EmailA Guardian survey this week showed that half of teachers had brought food in to schools for children who would otherwise go hungry. Families earning up to £40,000 say they are struggling to provide for their children.
As living costs rise and wages remain stagnant the issue of poverty is affecting more and more people who are in employment. It's a group who are often forgotten by politicians who target unemployed people for either help or blame. But what are the political implications if playing by the rules and working hard is not enough to support a family?
Joining Tom Clark to discuss this: Guardian columnists Jonathan Freedland and Polly Toynbee plus Matthew Oakley from the conservative thinktank Policy Exchange.
Also this week we discuss the late conversion of David Cameron to tax-avoidance campaigning as he singles out the comedian Jimmy Carr for a ticking off. And why does Michael Gove want to bring back O-levels?
We also get a full round-up of events in the eurozone with Europe editor Ian Traynor.
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Comments
21 June 2012 4:55PM
A hefty fall in UK unemployent in May! How does this fit with Polly Toynbee's disaster stories?
We can agree things are bad, as job are part-time or very low pay full time jobs, but it is very good to have created private sector jobs far in excess of public sector job losses.
21 June 2012 5:22PM
WOOF!
21 June 2012 6:40PM
Yet those claiming JSA went up. And half of those new jobs were part time. And long-term unemployement is still going up. (according to yesterday's Guardian)
It does seem to be be cutting down on nurses and getting more shelf stackers at Tesco.
21 June 2012 6:54PM
Or.... people are being bullied into underpaid jobs providing rates of pay that barely allow them to survive. It doesn't solve any problems except the profitability of companies.
21 June 2012 8:18PM
If government ministers have any intelligence whatsoever,they ought to be very concerned about the implications of its policies on the lower/middle income middle classes. This group of people have a loud voice which they are willing to use, and they tend to exercise their right to vote. They are also not likely to stand by and see their children reduced to filling shelves in Tesco and having to rent a home from crummy private landlords for the rest of their lives.
21 June 2012 8:49PM
Hefty fall? its gone from 2,625,440 to 2,614,925. That's miniature by my standards. But the unemployment statistics dont begin to tell the story of the UK's job market situation, which is is largely being hidden by three things:
- A massive rise in p/t employment (an extra half a million p/t jobs since Jan 2008)
- A massive rise in self-employment, likely to be some newly unemployed making a last ditch valiant effort to stay away from the DWP (an extra 1/3 of a million since Jan 2008). There is a huge disparity in incomes between the top and lowest earning self employed.
- A rise in the number of over-qualified employees, especially graduates entering the job market in poor paying roles.
21 June 2012 10:07PM
forcing families into low paid/part time work actually costs the government more money due to their wages having to topped up by various means-tested benefits, tax credits, housing & council tax rebates.
In effect the UK tax system is subsidising and encouraging employers to pay low pay rates,
It costs the government less to leave people on Job seekers allowance.
21 June 2012 10:34PM
I've worked part time for the past five years despite applying for every full time job I've ever been eligible to. As I don't have kids no government benefits come to our household (My wife earns a whopping 14k a year) and I have been trying to pay my way through life on £500 a month through the best part of my 20's. I consider myself to be as poor as one could possibly be financially (I am otherwise very happy) and had more disposable income when I was 13 and had £12 a week from a paper round, which sounds like an exaggeration I know but I'm serious.
We both go to work every day and will never, ever have anything to show for it, it's very disheartening. I know there are people who must earn even less than we do, I wonder how they cope.