UK’S austerity policy hurts poor children most

Britain, or the United Kingdom, is Europe’s third biggest economy and the seventh largest worldwide ( GDP: $2.418 trillion). It had ranked higher, until the 2008 global financial-economic crisis drove Britain into recession, pulling it down below Brazil.

Since then the Conservative government has implemented a draconian austerity policy, fast dismantling Britain’s already partially- privatized welfare system. It has reduced public-sector employment to 5.9 million, the lowest level since 2003. The government plans further retrenchments and pension cuts, while encouraging private-sector job creation.

Britain and the US have the same unemployment rate: 8.2%.

Unemployment-wages status in UK: 6 jobless people vie for every job available; wages have dipped below the cost of living — whereas before the crisis, wages normally rose above the inflation rate.

Consequently 10.7 million people, or 17.1% of Britain’s population, came at risk of falling into poverty by 2010. This was above the 16.4% average poverty rate in the European Union then.

Recent twin researches, commissioned by the newspaper Guardian, reveal the impacts of the recession and the austerity measures, especially on 2.2 million schoolchildren belonging to families living on the “economic cliffedge.”

One study, involving 26 million households across Britain, reveals that 7 million adults in 3.6 million households are extremely poor. Mark this: they are employed and largely independent of state support. Yet they have little or no savings; they do not own their houses, and they hardly feed themselves and their children enough.

Included in these households are couples with children having annual gross incomes of 12,000- 29,000 UK pounds (P729,480-P1.915M), or couples with two children who earn yearly £ 17,000-£ 41,000 ( P1.122M- P2.707M). The lowest average weekly wage is £350 (P23,114) in Blackpool South — a long way down from £1,305 ( P86,182) in London’s rich Kensington borough.

When reckoned in pesos, the inadequacy of these incomes indicates how high the cost of living is in Britain.

These adults who suffer “in-work poverty” fall into eight types. Three of these categories are: 1) the self- employed living in small communities; 2) ethnically- mixed families and single persons/parents living in small towns; and 3) private renters living in inner-city “terraces” (apartments).

Bruno Rost, head of the Experion Public Sector group that conducted the study, notes:

“These are the new working class — except that the work they do no longer pays. These people say that being forced to claim benefits or move into a council (local government) property would be the worst kind of social ignominy and self-failure.”

A similar finding was reported last week by an Oxfam study in UK. It says there are more people in poverty who are working than those who are unemployed. The number of those working but claiming housing benefits has more than doubled since 2005. More increasingly turn to charities for assistance.

The other related Guardian survey shows that one-half of 591 grade-school teachers interviewed across Britain have to feed pupils who come to class without having had breakfast. The data gathered are disturbing:

• 83% of the teachers find many pupils hungry in the morning; 55% says 1/ 4 of the pupils arrive not having eaten enough, 28% says 1/2, 8% says 3/4, and 2% says all pupils come to school hungry.

• 49% of the teachers bring food or fruits to school to give to the hungry pupils;

• 78% want children from low-income families to be given free breakfast upon arrival at school;

• 59% say children are sometimes taken out of the class because they are ill; 13% say this occurs regularly;

• 89% say the lack of breakfast affect their teaching of the other pupils in the class.

The Royal College of General Practitioners, the National Association of Head Teachers, and the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health urge that 1.3 million children who qualify for free school meals — lunch has been given since 1945 — also be given free breakfast.

Such a step, they point out, will help address the problems of anemia and stunted growth, boost the children’s self-esteem, and narrow the social-class divide ( between rich and poor) in schools.

Carmel McConnell, founder of Magic Breakfast, a charity that provides free food to 200 of the 1,000 primary schools in Britain, observes with deep concern:

“The need is escalating. We’re being overtaken by need on the ground. Schools are asking us for more cereals, bagels, porridge and orange juice… more pupils are coming in hungry. There are more parents who have lost their jobs in the last year.”

“It’s a scar on our society,” McConnell laments, “the sheer volume of schoolchildren coming into school who are missing half of the day’s learning because of hunger and malnourishment. How can we talk about being a rich and responsible society when we‘ve got so many children arriving at school too hungry to learn?”

What is the government’s response to this growing problem?

Guardian reports that the Department for Education does not intend to introduce free school breakfast. But, the paper notes wryly, the DfE “is happy” for schools or local councils that use their own resources to meet the need.

Who must bear the privations of an austerity program then: poor children? E-mail: satur.ocampo@gmail.com