Part 313. Here we go again, another report on poverty.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has published a report:  Living standards, poverty and inequality in the UK: 2024. It is a long, detailed document containing many statistics. It is sober reading.

The report is the latest in a long line of reports over the last fifty years that between them have attempted to identify the scope and causes of poverty, destitution, deprivation and inequality.  The conclusion to be drawn  is that precious little has been achieved to diminish or eradicate the problems.  

There is a recurrent theme: the need for political will to make systemic changes to achieve both short-term palliative and long-term structural change.  There is the need also for joined-up thinking to tackle issues across a wide area of activities: housing, health, education, training, employment opportunities, pay, social and care services, environment and planning.  Shades of the Bains Report!.

It is imperative that secular and faith organisations continue to press politicians to implement legislation to achieve systemic change.  JK Galbraith in the 1960s wrote, in the USA context, that politicians had the means but lacked the will to effect the necessary changes. So it is in the UK sixty years later.