IDS and Blair's Breakdown Britain
I thought there were a lot of worrying statistics and facts in this IDS piece on current British society (via Chris Dillow) based on a report he is releasing today:Our report shows that 750,000 more people have incomes below 40% of median income than a decade ago [MT update: Note, I calculate this to be (in 2004/05) £122 per week for a two adult household, £66 per week for a single adult, £180 per week for two adults living with two children, and £124 per week for a single adult living with two children - It'll be interesting to see the Report as you would have thought any access to government benefits would have raised income above these levels - maybe he means pre-benefits? Or students?]
Almost 11m people in Britain today suffer from relationship problems as a result of debt
Last month the prison population reached 80,000 for the first time. In 1993 the number incarcerated was just 45,000.
On the other hand I am less convinced by its view that it is all the current government's fault - most parents after all were born and went to school under Tory governments, and most of the worse trends have been getting worse for quite some time. Furthermore:
Even those who win promotion or salary increases can face marginal tax rates of up to 90%, leaving a large section of society with little incentive to better itself.
This is an oft-repeated statistic and usually you know it is going to lead to the right-wing quackery solution of a 'flat tax' (though IDS is nowhere near that simple, at least in this piece), but I really question how important it is. Chris Dillow again noted that there are two incentives going on - the first to get a job, and the second to get a better paid job. Labour have worried most about the first, and least about the second. This is not necessarily the wrong priority - how many people on below 40% of median income have jobs?
Finally IDS says:
A child from a family in poverty today is less likely to rise to the top of the income scale than a child in 1970.
I've heard this before, and it obviously is not outlandish if - as we know - inequality has risen and social mobility has fallen. But how do they know about children born today?
Nevertheless this report certainly sounds a more useful occupation for IDS than flying to Washington and agreeing with Republicans that Britain needs to increase its defence budget (and in any case that role is now over filled by excitable Blairites). He concludes:
The increasing gap between those in severe long-term poverty and the rest of us has depressing implications for the future health and cohesion of our society.
Update: Here's the report - which a quick glance suggests could be quite informative.
And here's the chart on the issue of poverty. IDS's claim is that the 60% of median income target has been abused, so there's now a larger proportion of people on 62% (say) than on 58%, which helps meet the targets set on poverty reduction. However this has been bought at the expense of more people on 40% (125,000 families with children, apparently). I wonder if the data is accurate enough to arrive at that conclusion, but its certainly thought-provoking. Here's the chart - click for larger version.
Labels: economics, England, politics, Taxation
posted by Matthew @ 12/11/2006 07:47:00 AM
Comments: 2
