All in this Together?

2. Professor Dave Adamson, OBE CEO, Centre for Regeneration Excellence Wales All in this Together?

3. Some Headlines • Continued bank bonuses • 25% increase in Chief Exec pay ( FTSE 100) • MP’s expenses • Utility price fixing • Petrol price fixing • Osborne tax cuts for high earners • Starbucks, Amazon tax evasion • Welfare reform

4. The real issues • 1980-2000 breadline poverty rose 16% - 27% • Child poverty peak at 32% in 2001 • Reduced to 23% by 2007 • Result of minimum wage and tax credits • Trend now reversing • But 300,000 children less because of decline in 60% of mean income figure: down £259-251

5. The lived experience of poverty • The triangle of poverty • Social Exclusion • Poor life chances • Poor places • Cultural adaptation • Low aspiration communities Education Health Housing

6. Current issues • Rising poverty • Food and fuel poverty • Personal indebtedness • Child welfare implications • Adult mental health implications • Changing public attitudes (fairness) • Austerity justification

7. Welfare reforms • Invalidity to JSA • Lower real benefit levels (RPI) • Universal Credit • Housing benefit reforms • Merthyr Homes: £350k estate income reduction from under-occupancy rule • Wider climate of workers rights

8. Anti-welfare ideology • Undeserving poor • The poor are: • dysfunctional families • substance abusers • welfare dependents • No recognition of the working poor • Legitimation via ‘austerity’ imperative

9. What is to be done? • Challenge the ideology • Map and understand impact of cuts • Advocacy for the poor • Support, advise and challenge (tribunals) • Maintain (extend?) services • Work with Welsh Government

10. Social policy solutions • Risk of tipping point • Irreversible change • Already need a 1945 scale settlement • Living wage (£7.45 not Min wage £6.19) • Economic growth-V-austerity • Child care provision and subsidy • Education and training • Economic reform