Overall poverty levels in the UK have stayed fairly flat at 20% during the past 25 years. Half the people in poverty live in a working household. Julia Unwin, Chief Executive of Joseph Rowntree Foundation said that “a seismic shift needs to happen: we need to move from treating the symptoms of poverty to tackling the fundamental causes of poverty” in their Annual Conference on poverty on February 8.
In the past 19 years the number of semi-skilled jobs had gown down by 9.5%, while professional and managerial jobs had gone up by 7.9% and low-skilled up by 1.6%.
Culturally, the British do not value vocational jobs as Germans do. Many UK universities could be reformed back into Polytechnics to value vocational careers.
These poor households should be required to file an Annual Tax Return just like those not claiming benefits even if their income is below the personal tax threshold of £10,000. Government should credit their NI contributions automatically so that they get a decent pension.
We should merge the benefit claim system with the tax return system under HMRC so that we can have a better understanding of the true nature of poverty.
Nagindas Khajuria
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