EU poverty

IPSRIGHTS: A Fifth of EU Children in PovertyBy David CroninApril 3, 2008 Minimum levels of expenditure on addressing the causes of child poverty shouldbe introduced across the European Union, according to a parliamentarian taskedwith analysing the problem. Some 19 million children live in poverty in the EU, about a fifth of the bloc'scitizens below the age of 18. While Gabriele Zimmer, a German left-wing member of the European Parliament(MEP), described the statistic as "almost unbelievable", she indicated that itwould be even higher if it was expanded to include young asylum-seekers andundocumented migrants. Zimmer is currently preparing an official report for theParliament on child poverty. As expenditure on child welfare varies considerably between the EU's 27countries, Zimmer is urging that the idea of setting common rules for whatproportion of national income should be devoted to education, child health,social housing and related services should be examined. "We need a discussionabout the level of minimum subsistence," she told IPS. "This is necessary." At least 8 percent of each EU country's national income should be spent oneducation, Zimmer said. At present, the average for industrialised countries is6.2 percent. "You can't treat poverty without looking at the questions of minimum income andminimum wages," she added. "You always have to know what the consequences areif people are not paid enough." Since its inception five decades ago, the EU as a whole has shied away fromtelling individual member states how much they should allocate to socialservices in their national budgets. Whereas the principal agreements on whichEU law are based have lacked any reference to children's rights, this hastheoretically been rectified by the new Lisbon treaty, which is currently goingthrough a process of ratification. With the treaty committing the EU to promoting "protection of the rights of thechild", its supporters have argued that it will oblige policy-makers to takeaccount of how each decision they take will affect children. Yet its opponents suggest that efforts to ensure that each family enjoys anadequate income for rearing children may be undermined by clauses on economicpolicy they regard as neo-liberal. For example, the treaty says thatcompetition must not be 'distorted'. Some companies have argued that thesetting of minimum wages amounts to such a distortion. Proinsias de Rossa, an Irish Labour MEP who is campaigning for a 'Yes' vote inhis country's referendum on the Lisbon treaty, which is expected in May orJune, nonetheless argued that the "pre-eminence" the EU is giving to freemarket policies is driving down social standards. A December 2007 ruling by the European Court of Justice which attacked minimumwages in Sweden has "thrown Europe into disarray," he said. In that case, thecourt ruled in favour of Laval, a Latvian construction firm, which won acontract to build a school in Vaxholm, Sweden. Laval withdrew from the project after it became embroiled in a bitter disputewith Swedish trade unions because it sought to pay its workers Latvian wages,which were between one-tenth and one-fifth of those paid in Sweden. Accordingto the court, efforts by the Swedish unions to force a foreign company tonegotiate on pay violated the freedom to provide services. De Rossa said that the Laval verdict has raised fears that 'social dumping' --the relocation of companies to countries where they can pay lower wages --"will become the norm. "If we have social dumping, we certainly cannot deal with child poverty," hesaid. In a study published last year, the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef)examined relative poverty among children -- growing up in a household with lessthan half of the average national income -- in 21 industrialised countries,mostly in Europe. It found that hardship was lowest in Denmark, Finland, Norwayand Sweden but highest in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Ireland, Britain and the U.S. Dominic Richardson, a policy analyst with the Organisation for EconomicCooperation and Development (OECD), a grouping of nominally rich countries,said that poverty is especially prevalent among children growing up insingle-parent households. While the average rate of poverty for lone parents in the OECD is 31 percent,the figure rises to more than 40 percent in Ireland, the Czech Republic,Germany, Luxembourg and Spain. Richardson noted that lone parents in Belgium, Hungary and Italy are paidsupplements to the general family allowances offered by the state. But manyother EU countries do not provide anything extra for single mothers or fathers. Hugh Frazer, a professor with Ireland's Maynooth University, said that researchfrom his country "shows that poverty in childhood leads to poverty inadulthood." By leading to reduced economic activity, child poverty can havemajor costs for entire countries. "This is particularly significant at a timewhen we have an ageing population (in Europe)," he said. He argued that a "broad-range approach" is required "if we are to makeprogress." This would include boosting access to reasonably paid jobs, theprovision of better social services, and ensuring that children are consultedabout decisions that affect them. Frazer voiced optimism about the recognition given to children's rights in theLisbon treaty. "This may lead to stronger action at European level," he said. "At least, I hope it does.

