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3 April 2013updated 12 Oct 2023 10:20am

Poverty is more damaging to health than obesity and smoking. These cuts will kill

Welfare cuts will render people less able to work.

By Martha Gill

In the wake of the welfare cuts there has been some excellent writing on poverty and how it feels. One of my favourites comes from Alex Andreou:

I find nothing more disingenuous than rich MPs or celebrities experimenting on television to see whether they can live on a weekly amount of X or Y and conclude “gosh it’s very hard, but doable”. Such meaningless exercises ignore the cumulative effect of poverty; they never start from a position of empty food cupboards, looming debt, threadbare clothes and shoes with holes in them. They ignore the devastating financial effect that a visit to the dentist or a child’s birthday or one late charge can have. They also ignore the fundamental psychological difference of “I know this will be over in a week” as opposed to “this may never end; this may just get worse”.

It’s a vital point, because the way poverty feels not only traps you there “and pulls you under”, but actually makes you ill (which in turn traps you there). People living in poverty are twice as likely to suffer from depression – which makes it that much more difficult to do all those things that make you a “hard-working striver”, worthy of help. And, of course, the changes to welfare policy have also done harm just because they are changes. It’s difficult to plan for the future, to be a striver and a saver, if the goalposts keep changing.

But these cuts will also kill. Those in poverty die, on average, seven years earlier.  Infants of poor women are more likely to be stillborn or born too early or too small. They are more likely to die within the first week of life or in infancy.

The government has made much of the need for tough policies on obesity, smoking, and alcohol. But the changes in welfare policy will do far more damage. 875,000 deaths in the US in 2000 were attributed to poverty and income inequality. Note how this compares to US deaths in the same year from obesity (400,000), and from smoking (435,000).

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Pushing someone further into poverty is not a spur to action, but a way of rendering them slowly less capable of work. In fact arguments about welfare laziness miss the point entirely. Take a quick look on twitter, and it’s full of employees pissing about Everyone is lazy. Some of us are just lucky enough to be paid for it.

 
 
 
 

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