THE United Kingdom has seen the biggest rise in ‘absolute poverty’ in 30 years, according to new data published by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
In the UK, ‘relative poverty’ refers to the citizens whose income is 40 per cent below the national average, while ‘absolute poverty’ measures the number of people who cannot afford a standard of living.
UK Treasury spokesperson Sarah Olney said: ‘This is a devastating rise, and behind these numbers will be stories of children going hungry and families unable to heat their homes.’
The shadow employment and social security minister Alison McGovern, commented that the ‘Conservative government crashed the economy and unleashed a cost of living crisis, pushing families across the country into poverty and a million children into destitution.’
The shocking new figures related to ‘absolute poverty’ have been attributed to a rise in energy prices caused by the West’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, a war that it is determined to step up, regardless of the consequences for workers living standards.
The British government is trying to defend the figures, with Work & Pensions Secretary Mel Stride saying the government had stemmed the issue by issuing what he called the ‘biggest cost of living package in Europe, worth an average of £3,800 per household’.
Stride claimed that ‘unprecedented support prevented 1.3 million people from falling into poverty in 2022-23’.
He added that without these measures the increase in absolute poverty would have been more than three times worse. Obviously the worse is yet to come!
According to an earlier UK research study, coping with hunger has become the norm for millions of Britons faced with an unprecedented rise in food prices amid the ongoing cost-of-living crisis.
The UK government admits households are currently experiencing the biggest two-year squeeze in living standards since the 1950s.
They have driven the UK working class back to the situation at the end of the Second World War when mass privations, and hunger stalked the working class with the rationing of the basic needs of life for themselves and their children.
There are no ration books today because the working class has seen the value of its wages plummet and is forced to ration itself to survive.
In the meantime, the seemingly unending crises continue under the ruling Conservative Party as the government resorts to more extreme measures and is looking to privatise the NHS, and to allow rising prices to massively cut the value of workers’ wages.
A UK parliamentary committee has heard from the CEOs of some of the country’s major supermarkets which have been accused of grotesque profiteering in the middle of the cost-of-living crisis.
The government plans to privatise the NHS are now a very public ‘secret’.
At the same time as the crisis of capitalism deepens, the ruling class and its media outlets are campaigning for the privatisation of the NHS and allowing inflation to wipe out the value of wages.
The mass of the working class is now struggling to survive as the harsh economic crisis conditions force hundreds of thousands of UK workers to turn to food banks amid the cost-of-living crisis and inflation that is out of control.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s economic pledge to halve overall inflation in 2023 before a 2024 election is being undermined hourly by higher and higher food prices, which in turn shatter household budgets already squeezed by higher taxes and mortgage rates.
Meanwhile the ruling class brings in reactionary legislation to be used to jail strikers and plans to restore the conscription of millions of youth to prepare for war with Russia.
The message is being sent out loud and clear to the working class and the youth.
It is that capitalism is going down the drain and it is determined to carry the working class down with it. Workers must now demand that their unions call a general strike, to bring down the Tories and bring in a workers government, that will nationalise the banks and the major industries and go forward to a workers government and socialism!