"Red red wine, stay close to me now. All i can do i've done, but memories won't go, no memories won't go.

uk poverty

Red red wine, stay close to me now. All i can do i've done, but memories won't go, no memories won't go.

incapacity benefit

Thousands of people unable to work are being wrongly denied incapacity benefit, disability campaigners said.

Charities including the Disability Alliance and Mind say people face months of hardship while trying to get their benefits back, while many more are incapable of appealing.

The groups told the BBC the current system of assessing claimants was not working, meaning tens of thousands were missing out.

More than 2.6 million people claim incapacity benefit and it was revealed last month that more than 800,000 claimants - nearly a third of all those who claim - have received the allowance for more than a decade.

In February the Government unveiled plans for a huge shake-up of the benefits system, with a report arguing that the true number of people in need of incapacity benefit was closer to 700,000.

The BBC reports that of the 100,000 people who fail the Personal Capacity Assessment (PCA) each year 25,000 successfully appeal against a decision to deny them incapacity benefit. While they appeal, their benefit is cut by up to £30 a week.

Paul Treloar, from the Disability Alliance, told the broadcaster: "People report to us that the examinations can often feel rushed, they don't feel like they're being properly listened to. And we have had numerous examples where the medical reports contain statements that don't actually reflect the person's home circumstances."

The Department for Work and Pensions told the BBC it is developing a new medical assessment which will be much better at identifying the needs of people with mental health problems, and should reduce the number of wrong decisions.

Official figures say nine out of 10 of those who come on to incapacity benefit want to come back to work. Many complain of conditions such as back and neck pain, depression or heart and circulatory problems, which the Government believes do not make long-term unemployment inevitable.

The Government is set to introduce a new medical test for incapacity benefit claimants in October this year. It will assess what an individual can - rather than cannot - do.

lifestyle.aol.co.uk

Got to work...

Two-thirds of working mothers with young children would like to give up work to care for their family, according to a new report.

Research by UKfamily.co.uk, Disney's new parenting website, found 62% of mothers who work both full and part-time and have children under seven would like to leave their jobs.

The survey found 84% of parents were "physically worn out", while 68% felt "exhausted" and "emotionally drained".

Eight out of 10 mothers surveyed said they had less than an hour a day to themselves while 57% of parents felt there was "not enough time in the day for normal family life".

Dani Zur, general manager of UKfamily.co.uk, said: "Motherhood has never been harder than it is today.

Most families now need a two-parent income to survive, which means there is less time for normal family life.

Suzy Greaves, UKfamily.co.uk's Life Coach, said: "This research shows how many of us think we'd be a 'better parent' if we had more time.

"We feel guilty about everything - the amount of time we spend at work, the lack of time we have to play with our children and the amount of time our kids spend in childcare.

As a result, many working parents, especially mums, are running themselves ragged trying to overcompensate.

UKFamily.co.uk spoke to 2,000 parents across the UK with children under the age of 10.

money.aol.co.uk

work for dole

Radical changes to the benefits system will put responsibility "right at the heart of the welfare state", Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell has said.

Mr Purnell warned that people who did not "live up to that expectation" could lose their dole money.

But he said his proposals to force the jobless to work for their benefits would help transform the lives of millions of people across the country.

David Cameron promised the Government the support of Conservative MPs to get the measures in the Welfare Green Paper through Parliament in the face of a possible rebellion by Labour backbenchers.

The Tory leader said he was "thrilled" to find that Mr Purnell had adopted proposals put forward by the Conservatives in their own welfare reform package in January.

Mr Purnell said he welcomed the support because it meant doing "the right thing for the country". But he said the Tories were placing the emphasis on responsibility without providing any support.

The Government's reform package includes US-style "work for the dole" sanctions.

A leaked late draft of his Green Paper insists there can be "no right to a life on benefits" for anyone capable of working.

