A FREE SIX-SESSION COURSE for small groups. What should the goal of the economy be? Why isn’t our current system enabling people to flourish, especially as the cost of living crisis bites? Could a change in approach help us solve the climate crisis? What does our Christian faith have to say about …
poverty
Time to Ban the Bailiffs
Joe Cox from our friends at Debt Justice (formerly the Jubilee Debt Campaign) introduces their new campaign to make council tax collection more humane and more effective – by ending council’s use of bailiffs. In its latest annual release the UK government found that £4.4 billion of council tax …
The Cost of Living Crisis
In 2022, the cost of living is of major concern for many. Rising prices in food, fuel and transport are forcing people to make hard choices over how they spend their money. The least well-off are the worst affected, with those choices being narrowed to heating or eating, or skipping meals to feed …
The Spring Statement number you need to know: 600,000 more people pulled into poverty
The most important number from the entire spring statement was not from the Chancellor but from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. They estimated that over the next year, 600,000 people will be pulled into poverty [1]. The 14.6 million people already experiencing poverty will of course be pulled …
Universal Credit: Why do we think more threats and less choice helps the unemployed?
The Government has announced a new jobs “mission”. The headline policy in this mission is to say to people who lose their job that after four weeks they will also lose their choice about what jobs they should apply for. If they insist on having a choice in how they earn a living, they will be …
Excrescences and Performative Cruelty
The former Welfare Reform minster has described two of his own policies as “excrescences” that were made into law because they were popular. The phrase “Performative Cruelty” has been used to describe such policies and most recently in describing the treatment of refugees. Here Paul asks if or when …
Lockdown stories: Women who sell sex
In July last year I was on a call with a group of local church and charity leaders. Each told the story of how the pandemic was hitting the most vulnerable in their community. Important and all too familiar experiences that were the core of the Gleanings research into poverty under lockdown we …
Poverty & Inequality briefing – Scotland
Updated March 2021 by David Bradwell “Poverty is not only about shortage of money. It is about rights and relationships; about how people are treated and how they regard themselves; about powerlessness; exclusion and loss of equity.” Participant at local poverty hearing held in …
Poverty & Inequality briefing – Wales
Updated March 2021by Gethin Rhys “Poverty is not only about shortage of money. It is about rights and relationships; about how people are treated and how they regard themselves; about powerlessness; exclusion and loss of equity.” Participant at local poverty hearing held in …
Poverty & Inequality briefing – England
Updated March 2021by Paul Morrison “Poverty is not only about shortage of money. It is about rights and relationships; about how people are treated and how they regard themselves; about powerlessness; exclusion and loss of equity.” Participant at local poverty hearing held in …