If you think of the austerity agenda as a farming operation then Britains low wage recovery is harvest time. Polly Toynbee sounds a warning that, while official unemployment figures have fallen, real wages continue to fall. She points out that tax revenues are impacted by reduced earnings and, given that social housing is being dismantled (a much bigger question in the UK than here) the housing benefit bill is increasing due to the higher rents in the private sector. If governments were honest brokers of the common good, alarm bells would indeed by ringing. However, I seriously doubt that the leading Tories and those on whose behalf they run the Country see this as such an alarming trend. Increased exploitation and, as the article acknowledges, robust profits are not such a bad thing to these people. If tax revenues decline while the need for the housing benefit and other social supports increases, further savage cuts are a more likely response than measures to facilitate a wage recovery. Appeals to those in power are totally useless and situation this article bemoans will intensify until a movement is created that deals in something more substantial than moral pressure.
Posted on: Fri, 24 Oct 2014 11:59:45 +0000
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