The Destitution Generation

Craig Dalzell“Destitution is no longer a rare occurrence in the UK. Around 1.8 million households experienced destitution in the UK at some point over the course of 2022. These households contained approximately 3.8 million people, of whom around one million were children.”The Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s latest report into extreme poverty in the UK should be a must-read for every elected politician in the state, for it is collectively their responsibility that this has happened and their responsibility to fix it.Whenever I’ve talked about poverty rates in these newsletters it’s almost inevitable that someone will reply with a comment such as “this is relative poverty – they’d still be relatively poor even if everyone’s income doubled”. This report is not that. This is not just a rise in people falling behind the average income (the income inequality created by the Thatcher years has remained at a high level since the early 90s and has barely changed since then). The JRF took a basket of six items deemed essential for life: food, heating, clothes, toiletries, lighting and shelter and defined destitution as a household that was unable to buy or obtain a sufficient amount of at least two of those items to fully meet their needs in the previous month. Consider your own living situation right now. If you had to do without two of those for a month, which would you choose?Most (61%) of destitute households lack food to some degree. The energy crisis has seen a large rise in those who lack heating and lighting. 22% have slept rough for at least part of the previous month. More than a third of destitute households suffer a lack of not just two essential items but four of the six. Which four would you choose to give up to maintain the other two?We know that this is a deliberate political choice (not a failing of politics – a deliberate choice) because we see that while while only one in ten destitute households have any income from paid work (until the much greater levels of households who are working but still deeply poor), most – over 70% - of destitute households are in receipt of some form of social security. It’s just that that social security is deeply inadequate. The UK chooses, deliberately, to maintain “benefits” at a rate so low as to keep people from living at an adequate standard. They do this “for the encouragement of others” – if you live in fear of becoming destitute, then you are much more likely to work for lower wages and conditions (Ask for too much and there’s a poor person behind you who’ll take the job at a lower price! Get too mouthy with your boss when they abuse your rights and you’ll be replaced). The UK’s economic model is driven by the threat of poverty and destitution. The UK is not a country of rich people, but a rich country where the vast majority of the people have been deliberately impoverished to line the pockets of a very few, very rich people.The counter example in this report is Scotland, where changes to devolution in 2017 brought in the ability to introduce additional forms of social security and these do seem to have had some level of impact – particularly due to the Scottish Child Payment. The report highlights that Scotland is now below the UK average for destitution however this isn’t because the level of destitution in Scotland has come down – it has merely increased at a slower rate than everywhere else.And this is where I’d caution celebrating the impact that Scotland is having. If you take a random sample of 1,000 households in England, nine are destitute while “only” eight in 1,000 are in Scotland. But “Better than England” is not a sufficient measure of success. It’s clear that the measures in Scotland aren’t enough to halt and reverse the rate of destitution here, merely to slow its increase, so we do need to ask what more can be done. The report highlights that only so much can be done with social security – we also need reform of tax, the housing sector and the wider economy. Yes, the limits of devolution will be reached and while the UK maintains the attitude that poverty is a deliberate choice to keep a ceiling on workers and a floor on shareholder profits that I don’t think we’ll fully escape it this side of independence, and even then if we choose to elect a government that actually believes in the principles of a wellbeing economy (rather than the wellwashed version of “the status quo, but a bit nicer”), but this serves to highlight the point of the campaign for independence too. It can’t be merely “Scotland, but a bit nicer” but has to be seen as an escape from a state that actively impoverishes its citizens for profit. This is why I said this report is a must-read for all politicians. Not just those who are causing this problem (not that I think it’ll change them) but also for those who say they are willing to find a solution. Those already destitute or suffering extreme poverty in Scotland have already waited too long for those solutions. There’s only so much longer the rest of us can wait until too many more join them.