The Smoke And Mirrors Of "The Recovery".

       The Cameron-Osborne Bullingdon Club duo, are patting each other on the back and congratulating themselves on the UK recovery. Of course from where them live, in the millionaire bubble, it is certainly all very bright and rosy, with more millionaires joining the club. However, from where you and I live, it is a very different story. According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the number of impoverished households has more than doubled since the days of Maggie Thatcher. Research also shows that due to the increase in the cost of living, a full-time job is longer likely to prevent you from falling into poverty. The result being that one in six of those adults who are in paid work, can now be classified as poor.

 

From The Independent:

      The Poverty and Social Exclusion project, based on interviews with more than 14,500 people in Britain and Northern Ireland carried out by eight universities and two research agencies, reported:

• More than 500,000 children live in families who cannot afford to feed them properly
• 18 million people cannot afford adequate housing conditions
• 12 million people are too poor to engage in common social activities
• About 5.5 million adults go without essential clothing
  

     The survey showed that the percentage of UK households which lacked “three or more of the basic necessities of life” has increased from 14 per cent in 1983, the year that Margaret Thatcher was re-elected (around 3 million), to 33 per cent (around 8.7 million) in 2012, despite the size of the economy doubling in that period. Researchers used the “three or more” formula as it is directly comparable with methods used to study poverty and deprivation in 1983. Academics said the findings dispelled the myth that poverty is caused by a lack of work or by people shirking work. Almost half the “employed poor” were clocking up 40 hours a week in work or more.

    Another interesting fact from The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, regarding the Cameron -Osborne "recovery", is that approximately 50% of the 13 million people in poverty in the UK, live in household where someone works. It is also said that between 2008-2014, cost of essentials had risen by almost a third, and you and I know that in the same period, incomes have fallen by approximately 10%.

     These are the cruel facts of the Oxbridge millionaires recovery, wealth flowing rapidly up to those who already have far too much, while those who create that wealth are getting an ever shrinking share. Ah the wonders of capitalism.

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