08.06.1995

Poverty threatens us all

STATISTICALLY poverty is amazingly complex, even if the reality is dismally simple. A recent study, The Distribution of UK Household Expenditure 1979-92, shows that spending by the poorest actually went up 14% while their income went down 18%. According to The Guardian (May 25), “the data is collected in such a way that benefit fraud is unlikely to explain the results”.

Secretary of State for Social Security, Peter Lilley, claims that “the poor are not getting poorer” and that “everybody is now part of the opportunity society.”

The more realistic explanation of the paradox of falling income and rising expenditure is that individuals move in and out of acute poverty. While at the bottom they spend savings and borrow in order to make ends meet.

If only for a short time, millions have experienced the desperation of life at the bottom, and millions more face its threat. Each day they wonder how long their job will last.

Unemployment represents an enormous permanent loss of production and human potential. It blackmails workers into compliance with the bosses’ will, forcing them to accept pay cuts and worse working conditions. Poverty may be temporary for many individuals, but it is permanent and growing for society as a whole.

Arthur Lawrence

Low average

THE AVERAGE male wage or salary in Britain is now a little less than £340 per week. But there has been a rise in stoppages of eight percent (about three percent gross), leading to an actual fall in net take-home income to about £260. This is £15 short of the Communist Party’s minimum income demand of £275 per week.