To think there are more people becoming poorer in the UK

[fullyfurnished]

I don't know if it's because I am and live in a working class area but I can see my area becoming more run down, loads more people on the streets, more crime, loads of people unemployed. I've been living in this area for over ten years and things are just going downhill. I know covid has resulted in alot of job losses but the slow decline has been gone on for awhile now.

Anyone else noticed this in their area?

[coconutmonkey]

Yes, I believe the divide between the rich and poor is getting wider. The people in the middle are being slowly shunted along to the poorer side. The challenges of the last year and so-called resolutions such as furlough and UBI have a hell of a lot of blame at their feet.

[TheBullfinch]

I havent noticed it near me. Here, everyone seems to be having building or landscaping work done. Every other house has a skip on the drive way.

I do think that everywhere looks dirtier though in terms of litter and public building maintenance. The high streets were on the downward trajectory years before Covid hit because they're full of Rubbish, drunk people and its expensive to park.

[Marguerite2000]

It's probably the other way round in my area. It was more working class when I moved down here 30 years, it's noticeably more middle class now. Our high street took a few years to recover after 2008, but it did.

[workwoes123]

I don't live in the UK but pre-Covid we used to come "home" every year or two. And the changes are clear, and depressing and getting worse steadily. Massive potholes in every road, litter on every roadside. Shops in town centres have disappeared and been replaced by cheap crap Home Bargains type places, or betting shops, or Greggs or chain pubs / restaurants. Shopping centres with loads of gaps. My former local town can barely sustain a single cinema these days - and it's stuck on a crappy retail park outside town. And people look so poor and unhealthy. Much more obesity, both adults and children. Libraries closed or being run by volunteers. It's depressing.

[LakieLady]

@Crankley

savvy7
I disagree because you could increase the taxes of the very wealthiest without affecting the majority of the electorate.

This is no unrealistic. How long do you think it would take for their accountants to move their money offshore? They would end up paying less.

This happened years ago when Labour introduced a top tax rate of 96%, you couldn't see the rich and their money for dust, they all left the country.

Doesn't the US tax all US citizens, even if they live outside the US? Maybe we should have a bash at doing the same.

And we could run a book on how long it takes the likes of Branson and Philip and Tina Green to take out citizenship elsewhere.

[Dugee]

@savvy7

I think a lot of this (not all) is due to the failure to deal with housing costs.

Housing is essential - it shouldn't be seen as an investment. It is ridiculous that households with two people working are struggling to get a foot on the property ladder when in the 70s that was easily manageable for one working person.

Multiple home ownership should be heavily taxed.

This. Combined with the deregulation of credit in the late 90s and the removal of decent private sector pensions around the same time.

Meant that workers invested in property instead of pensions and were easily able to get the credit (mortgage) to do so.

Perfect storm.

[Dugee]

As for house price, half of Tory MPs are landlords. And you want them to vote to make renting and buying more affordable? Good luck with that.

Similar amount of labour MPs. Labour (from 1997 onwards) are equally as responsible as the Tories for the mess housing is in.

[osbertthesyrianhamster]

@FoxyTheFox

Yes - I've noticed this too. Yet the Tories are still polling relatively highly. I wonder if people just enjoy suffering

I think its more that the Tories are very adept at giving people someone to hate - immigrants, the EU, people on unemployment benefits, and so on. Shit rolls downhill so as long as there is someone beneath them in the pecking order and they continue to believe that "things will get better if we can tackle the problem of " then they'll continue to vote Tory. Obviously other reasons to vote Tory exist but in the area I live (red wall area that turned blue) the prevalent reason given for voting Tory for the first time is that "Boris said he'd get us out of the EU and then we'll have more jobs/money/opportunities" none of which are yet to materialise

This. Hence why you have the same old claptrap being wheeled out on every one of these threads, that people who cannot save or are poor are so through personal moral failing - they're entitled and spend money on frivolities and want everything now and if they (it's always they/othering) would be as good at being poor as they should be, they would not be poor. If you can't afford a home, any home, it's because you buy lattes and avocados.

[ClarkeGriffin]

@VladmirsPoutine

Yes - I've noticed this too. Yet the Tories are still polling relatively highly. I wonder if people just enjoy suffering.

