Poverty rate among working households in UK is highest ever

[HACO]

https://www.theguardian.com/society...mong-working-households-in-uk-is-highest-ever

IPPR thinktank blames higher rents, rising property prices and childcare costs for relative poverty reaching 17.4%

The relative poverty line is defined as 60% of the median equivalised household income, with any household under this amount being described as “in poverty”. Equivalisation means that households of different types have different poverty lines. In 2018/19 the poverty line for a single person was £147 a week, whereas for a couple with two young children it was £354.

Not surprised, a return to the Victorian era, maybe even feudalism. 4.3 million children live in poverty, 31% of all children in the country. At some point we just stopped caring, and this is the result, and it's going to get much worse.

 

[HACO]

This is a consequence of furlough and the middle classes doing well out of working from home.

A statistical quirk. Certainly other research suggests working people have been able able to save tons of cash across all demographics the past year.

Keyword here is "relative", there was this thing called the pandemic which we're just starting to emerge from - lots of people furloughed or temporarily unemployed etc.. vs richer people relatively less affected, stock markets have done very well ergo the relative gap changes.

Likewise, if you look back at the financial crisis "relative" poverty in fact decreased, not because anyone became substantially poorer but rather because stock markets fell and so richer people were relatively less well off (or at least the $ value of their portfolio had gone down a bit even if there was no real substantial change to their lifestyle.).

Looks like neither of you actually bothered to read it before rushing to justify it. These stats are released now, but are measured up to March 2020. Before the furlough scheme.

This year's numbers will look much much worse.

 

[HACO]

So you agree that it's a worthless measurement then?

Your argument that it was the result of furlough was worthless.

 

[HACO]

But if Furlough impacts it even though the evidence is, people across demographics have been able to save money hand over fist then as you agreed, as a measurement of poverty, “relative poverty” is a fairly useless one.

Think about it like this, are more people living in poverty if another group have become wealthier? Of course not, as a measurement, relative poverty is useless.

Don't get me wrong, working poverty is a problem that needs addressed (along with the benefit trap mentioned above), but measuring relative poverty is completely pointless as it's not something that has a practical solution beyond massaging the figures.

It depends on whether one group is becoming wealthier at the expense of another, e.g. whether there is a transfer of wealth between groups, or whether a group has now increased expenses due to the increased wealth of another. The answer to both of those is a resounding yes in this country, with wage stagnation and the costs of housing, education and childcare increasing at 10x the rate of inflation, and 15x the rate of wage growth.

 

[HACO]

Why?

Genuinely given your feelings at your job etc what is wrong with factory work?

Its physical and detailed, it easily occupies your base mind and conversation can occupy the rest of you, or a nice audio book, netflix documentary or your open university course.


I'd take a bit of menial manual labour in a factory over menial mental labour in a small office. Not because one is any more worthwhile than the other, just one is more suited to a human body

So what do we acrualy do with the people who aren't intelligent enough for a "proper job" but not so behind as to be disabled?

(The 75-85 kind of Iq rang)


They aren't going anywhere but the numbers will increase along with everyone else.

There's nothing wrong with factory jobs, or any other jobs.

However, at some point there will just be no need for them in the economy. Most factory job that the average 75-85 IQ person will be doing can be automated away within the next couple of decades. A lot of them are already automated.

UK will never be a factory job powerhouse, employing a ton of people in factories. The time for that has passed, and even if we bring back factories and production into the country, it will be automated factories requiring very few actual factory workers.

Heinz is the newest example, who just pledged to invest into a UK production line for their sauces. They are going to produce their entire UK sales here in the UK, investing $200 million into their product line, but are only planning to employ 50 people permanently. 20 years ago the same production capacity required almost 1000 full-time workers.

https://news.sky.com/story/heinz-brings-ketchup-manufacturing-back-to-uk-in-140m-investment-12321966

 

[HACO]

You see a similar trend with Adidas. Especially now the Bangladeshis are asking to be treated like humans with decent and safe working conditions.

Yeah. Slave labour is cheap, robotic production lines are the next best thing. They don't need to be paid, they don't even complain or ask for a break and can work 24/7. And once they've outlived their usefulness you can throw them into recycling and build new ones.

This is something we need to be thinking about for the long term. Factory jobs will continue to decline, and back office automation makes a lot of office jobs redundant as well. Any economy that heavily relies on these jobs is going to have a rough time adjusting to the new realities. And certainly no country should be betting on these sort of jobs to carry it forward.

At some point in the next few decades we may need to rethink our entire way of life.

 

[HACO]

You sound like a man that would enjoy the book Abundance.

Yeah I like it. But I'm a lot more pessimistic about the future. We do have a great opportunity to improve the way of life of everyone on the planet, but I don't think we're going to do that. Our priorities as a society and our short-term way of thinking in politics means we will do the wrong things every step of the way.

 

[HACO]

My money's on a great human die-off (or cull) or some other cataclysm. For the mid-to-long term.

Climate change could play a part, with 3 billion people currently living in areas that will be uninhabitable within 50 years:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020...te-change-greenhouse-gas-niche-emissions-hot/

That mass migration could lead humanity into a very ugly place, the likes of which we have never seen before. Less than 3 million migrants caused the migrant crisis of the last decade, imagine if there were 500 million migrants coming to Europe from Africa and the Middle East.

I don't think we have it in us to create some utopian paradise for all. Our core ethos is that there should be "winners" and "losers". People at the top and people at the bottom. Creating a society for the mutual benefit of all would require some very non-human thinking.

The utopian paradise paradigm isn't helpful. The reality is never like that, and our goal should be to improve the way of life for everyone, step by step. There can always be winners and losers, but life could suck less and less for losers, or hopefully, it could just not suck at all even if you're a "loser".