Pilot projects will test "compulsory full-time activity" for the long-term unemployed to ensure they make a "fair contribution" in return for state support. Unemployed drug addicts who lie to get benefits will be forced to repay the money and could face jail, while jobless people who take drugs will be banned from receiving dole money and transferred to a new 'Treatment Allowance'.

Other proposals include trials of new accounting rules, previously opposed by the Treasury, allowing private firms used to help people find jobs to be paid from resulting savings in benefits

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social crisis

Economic crisis = Social Crisis

The collapse of the family under capitalism.

Although the scope of this article is restricted mostly to exposing national events and conditions, there is absolutely no doubt that the root cause of these events lies in the machinations of a savage globalised capitalism that manifests itself in a myriad of social ills the world over. The situation is negative throughout the capitalist heartlands, for example some 19 million children live in poverty in the EU, about a fifth of the bloc’s citizens below the age of 18. However, a case could be made to show that the United Kingdom does demonstrate a more advanced version of the problem, for here at least according to Ian Duncan Smith, “Family breakdown is the worst in Europe”.

Unlike the bourgeois social commentators who separate phenomenon and apply superficial solutions without challenging the general framework which produces them, we assert that the problems facing all sectors of the working class derive from, and cannot be resolved within, the framework of the international capitalist system. This article merely approaches the situation from what is arguably the most basic unit of capitalist social organisation, the family structure, but even at this point it is necessary to point out that there is no demand, no solution on offer, outside the replacement of capitalist rule with workers’ rule. Nor, unlike Ian Duncan Smith and his hypocritical Tory party who bear a great deal of the responsibility for the current situation, are we on a simple mission to conserve any of capitalism’s social arrangements. The collapse of family structures is symptomatic of capitalism’s crisis and the future post – capitalist society will not be a simple restoration of that which currently exists. New solutions to the problems of care, child rearing, education and relationships will have to emerge. As capitalism slides deeper into uncharted waters of crisis, pressure relentlessly tears apart all social relationships and demands the replacement of obsolete formations. A look at the condition of the family unit in the UK, supposedly one of the most prosperous, advanced nations in the world, still provides more than reasonable grounds to support such a perspective. In 1997 New Labour came to power riding on a wave of promises to quell the rising tide of social exclusion, its slogan was Education, Education, Education, and for the true believers, a new dawn was about to heal the wounds of the confrontational Tory era before them. New Labour, conservative in every respect, had no perspective other than bolstering the nuclear family, a social arrangement that serves capitalism well. The family under capitalism is the transmission belt of privilege at one pole, deprivation at another, passing social position from one generation to the next, rendering all the equal opportunity chatter sterile. New Labour’s “Supporting Families” programme (1999) opens with “Families are at the heart of our society and the basis of our future as a country. That is why our government is so committed to strengthening family life”. But today, the dream is over, the reality of capitalism’s utter inability to create anything like a decent society defies all attempts by the spin doctors to gloss over the facts with official optimism. The divisions have only intensified. It is the most vulnerable sectors who are bearing the brunt of this social crisis, particularly the young, but also the old, and the legion of carers who face grinding commitments within a highly pressurised economic environment. It is here that the hopelessness of capitalism, its lack of a future vision, its blatant inhumanity becomes most obvious. New Labour may preach family and nation, but the reality is class division, economic distress for some, plenty for others.

The question of poverty is intimately entwined with the family question. The target to halve child poverty — with a view to eradicating it completely by 2020 — was first announced by then Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1999, when the number of children living in poverty stood at 3.4 million. Since then the number has fallen by 600,000 to 2.8 million — still well short of the goal of 1.7 million. Certain groups of children had a much higher risk of growing up in poverty, such as those who were disabled or had a disabled parent. It said that it was “particularly concerned” that one-in-five families with a disabled child were so hard up they had to cut back on food. Poverty rates among Pakistani and Bangladeshi children were twice those among white children, while black children also experienced higher rates of poverty than whites. The rates were also particularly high in London .

