The Government's welfare benefits and tax changes will widen income inequality between rich and poor on a scale similar to that of Margaret Thatcher, new analysis will reveal this week.
Research for the Fabian Society claims cuts to benefits and tax credits, particularly for working-age families with children, will amount to a “speeded-up replay of Thatcherism”, with inequality increasing twice as fast by 2015 as it did under the former Conservative prime minister.
The analysis is published just as signs of optimism about the economy appear, with the latest GDP figures, published this week, expected to show a further quarter of modest growth. At the same time, a poll for the consumer organisation Which? has found that people are becoming increasingly optimistic about both the economy and their own spending power. But household incomes continue to be squeezed, with 1.5m more families feeling the pinch than a year ago.
The report, published tomorrow for the Fabian Review by the economist Howard Reed, sets out a projection of the impact of coalition policies on income equality. The poorest families will lose more than 12 per cent of their net income on average, compared to around 3 per cent of net income for households in the ninth decile (the second most wealthy income bracket), Mr Reed, director of Landman Economics, says. This underscores how regressive coalition tax and benefit changes have been. Council tax, for example, on average charges low- to middle-income families a much higher percentage of their disposable income than the richest households.
景気については楽観視するむきはあるが、格差についてサッチャー政権のときのように、格差が拡大する、と。イギリスの話であるが、日本だって他人事ではないだろう。
日本の左翼も、左翼の本道、平等、格差是正を唱導し、、その前提としての貧困と格差の実態をどんどん暴露すべき。
