Does it surprise you to discover that in Tony Blair's UK Alice in Wonderland, after two terms of his wretched leftist administration, the poor are getting poorer? It sure as hell doesn't surprise me.Just reflect on this.
The real income (after deducting housing costs) of the poorest 10% of households fell from £91 per week in 2001-02 to £90 in 2002-03 and £88 in 2003-04. Annual incomes are down from £4,732 a year to £4,576 a year, a drop of 3.3%. Even when housing costs are not taken into account, the poor are worse off than they were two years ago: on that measure, the mean income in the UK fell by 0.2% last year, its first decline since the early 1990s recession.
In an excellent article in the admirable The Business, Andrew Neil goes on to reveal that;
The bad news for those on modest incomes and below does not stop there: in addition to having failed to boost the incomes of the poorest 10% of the population, Mr Brown's means-tested tax credits have also robbed millions a few notches above the income level of the poorest of the incentive to work harder, put money aside for pensions or get (and stay) married. According to figures from the OECD (statistics always more reliable than the air-brushed ones which now emanate from the Brown Treasury), a traditional British family with married parents and two children, where only one adult works, looses 70% of every extra £1 of income earned over average earnings as tax credits fall away and income tax and national insurance contributions bite.
This is the folly of leftism in power incarnate. It is obvious that British Chancellor pouting Gordon Brown is bringing the UK back to the grey and economically punishing days of the 1970's with Big Government presiding over the growth of welfare culture. The Conservatives should be shouting about this from the rooftops - as one way or another, we'll ALL be paying for Labour's folly for years to come.
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