Britain 'risks heading to US levels of inequality'

In 1978 I assume you had a husband in full time work Urmstongran so what your wages did was top up a family's income. That's not the same as someone being totally dependent on an unsteady income to support their children. With Uber you are self-employed, bit different to zero hours contracts. Hope your friend's SIL is never ill or he will find out the problems with self-employment.

I wholly support taxing people at the appropriate rate.

In 1978 I worked evenings as a medical typist transcribing clinic tapes from hospital to local GP surgeries on a zero hour contract trisher. So yes, I do know what I’m talking about! No holiday or sick pay, but the very flexible hours to suit bringing up our two baby daughters suited me just fine and I remained on my ZHC for six years.

Happy days!
?

It’s why my friend’s son in law works in the gig economy now driving a taxi for Über.

To talk about housing as a another aspect of inequality, consider this.
We've had articles and programmes about flooding as people have concreted over their driveways and house-building has taken over large tracts of land which were formerly fields.
The population has grown but the UK is still the same size.
When green belt land is mooted as being suitable for housing to ease the crisis, there is often a hue and cry about our green spaces shrinking which means trees felled and less carbon monoxide being absorbed etc.
You can't have parks and countryside and uninterrupted views if you want to house everyone who lives here and those who arrive to work here because there has to be the infrastructure to support that housing as in more roads, hospitals, schools, shops, recreational facilities...and work opportunities. If houses are built in areas where there is little opportunity to obtain work and decent public transport, people won't move there.
We cannot have it all.

You do not have the right to do what you like with your wealth Gabriella. No one becomes wealthy without the society around them, so that society has the right to tax that wealth in order to maintain a reasonable level of equality.

Do you actually believe that the government policies, which have vastly increased inequality, are the right policies?

Lots of disabled people are perfectly capable of working and do work.

Urmstongran, isn't it strange that this chant of "work is good" (which sounds like something straight from Animal Farm), only applies to the precariat; those whose employment and income are insecure. Anyone with any level of wealth is exempt. The may have time, food, housing and even no work without being seen as feckless.

'starved into working when they shouldn't be'.
Shouldn't be starved or shouldn't be working?
If 'they' had more benefits and could buy more food, would they be content to be unemployed?
It makes no sense.
'unless you have stashed more than your fair share of the country's wealth'?
What is a fair share? If you have worked for your wealth then you're entitled to do with it whatever you choose.
As for shareholders they are the people who support the company and their dividends are paid only if the company makes money, rather like your and my money in the bank which is invested so that we and the bank get paid interest.
Company CEOs are paid for taking the flak, the risks and making decisions.
Leaders always earn more than workers. There have always been and will always be, tiers in society and the nearer the top the more you get paid.
Those who are hungry for success will work hard and those who want a life of idleness will coast along in the slipstream and it's a fact that you don't need the brain of Lloyd George to get on in life.

For those who need an illustration of what is happening in the UK I suggest that you try to see Ken Loach's film " I am Daniel Blake " which is based upon a true story. It is about a blue collar worker who suffers from heart disease and is unable to work. Despite being provided with a letter from his specialist he is unable to claim benefits. The film documents the trials and tribulations of his attempts to get benefits the eventual outcome is his death from a heart attack.

I agree with Trisher's post. Back in the thirties dockers and labourers would turn up at an agreed rendezvous and would wait to be selected by the gang masters. Many were not but they would turn up day after day.

No urmstongran, I'm afraid I didn't make myself clear. People working "when they shouldn't be" was referring to the sick and disabled.

annep1 I don't understand the logic of your post (which could well be my reading of it). However, we are, as a country wealthier than ever but people in certain section of society are dying earlier. Instead of most people doing better than their parents with a smaller proportion staying in much the same position or dropping back a little we now have the complete reverse. We have the poverty and inequality of the 30s and a housing crisis approaching post war levels.

All this under a government whose propaganda has succeeded in convincing people that the economy is safe in their hands. How on earth can anyone believe that?

Urmstongran do you really not know what is going on? There has been in the last 10 years a policy of undermining the support for the poorest in society. It has been done by introducing measures which were abandoned in the 1930s that is Zero hours contracts. It is a system that many worked under in the 1930s (Including my docker grandfather). It means that it is impossible to plan financially, that you live a hand-to-mouth existence when you never know from day to day or week to week how much money you will have. If you don't understand imagine that someone suddenly decided to make pension payments on an ad hoc basis. So you might get nothing for a month then a little money, then more money, then nothing. People can't plan and they starve or use foodbanks.
And if someone comes back with well students like them, well maybe they do but students don't have families and homes to keep running.

