Are the rich getting rich and the poor getting poorer?

We all know that if Labour ever was to get into government once again, Jeremy Corbyn will try his best to get rid of poverty as a whole.

Out of curiosity I just wanted to ask what everyone's opinion is on the current government and the way they have tackled the issue of poverty.

Have the Tories really made a positive change to the lower class/middle class people in society? If so, how?

Can Labour really make positive changes take place for the lower class/middle class or is Jeremy Corbyn exaggerating himself a bit too much?

What is everyone's opinion on this matter?

(edited 6 years ago)

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Reply 1

awkwardshortguy

Maybe, but aint we got fun?

Reply 2

josh_v

At the beginning of 2017, income inequality was at its lowest for over 20 years.

yeah man

Too often we look at wealth and income distribution in nominal terms and not material terms. Anybody would be a fool to say that the poorest members of society today aren't better off than the poorest 20 or 30 years ago. This absurdity of relative poverty creates shifting goalposts which never end, demands for wealth redistribution continue, it is almost as if socialists intentionally want us to measure wealth and income deprivation by the relative to one day force us into their communistic vision of economy.

Reply 5

username1738683

Original post by ILuvFood1234

We all know that if Labour ever was to get into government once again, Jeremy Corbyn will try his best to get rid of poverty as a whole.

Yeah, Gordon Brown promised to abolish the economic cycle of boom and bust too. Now it's the end of poverty.

Of course, it is only the youth and their naivety and lack of life experience who can possibly swallow all this tripe. Everyone equally poor, that is Corbyn's world.

Reply 6

username878267

Original post by zhog

Such nonsense.

More 34-45 year olds voted Labour than the Tories. In fact the age at which
more people started voting Tories than Labour was 47.

That's a group full of people with kids, mortgages, jobs etc. How do they not have life experience? Labour won a higher share of the vote among every category of worker. Both full time and part time.

You seem unwilling to actually debate substance though so instead you make out that all who voted Labour were basically a bunch of naive youngsters with no life experience, despite all evidence pointing to the contrary.

(edited 6 years ago)

Reply 7

username1799249

Original post by Sycatonne23

Anybody would be a fool to say that the poorest members of society today aren't better off than the poorest 20 or 30 years ago.

Hmmm - well this was the Salford slums between 1960 and 1980.
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/nostalgia/images-showing-slum-life-manchester-12722433

And then today we have families living in squalid rat and mould infested one bedroom B+Bs
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-41529002

Sorry - what were you saying about the poorest being significantly better off?

Reply 8

Notoriety

Original post by ByEeek

Forgive me if I am mistaken, but isn't that merely one example and does not prove anything generally?

Reply 9

Rakas21

Original post by ILuvFood1234

The simple answer is No overall but there have been people who have slipped through the cracks.

So essentially most working people under the current government really are not in quite as bad a position as some make out and often (as a working person on relatively low income myself) i would say that it's down to spending choices. Where people have slipped through the cracks is those that work part time however the solution to this problem has already been proposed.. the universal credit system essentially guarantees an income of £900 per month.

With regards to your questions about Labour (ignoring the pro-Labour sentiment to them) i would say that i don't really see anything that Corbyn has proposed to radically do anything about those poor people.

Reply 10

username878267

Original post by Rakas21

Housing for starters.

Reply 11

Rakas21

Original post by Bornblue

Housing for starters.

Helps the lower middle class and homeless. Not the people OP talks of.

Reply 12

username878267

Original post by Rakas21

Helps the lower middle class and homeless. Not the people OP talks of.

How does a mass housebuilding project not help the poor?

We should also copy New Zealand by banning foreign investors from buying housing here.

Reply 13

L i b

The point has been made above, but it's worth repeating: income inequality has fallen slightly in recent years and as a general trend has been fairly consistent for about three decades. The idea that the rich are getting richer while the poor get poorer is quite simply false.

Original post by Sycatonne23

You're making that sound like some sort of cunning trick being perpetrated, but I think quite often the arguments about inequality are clearly made in a way that doesn't just pretend that it's about making the poor richer, but actually about making society more equal in terms of income distribution.

There's an inherent point there: that once basic material desires are fulfilled, the point of reference people have is against other people in their society. In some senses, I think many centrists (rather than socialists) accept that a happy society is one where the gap is not enormous. Beyond that, though, I don't know where the benefits of inequality end and the disadvantages begin to outweigh them.

I do think, for example, that the changes brought by Margaret Thatcher's government, while increasing inequality, were positive. I do not think you can, however, take increasing inequality to the nth degree without creating new problems.

Reply 14

L i b

Original post by ByEeek

The idea of picturesque poverty, so favoured by gap year students popping off to Africa, is a lot of nonsense. The reality of slum living in previous decades was high levels of infant mortality, being routinely unable to heat your home, cooking over open fires, bedbugs, infestations, no hot water, outdoor lavatories, no refrigeration for food, having several generations of a family living in a couple of rooms.

Reply 15

username1799249

Original post by L i b

Agreed. And with the exception of cooking over open fires, I think a lot of that is still very much prevalent in society today. Not that most would know that. I find the main irony of modern Britain is that many of the places that were once slums are now highly sought after gentrified and well healed abodes.

Reply 16

Ganjaweed Rebel

People need to understand that being rich isn't just about having lots of money, you might earn a lot of money but have few friends and feel lonely. That person is poorer than a pauper with 1000 friends.

Reply 17

hannah00

Original post by Sycatonne23

20-30 years ago is not the standard, other countries standard of living is.

Home affordablity, debt arrears, % of income spent on food and heating

Are all real measures of poverty.

Poverty has gone up because welfare availability has been reduced since 2010. In the 70s you could get a council house, near impossible now

Reply 18

Smile88egc

The rich are certainly getting better at hiding their wealth looking at the latest "paradise papers" leak.

Reply 19

username1738683

Original post by Bornblue

You seem unwilling to actually debate substance though so instead you make out that all who voted Labour were basically a bunch of naive youngsters with no life experience, despite all evidence pointing to the contrary.

OK, let's talk substance then: as a good spokesman for the Corbynista movement, tell us what the plan to 'end poverty' is then. It is my contention such populist statements are mere political quackery but let's give it a chance, how is that going to be achieved by you guys?