Anti-Austerity
Austerity is a policy that aims to transfer resources away from the most disadvantaged and undermine social justice.
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The Politics of Poverty
Dr Simon Duffy explores ONS data on inequality and poverty and tries to get behind the myths and lies used to exploit the poorest in the UK.
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Collapse of Social Care (2009-2016)
Austerity has seen a radical reduction in the number of people supported by adult social care, with a 40% drop in 6 years.
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Public Expenditure & GDP (1976-2019)
Data on public spending in the UK suggests that public spending has oscillated around 40% and seems utterly sustainable.
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How Incomes Changed (percent) (1977-2014)
Between 1977 and 2014 tax and benefit policy has been designed primarily to life the incomes of middle-income families
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How Incomes Changed (1977-2014)
Between 1977 and 2014 tax and benefit policy in the UK has been designed primarily to lift the incomes of middle-income families
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Changing Post-Tax-Benefit Incomes (1977-2014)
Government policy, from 1977 to 2014 has primarily focused on lifting the incomes of middle-income groups while avoiding raising taxes for the richest.
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Changing Income Distribution (1977-2014)
Between 1977 and 2014 the most dramatic changes incomes were of the richest, whose incomes increased radically, and for middle-income groups where incomes fell
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The Different Kinds of UK Benefits
Benefit expenditure is primarily focused on pensions, housing costs and the collapse in middle-income salaries.
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Real Poverty
Poverty is not just lack of money, its also isolation, disadvantage and exclusion
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How Benefits are Distributed
Graphic:
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Growth v Equality
Since 1949 income inequality has got progressively worse, however this has no positive economic effect on growth.
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Doughnut Economics
Conventional economics is broken. Here is the radical alternative we need to shape a better future which works for people and planet, David Towell reviews Doughnut Economics.
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Industrialised Humanity
David Zigmond reviews the film I, Daniel Blake and argues that it reveals, not only the cost of austerity, but also the industrialisation and automation of our relationships.
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Relative Poverty
Materials developed by Les Monaghan as part of his project to show the reality of poverty in modern Britain.
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Unfair Burden of Cuts
Since 2010 the UK Government has announced a series of severe cuts to benefits and to local government and social care.
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Unfair Targeting of Cuts
Since 2010 the UK Government has carried out a series of cuts or 'welfare reforms' reducing the incomes of disabled people and people in poverty.
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Government Cuts
Since 2010 the UK Government has increased funding in some areas, protected funding in other areas and severely targeted funding in others.
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Benefit Fraud is Tiny
Benefit fraud is minuscule; in statistical terms it is insignificant. Tax fraud and tax avoidance are the real problems.
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Poor Pay Different Taxes
The poor pay a higher rate of tax than the rich. Essentially the poor are paying higher taxes, because they are paying different taxes to the rich.
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Inequality and Poverty
In 2016 the poorest 6.5 million individuals in the UK lived on an average of £51 per week after tax, that's about £7 per day.
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The Poor Pay the Most Tax
The very high levels of indirect taxes mean that the poorest 10% of the population pay about 11% more in tax than the rest of the population.
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Real Cost of Benefits
Spending on benefits and pensions is often exaggerated by politicians by only referring to the gross cost, before people pay taxes.
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Inequality Growth
The UK is one of the most unequal developed countries in the world. Inequality effectively doubled in the 1980s &1990s and has continued at these extreme levels ever since.
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Disabled People Hit by Multiple Cuts
Part of the report Counting the Cuts in 2014, which calculated the cumulative impact of the UK's austerity policies on disabled people and people in poverty.