The condition of the female workforce also directly conditions the levels of deprivation many families face. The gender pay gap more than trebles when women reach their 30s, often because of a “motherhood penalty”, research shows. A report by the TUC for the TUC Women's Conference, earlier this year found women of all ages earned less than men, but the difference was greatest after they passed 30, rising to more than 20% between the ages of 50 and 59. Many women are part time workers, a category suffering some of the worst levels of pay "“When women earn poverty-level wages, the whole family suffers. If the Government is serious about ending child poverty, it must raise family income by creating better paid, quality part-time work for Britain's 7.5 million part-time workers." Said TUC general secretary Brendan Barber at the TUC Women's Conference. Women were also twice as likely as men to be poor, the study showed. Now that the wages of a single earner are often insufficient to maintain a family unit, more and more women can no longer be allowed to work in the domestic setting alone. However, the conditions that capitalism offers working mothers are in no way a form of liberation. Two-thirds of working mothers with young children would like to give up work to care for their family, according to a new report. At the moment 1 in 4 children are the offspring of separated parents and the great majority of these households are headed by women, increasingly never-married women. As Marxists we are not pointing the finger at “illegitimacy” or any such obsolete stigma, we are not demanding the return of women to the home, we recognise the oppressive nature of the nuclear family, backed up by a host of social and cultural weapons designed to produce enormous benefits to the capitalists at no cost. The domestic labour, often performed by wives and mothers is unpaid. If commodity producers, (mostly men) had to purchase domestic services, their employers would have to pay far higher wages to cover these costs. And, of course, child rearing from a capitalist point of view produces new generation of exploitable commodity producers, again, at no cost. But we are saying capitalism’s exploitation of the female work force, where women are often paid less, denied opportunities and entitlements, has a direct, negative impact on all children, but most of all those great numbers growing up in the care of single mothers. The oppression of women is very real, but liberation for working class women will not be found this side of proletarian revolution.

Recent research by UKfamily.co.uk, found 62% of mothers who work both full and part-time and have children under seven would like to leave their jobs. The survey found 84% of parents were “physically worn out”, while 68% felt “exhausted” and “emotionally drained”. Eight out of 10 mothers surveyed said they had less than an hour a day to themselves while 57% of parents felt there was “not enough time in the day for normal family life”.

Capitalism’s economic crisis means that the condition of the working class will only worsen. It is this that gives the lie to all the comfortable perspectives that the politicians spout on radio four programmes about helping the deprived minority out of poverty. Rather, the demands of the capitalist mechanism will cast many more into their ranks, as benefits, wages, pensions diminish and prices soar. . The youth are the purest expression of the recent attempts to manage a capitalism in crisis, the most removed from any memory of the post-war growth period and the ones whose entire life is and will be shaped by the open economic crisis that will militate against all the illusions that the previous generations of the working class influenced by the periods of relative economic prosperity and a sophisticated management of the crisis may still entertain and attempt to pass down to the workers of tomorrow. Today more than ever, the obsolescence of capitalist social relations becomes ever more critical. The attempts to bolster up the institutions of the past, from the family to parliament, from the “free market” to the welfare state, will only translate into the multiplication of misery. There is no possibility of regenerating society outside of the establishment of communist foundations, capitalism can only offer more division, more deprivation, the social chaos unfolding as the economic realities of capitalism translate into working class pain.

inflation hits poor /pensioners hardest

The oldest and poorest UK pensioners are suffering disproportionately from inflation, with rates double that of non-pensioners.

According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), the most impoverished pensioners have an average inflation rate of nine per cent, compared to 5.4 per cent for non-pensioners.

The Liberal Democrats say the figures prove that pensioners are struggling to make ends meet under Labour.

"They are falling further and further behind the rest of the population, hit hardest by rising fuel and food costs," the party's work and pensions spokesperson, Jenny Willott, said.

"This year's rise in pensioner poverty will not be a one-off unless ministers increase the state pension and ensure more people claim the pension credit to which they are entitled," Ms Willott continued.

Around 1.8 million pensioners who were eligible for pension credit did not claim last year, missing out on an average of £1,543 over the year.

According to government statistics, the number of pensioners living in poverty increased by 300,000 last year, while pensioner couples have a total pension income of £10,000.

The Lib Dems claim that the majority of pensioners are unaware of the pension credit eligibility rules and in what circumstances it is claimable.

The party also says that the government is doing little to motivate applications for state pensions, with a target to increase the number of people claiming pensions to 3.2 million dropped last year.