Happens in scotland too. Seems our council of snp councillors have suddenly in one year gone from being in massive debt to having an extra £44million sitting around. But can't fix the roads, the schools, the hospital, they keep making changes that no one likes etc. But I can guarantee that the locals will vote in snp again. Because 'down with England robbing us' and all that, not seeing that their own party is doing the same. Bet our council tax gets increased again next year too.

[m0therofdragons]

My whole life I’ve heard the cries of no funding for nhs or education etc and it’s the same whichever Government’s in charge. My personal experience was my family was poorer under Blair’s labour - df made redundant, not entitled to benefits due to my dm’s working hours (didn’t take into account the amount she earned which was minimum wage). Under conservatives i was entitled to working tax credits for childcare when dc were little (which I felt was generous - we ate well rather than luxury holidays) and that was due to having a multiple birth and childcare for 3 was more than I earned and dh’s salary didn’t cover essentials so tax credits were a saviour. Now we are both working as dc are older and earn well (although not by mn standards).

I’ve not seen the area go down hill - town centre isn’t great but none are and I love shopping online or visiting our nearest city so I guess I’m part of the problem.

[worriedatthemoment]

Labour didn't do so great either
Min wage has meant thats what most offer, they were warned this may happen
They built very few council houses despite moaning about lack of them and what was sold
Under a labout goverment I struggled to feed my family, just because there wasn't food banks didn't mean people didn't need them
There all as bad as one another and a nig shake up is needed

[worriedatthemoment]

@Alsohuman because why did we have to have austerity and they were in power a good few years , they started some of the changes to the nhs
How many new hospitals or council houses did they build as wel

[worriedatthemoment]

@VladmirsPoutine yes your right a footballer who knew the struggle as his mum was in same position
What goverment were in power then? Have a quick look
They are both crap

[Kendodd]

The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. It’s always been that way.
Not true.
Wealth gaps have widened and the rich have got richer while everyone else's income has stagnated in recent years.
In the middle of the last century for decades the poor and middle class were the ones getting richer.
Government has a great deal of control over this.

[Alsohuman]

[quote worriedatthemoment]@Alsohuman because why did we have to have austerity and they were in power a good few years , they started some of the changes to the nhs
How many new hospitals or council houses did they build as wel[/quote]
We didn’t have austerity before 2010, it was completely unnecessary Tory ideology. The NHS was well funded by the last Labour government, waiting lists were short so were A&E queues. Local authorities build social housing, not government.

[Seymour5]

@Overdueanamechange

My grandmother will tell me stories about everyone have net curtains so "folks couldn't see what you didn't have". If you wanted benefits then an official would visit and tell you what furniture you needed to sell before you could claim anything. They mended clothes, brought jumpers from jumble sales to unravel and re knit, didn't run a car and thought they were well off if they had a black and white TV. You were posh if you ate out at all.

DH was unemployed for a few months in the early 70s. An inspector visited our home to ensure we weren't sitting on any assets. It was fairly humiliating. I was pregnant with DC2 at the time, and it was poverty level, in a crap house hundreds of miles from family.

Growing up, my parents weren't poor, but nearly everyone was careful and mended and repaired. People also cooked most things from scratch, and there was much less choice. My mother, like so many of the time, made my clothes and knitted and mended. My father was a manager, but we lived in rented housing, never had a car, and only got our first TV in 1960, which was black and white, and rented. We ate well, were always nicely clothed, but there was little spending on extras.

I think there is a lot more to spend money on nowadays, advertising has made people see what they could have, and deferred gratification seems to be disappearing. I was a council housing officer and worked on some fairly deprived estates, and the comparisons between households on similar incomes was surprising. Most of the difference was expensive debt, poor spending choices, and an inability to cook even the most basic meals from scratch.

[Cornettoninja]

Local authorities build social housing, not government

True but local authorities don’t get a sniff of what’s offered to the private sector to prop up the market.

I think one of the driving factors behind inequalities is the frankly bizarre push for public services to become more ‘corporate’. On the face of it, yes cutting costs is often an astute business decision but in the private sector that doesn’t work without also putting effort into generating revenue; something that public services don’t have as an option (and often have legislation/guidelines preventing them from attempting to do so) so things are just cut with no chance of ever getting a viable model implemented again without private buy outs (who then make their profit directly from the public purse ). There’s a whole side of the accounting sheet missing to make ‘corporate’ an optikn.

It’s a huge scam and will continue whilst the general public aren’t accepting of the fact that some services just cost with no direct tangible benefit but make a huge difference to society overall.