt (36.9%)

I am nearly 70. We are both working part time. On a personal level I worry about my health. I've never been big on stuff or spending, I agree with @Loopylalalou People have got used to coffees out/ Deliveroo and so on.
Damn it! I like a meal I haven't made. I'd like a holiday, no chance.

The "society" is running on fumes. There are no public services, you are on your own.

Ages yet. Lots of people are still housed, clothed and warm. Yes, our food shop has gone up and we’ve pulled out belt in - we’re eating out less and buying less crap. As a result we’re spending more time together as a family at home, and the house is cleaner and less cluttered

We’re not financially better off than a year ago but I’ll be honest, we’re happier.

I live in a wealthy area, we are finding it hard but the cafes, soft plays, restaurants are as full as ever. Plenty of people talking about holidays abroad this summer and new cars. We can’t afford any of these things - the 12% rise in childcare this year took away the last spare money. But there are plenty of people who don’t seem to be feeling it, I’m not sure what we are doing wrong (both work full time; have cut back on all the luxuries).

There is no such thing as society, Thanks Thatcher. Individuals are the way forward.

OP have you been to John Lewis lately? Glance at a skirt ( for example) Price tag £89.00. Plenty people buying. Look at the cars people are driving. Some people have money.

This misses the point that unrest doesn’t occur because of a particular level of survival, it happens because of a complete change of life. You say “we survived” but you appear to be forgetting just how grim the late 70s / early 80s were for a lot of people. There was massive civil unrest. The same is true of the early 90s. If you think back half a century prior to that and the Great Depression, life was objectively better for the vast majority of people by the 80s than it was in the 1930s. People lived in squalor, had fewer rights, fewer luxuries. Power was not yet standard in homes, they didn’t have portable gas fires to provide heat. People from that era would have looked at the relative comfort of the 80s and wondered why you thought having no power sometimes was a problem. That was how they lived all the time and they would have loved to have a few days a week where they didn’t have to huddle in one room with a candle. The problem for you in those recessions wasn’t about what you had, it was about what you didn’t have. And there was massive civil unrest.

This will also be true for anyone driven to civil unrest now. It won’t be about not having a deliveroo, but it will be about having no access to internet, to not being able to afford a weekly shop, facing food shortages of items which have become part of daily life. Of course we can survive in one room with a candle sharing a tin of cold beans, (fewer homes have coal fires and coal is also massively inefficient and expensive) but to suggest we just have to live through that and vote in a different government is very naive. No government of any colour is going to turn this around for the U.K. The global supply chains and interdependency of economies was not a factor in the 80s. We also don’t have an oil boom we can rely on to boost our coffers as we did when Thatcher came to power. The wealth gap, the fact our assets have been bought up by the rich and the rest of us are paying way more for that, the fact that modern day Britain requires modern day facilities. If there is a shortage of power, people will be unable to work. Either to get there or to actually do their job. The commute for most isn’t a ten minute walk or cycle along the road, they need a bus or a train.

The problem won’t be what people have, it is what people don’t have. That is always true. Stories of how you survived with a hoop and a stick and cardboard in your shoes are irrelevant to today’s society.

Yes, this. The person who does my eyebrows was telling me about a 6 k holiday??

@strawberrybubblegum our food is cheap but housing & childcare costs? Not so much…. isn’t our public transport one of the most expensive in the world!

The statistics overall don’t bear this out. Customer numbers in hospitality have fallen by about 25%, as has customer spend, and an estimated 1/3 of cafes/restaurants are operating at a loss. Overseas holiday bookings have dropped by around 10% and the travel sector also has had a lot of companies going out of business or are very close to doing so.

I’m not sure what the standard of “wealthy” is in the area you live, buy in my modestly wealthy life (combined income of about £130k) whilst we are not in any way struggling, we are cutting back. With a child about to go to university, and uncertainty over the future, we are looking to protect ourselves from any major economic shock that may be coming. We eat out less, we consider our spending more, the words “can we afford it” have come back into our vocabulary after about 15 years of not really having to consider it. We no longer have a cleaner, we switched our disabled daughter’s (necessary) gym membership from private to Local Authority. I bring lunch to work instead of spending £8 a day on a sandwich and a packet of crisps from the closest deli. Our dog walker will be next, can we afford 5 days a week when either one of us is WFH every day. I’m not complaining about any of that, I know we are fortunate to be in our situation, I can clean my own house and walk my own dog and make my own lunch. I mention those things because us not having a cleaner is one more person whose income is lower. Us not eating out is another restaurant/cafe struggling to survive. My dog walker is £50 a week down if I cut back. Those who are in this middle/a bit higher income bracket having to tighten their belts isn’t something we’ve seen for a while. It isn’t a case of “boo hoo are your diamond shoes too tight”, it’s a case of the service industry contracting which means more lower paid workers are struggling to find work, which means income related benefits are higher, inflation goes up, so interest rates go up and the situation gets worse and worse.

I don’t know what the answer is. But your situation isn’t unique and what you are seeing around you probably isn’t the whole picture.

I agree @BoredZelda. Similar income & definitely cut back. Inflation & frozen tax bands has done a real number on salaries.

I could increase my hours but it’s all taxed at 50% so not worth the time list at the moment

I do feel perplexed when I read about people on 130K who are cuttign back on a dog walker.

It's a different world.