Berlin.
The British standard of living is falling rapidly. Poverty deepens. Long lines form at the food counters. how come
Carly is 34 years old, a single mother of two daughters and heavily in debt. Very high even: With around 20,000 pounds, she is in debt to various lenders – not because she has afforded any extravagance, but because she simply has trouble with her to deal with daily expenses. “I make around £700 a month,” Carly says in a TV interview. “My bank balance is about 43p.” Now she has to stock up on food at grocery stores – a new and devastating experience. “I’ve never been in a situation where I’ve had to worry about food before!” she says.
There are hundreds of thousands of people in the UK who are in a similar situation to Carly. According to official statistics, already survived last year 13 million Britons in poverty, around 4 million were in arrears on electricity, gas or municipal tax bills. But things have only gotten worse since then: Over the past 12 months, the cost of electricitygas and food have risen dramatically, and Britons’ standard of living has fallen at its fastest pace in six decades – by more than 7 per cent, according to an analysis by the Office for Budget Responsibility research institute.
UK: Many are running out of money for electricity, gas and food
The Resolution Foundation expects inflation and rising energy costs to send another 1.3 million Britons into the country this winter Poverty will fall. The situation is already precarious for many. The UK press reports of an increasing number of people regularly skipping meals due to lack of money – the annual food bill has risen by almost £800, studies have found.
food expenses across the country report being overwhelmed during these months. Some Britons try to keep their electricity and gas costs down by eating by candlelight or not cooking at all. Others cook their food on disposable barbecues so they don’t have to turn on the oven. And many, like Carly, borrow from unscrupulous loan sharks who charge exorbitant interest rates.
Wealth is very unequally distributed in Britain
This winter is particularly bad for Brits, but poverty has been a growing problem here for many years – and society is far poorer than meets the eye. Measured in terms of economic output Great Britain Although it may be the sixth largest economy in the world, wealth is very unequally distributed.
A few months ago, the Financial Times made a country comparison that shows the extent of inequality in British society. Accordingly, the richest Britons have a similar high standard of living like well-heeled Germans or Norwegians.
The situation is very different for the poorest five percent: the British at the bottom end of the income scale are significantly poorer than that average of the industrialized countries. Compared to the poorest Slovenes, for example, the poorest Britons have a standard of living that is around 20 percent lower. “Britain is a poor society with islands of very rich people,” concludes the Financial Times – in this respect the country is similar to the United States.
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Unions call for strikes
In particular London Rich and poor are often very close together. In the bombastic glass towers of the financial district of Canary Wharf, in the east of the metropolis, the well-heeled quickly pay 6,000 euros a month for a 3-room apartment. Only a few hundred meters to the north are neighborhoods that are among the most destitute in the country. More than half of the children in this borough grow up in poverty.
It is hardly surprising that Great Britain is currently being shaken by the biggest wave of strikes in decades: unions are warning that even people with permanent jobs, such as nurses, often go to street kitchens and food banks because their wages are simply not enough to make ends meet. Even people from middle class are increasingly affected by the cost-of-living crisis – we read about bankers struggling to get affordable mortgages because of high interest rates.
The super-rich have benefited massively
Some Brits, however, are unaffected by such problems: The richest citizen have had some good years. The number of British billionaires has increased by a fifth since the start of the Covid pandemic, according to a study by the Equality Trust. A boom in the real estate and stock markets triggered a veritable “explosion of billionaire wealth”. Nowhere else in Europe do so many super-rich live as in the British capital.
However, there are significantly fewer than a few years ago – for some time now, more and more rich people have been turning their backs on the island. The consulting firm Henley Partners reported a few weeks ago that around 1,400 millionaires left the UK in 2022. Many appear to be bankers who have relocated to continental Europe. This is not least due to Brexit, writes the London business newspaper “City AM”: “After Brexit, many rich people are considering whether it still makes business sense to stay here.”
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