ANALYSIS conducted by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), released on Monday, reveals that a record number of people in the UK live in ‘very deep poverty’.
Around 6.8 million people, half of those who live in poverty, came under the category of very deep poverty – the highest number since records began 30 years ago.
‘Very deep poverty’ is defined as household incomes being less than 40% of the UK poverty threshold meaning that the annual household income fails to cover the cost of food, energy bills and clothing.
The average income of a household in very deep poverty is 59% below the official poverty line. Millions of people today are forced to go without food, falling behind on household bills and relying on debt just to survive.
Peter Matejic, the JRF’s chief analyst, said: ‘Poverty in the UK is still not just widespread, it is deeper and more damaging than at any point in the last 30 years.’
Around 3.8 million people in the UK face living under conditions of destitution, an even more extreme situation than very deep poverty, which means households cannot afford to stay warm, dry, clean, clothed or fed, the JRF reported.
Last month, the Labour government unveiled its child poverty strategy which included scrapping the hated two-child limit on benefits.
A government spokesman was quick to claim credit, saying: ‘As this report acknowledges, scrapping the two-child limit alongside our wider strategy will lift 550,000 children out of poverty by 2030.’
What this spokesman omitted was the fact that this decision was forced on Prime Minister Starmer and his Chancellor Rachel Reeves following a rebellion by Labour MPs driven by an uprising amongst the working class.
Both Starmer and Reeves had claimed that ending the cap was unaffordable and voted to suspend seven Labour MPs for voting against the government on an amendment to scrap it.
The JRF report warned that ‘there remains a seeming lack of urgency and sense of direction’ towards dealing with the rapidly rising numbers of people suffering food insecurity, with basic rates of benefits remaining at low levels that force families to regularly go without food.
Matejic said: ‘When nearly half the people in poverty are living far below the poverty line, this is a warning sign that the welfare system is failing to protect people from harm.’
In fact, the Labour government’s entire policy has been to hit the working class, with Starmer insisting last December that the government had a ‘moral mission’ to ‘fix the welfare system’.
By fixing, Starmer means driving the sick and unemployed off benefits and into non-existent jobs, in order to ‘save’ billions by slashing the welfare budget.
Meanwhile, soaring unemployment and increased job insecurity for workers is forcing millions more workers into poverty, while those trapped in deep poverty will see their numbers increased, as Starmer and Reeves pursue the demands of the international bond markets to carry out brutal austerity cuts to bring down the massive national debt, fast approaching £3 trillion.
With the Labour government splitting apart and Starmer fighting for his political life, the JRF report is a wake-up call to the working class.
The message is that capitalism can only survive by the destruction of all the gains of the welfare state and by condemning millions of families and their children to the kind of abject poverty worse than that of the depression era of the ‘Hungry 1930s’.
The working class has shown it is not prepared to sacrifice its lives and the lives of its children to keep bankrupt British capitalism from collapse.
The time has come for the working class to force the TUC to take action by immediately organising the full strength of the trade unions in a general strike to bring down the Labour government and bring in a workers government.
A workers government will expropriate the capitalist class, building a socialist planned economy, that will provide for the needs of all workers and their families.
Join the WRP and Young Socialists – build up the leadership required to put an end to bankrupt capitalism with the victory of the British Socialist Revolution.