The whole point is and something people don’t seem to understand it isn’t a question of either/or it is a question of degree
So, of course there will always be inequality, but a recognition that this can be a more equal curve.

Happy are those whose income allows for a very pleasant life style, but if you are made redundant, or stricken with a debilitating illness, what then. Devil take the hindmost?
My DH is in contact with woodturners in the USA . One of them was stricken suddenly with a bad heart condition. In order to continue to survive, he sold his house to pay for the treatment. He now lives in a caravan type of property.
Would I like to live in that society? Not on your nelly!!

I would much rather live in a society where we all take responsibility for each other.

‘When they shouldn’t be’ was the caveat I suppose.

I get your point. Benefits (taxpayers money) could be more generous in some cases I dare say but I do agree that being in work where possible is the best outcome for an individual’s self worth and the economy.

‘Starved into working’. ?? Honestly!

If I hadn’t worked I’d have starved ....

Whitewavemark2 yes but when?
Money means you can get it quicker. Which in the long run makes a big difference to quality of life and life expectancy.
There will always be inequalities in every area of life no matter how much attempt is made to change it. Everywhere.

It is well known that, as Maizie says, an ever increasing proportion of company earnings is going to both executives and shareholders.

I have just listened to yet another Tory saying that the numbers in employment have increased yet again. This is not because Tory policy is doing something good but because some are being starved into working when they shouldn't be, or under conditions that go back to the turn of the last century and that more older people have to work for longer - unless you have stashed more than your fair share of the countries wealth. I am beginning to believe that there as some - not all - on the right who would see slavery as a good thing if someone suggested bringing it back.

No, trisher - my post was to illustrate that inequality exists all over the world. I can’t see how that demonstrates I couldn’t care less about other people’s suffering nor that I want to ‘take what I want and let the rest rot’. Bizarre statement.

I agree MaizieD with you about the grossly inflated salaries and perks that CEO’s can command in comparison to the worker bees. Didn’t Mrs May propose worker(s) ought to be present on the executive board? That was another proposal that wasn’t implemented!

The UK is unequal on its own without comparing it to the US.

I can't believe that the responses to this could possibly include things like "it's worse. in India and China" or "My husband might get paid more". These just re-inforce the opinion held by many young people that us oldies don't care about anyone else and that we will take what we want and let the rest rot.
I grew up in a society where the safety net was there for everyone and that's the society I want to hand on to my GCs. I want to see proper benefits for those unable to work for one reason or another. I want proper affordable social housing for those who need it, a well funded NHS,and a publicly owned rail service. I want that gap to begin to close again.

Well on a very basic level, but nonetheless important personal level, if we followed the US in some ways, at least my husband would get paid the same or similar salary to those in the USA, who earn around 10 times more than he does, and are usually less qualified for the same job!!

I think that what it is largely telling us is that new-liberalism is failing in the terms that were largely accepted post war up to the Thatcher years. Prior to that time, it was commonly accepted that the state ensured a safety net for health, education, safety,and poverty, amongst other things.

All these links between the state and it population have been gradually eroded by the new-liberal policies adopted since the 80s.

I think that the voter has to make that choice. We either continue down this road, where individualism is the god, and each person is entirely responsible for their own wellbeing, health, etc regardless what misfortune befalls, a good model would be Victorian England, or we see ourselves as a community that understands the concept of a welfare state which “promotes and protects the economic and social wellbeing of all its citizens” this is based on the principles of equal opportunity and a fair distribution of the wealth created by all the members of the society.

It can be seen as a model promoting 3 concepts,

Democracy. Welfare. Capitalism.

Meanwhile, average chief executive pay at FTSE 100 firms has risen to 145 times that of the average worker, from 47 times in 1998, and the richest 1% in Britain have seen the share of household income they receive almost triple in the past four decades.

(from the Guardian briefing)

How can this ever be justified?

The above from today's Guardian

"Sir Angus Deaton is leading a landmark review of inequality in the UK amid fears that the country is at a tipping point due to a decade of stagnant pay growth for British workers. The Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank, which is working with Deaton on the study, said the British-born economist would “point to the risk of the UK following the US” which has extreme inequality levels in pay, wealth and health."

"Deaton warned that rising inequality was not a uniform phenomenon in the UK, judging by mortality statistics. “One part we do know is that it seems to be geographically unequal,” Deaton said, referring to deaths from suicide, drugs and alcohol. “Blackpool seems to be a hotspot and the north east, but not very much in London. So it maybe that it’s geographical inequalities in health that are much more important here than in the US."