Bill Carmichael: Poverty of facts behind the tales of woe

OH woe, woe and thrice woe, as the late Frankie Howerd used to say.
Millions are facing a fuel poverty crisis this yearMillions are facing a fuel poverty crisis this year
Millions are facing a fuel poverty crisis this year

Poverty is on the increase, people are literally starving in the streets, the gap between rich and poor is growing rapidly and generally we’ve never had it so bad. We’re all doomed!

Well I love a good moan as much as the next person, but the only problem with this now established narrative is that it is complete nonsense.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Poverty is not worse than it has ever been, extreme poverty has been massively reduced in the developing world and eliminated in the West, and the gap between the rich and poor has been narrowing, not growing, in recent years.

Don’t take my word for it – just look at the hard statistics. Using whatever measure you wish, the data shows our generation is the luckiest in the history of the planet. We are, on average, richer, healthier and will live longer than our grandparents.

Infant mortality has been slashed and women are far less likely to die in childbirth. Far fewer of us will die from contagious and other debilitating diseases and we enjoy universal healthcare and ‘free’ education (remember, nothing is actually ‘free’ – someone, somewhere pays for it).

Our environment – our rivers and air – are far cleaner than they were 100 years ago and we enjoy vastly more leisure time than our grandparents did.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Our housing is, on average, much superior, and many of us work in safe and warm offices and shops compared to the dirty and dangerous jobs our forebears carried out as coal miners, dock labourers and steel workers.

We are so rich that today’s welfare claimant has a higher disposable income than the average worker in the 1930s.

Of course there are pockets of relative deprivation, caused by ingrained social and cultural problems, such as inter-generational unemployment and welfare dependency. But no one in the UK lives in extreme poverty, defined by the World Bank as less than $1.90 a day (about £1.40).

And across the globe the picture is even rosier. The numbers in the developing world living below this international poverty line have declined by 74 per cent in the last 25 years – thanks largely to free market capitalism.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

In fact the only health indicator that has deteriorated over recent years in the UK is in terms of obesity – a condition caused by over-consumption, rather than a lack of food.

Okay, I hear you say, we may all be richer, but the gap between rich and 
poor has widened massively. It must be true because Jeremy Corbyn keeps telling us so.

Wrong, I am afraid. According to the Office of National Statistics, using something called the Gini Coefficient, inequality in the UK has been declining for the last decade. In fact we are a far more equal society today than we were under the last Labour government.

So how is it that we are constantly being told that things are bad and getting worse and poverty is growing?

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

One possible answer is because there isn’t any actual extreme poverty in the UK, campaigners use something called “relative poverty” – defined as an income 60 per cent or less than median earnings. According to this measure, about a fifth of the population are “poor”.

The problem with this measurement is that it doesn’t actually measure poverty in any objective sense. Can someone with an iPhone 7, a Netflix subscription and smoking 60 fags a day really be “poor”. They may make poor life choices, but that doesn’t mean they are living in poverty.

What’s worse is that the relative poverty measurement produces some perverse results. For example if society 
as a whole suddenly became richer – 
say as a result of a government tax cut – then the numbers in “poverty” would increase, even though no one is actually any worse-off.

Similarly, if we all became suddenly poorer, then the numbers in relative poverty would most likely decrease, even though no one is actually better off. These figures need to be viewed with some caution.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

As for the rest of us, perhaps we need to stop being so miserable and cheer up a bit. We are all exceptionally fortunate to be born when we were, into a prosperous society built up by our hard-working ancestors.

In short, we are truly blessed and should be thanking our lucky stars rather than constantly complaining about how badly off we all are.

Related topics: