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The growing gap between rich and poor
How should Christians respond to the news that the gap between rich and poor in the UK is now greater than at any time in the past 40 years?
A recent report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation highlighted that, in spite of 10 years of New Labour, inequality is at a 40 year high, and that rich and poor are increasingly living geographically separate lives. Are we are seeing the re-birth of the ‘Two Nations’ that so excised the likes of Booth and Shaftesbury, Disraeli and Dickens?
the problem
The richest one percent of the population now own a quarter of the total wealth of the nation. Last Christmas a couple of City bankers strode into Umbaba, one of London’s trendiest nightspots, and asked for a drink. Not content with any old drink, they asked for the most expensive cocktail – which came in at £333 a glass. They ordered two rounds for their table of eight. Final bill for the night: £15,000.
Not more than a stones throw from the City lives Harris, a highly articulate university educated Geography teacher. Yet Harris sleeps on the floor of a kind woman’s flat in a tower block in East London, and spends his days doing nothing. Harris is one of the Britain’s new poor, a new underclass living absolutely destitute, for whom the welfare state offers nothing. Harris’ crime? He is a ‘failed’ asylum seeker, who fled imprisonment and torture in his native Zimbabwe. He would love to go home, but to do so at present would be to risk beatings and death. He can’t even get to meetings to discuss the political future of Zimbabwe, because he doesn’t have the money for a bus fare. As one inner London MP said when she met Harris, ‘He can come to work in a school in my borough tomorrow. We are crying out for good teachers like him.’ Yet if he looked for work, he would risk immediate imprisonment - or even deportation - as he would be breaking the law.
But work itself is no automatic ticket out of poverty. Whilst boardroom bosses regularly reward themselves with multi-million pound bonuses, countless others work hard for long hours, and in the absence of a living wage, still fall below the poverty line.
Sophia, with a disabled husband, her own mother and four children to look after, has three jobs. Her working day starts at 5am, with two shifts as a school cleaner and kitchen assistant; followed by two hours cleaning at a nursery, and two more hours cleaning at a community centre – finishing at 7.30pm. Even with tax credits she earns just £200.75 a week – and less in school holidays. Her weekly outgoings are £263.75, including just £130 for food, toiletries, travel and clothing. Holidays and outings to the cinema or restaurant are out of the question. Sophia does not buy clothes for herself. ‘I have never bought a new coat, because if I buy something there will not be enough for the children and home.’
solutions
But enough of the problem: What can be done to narrow the gap?
Virtually the same day that Rowntrees published their research, the richest Scot, Sir Tom Hunter, announced that he is to give away £1 billion before he dies... Are faith groups, charities and ‘new philanthropists’ now better placed to tackle poverty than the state?
Churches certainly have a long and honourable tradition of serving the neediest in society, and Christian philanthropy is at the root of many of the groups now directly serving some of Britain’s poorest groups – from Barnardos and the Children’s Society through to the Rowntree Foundation itself. Government and opposition politicians are now courting faith and voluntary groups to take on an ever bigger role in the provision of welfare services.
Philanthropy is able to reach certain groups which the state is not good at serving – or has turned its back on. In many towns and cities, for example, churches are now at the forefront of serving destitute asylum seekers like Harris. But as they themselves would recognise, food parcels and handouts are not a just or long-term solution.
harsh truth
The harsh truth is that poverty and inequality are not ‘acts of God’ but man made. And all too often, the wealth and comfort of the majority is bought at the expense of those ‘left behind.’
‘Globalisation’ is used by those at the top to explain why they should be paid more, whilst their workers should be paid less. Ever cheaper food in our supermarkets is frequently bought at the expense of ever lower prices for farmers - increasingly reliant on migrant labourers from Eastern Europe and beyond, employed by gangmaster’s for appallingly low wages and equally appalling employment conditions.
And one of the cruellest paradoxes of being poor in a wealthy society is that those with the least end up paying the most for basic goods and services. Research by Save the Children recently revealed the poorest pay a ‘poverty premium’ of up to £1,000 a year, in higher gas and electricity bills, over-priced (and poorer quality food), and extortionate interest rates.
These kinds of structural inequalities cannot be addressed by philanthropic acts alone. In the US Jim Wallis’s Call to Renewal movement has challenged faith groups ‘not just to pull people out of the river, but to ask who is throwing them into the river in the first place.’
Alongside philanthropy, churches in the UK also have mined the rich prophetic tradition, which has frequently placed them at the forefront of calls for political change to tackle the root causes of poverty and inequality. A century ago, whilst William Booth was setting up the Salvation Army, Seebohm Rowntree was conducting groundbreaking research to shed light on the root causes of poverty. 25 years ago, the churches lead the way in challenging the social divisions of the 1980’s, with the publication of ‘Faith in the City’ and the establishment of Church Action on Poverty and the Church Urban Fund.
Ten years ago, in a strangely prescient report, the Catholic Bishops commented that: ‘There must come a point at which the scale of the gap between the very wealthy and those at the bottom of the range of income begins to undermine the common good. This is the point at which society starts to be run for the benefit of the rich, not for all its members.’
it can be done
Yet many of the solutions are already at hand. Campaigners in London have shown that it is perfectly possible for companies to pay cleaners and caretakers a decent living wage; researchers have identified the level benefits are needed to enable even the very poorest a ‘low cost’ but acceptable and healthy lifestyle; Church Action on Poverty and others have drawn up practical proposals to end extortionate lending and the destitution of asylum seekers.
What is lacking is the popular pressure and political will to bring these changes about. The least well-off are a third less likely to vote than their affluent counterparts, and four times less likely to become school governors. The voices of those in poverty are even less likely to be heard not just in parliament but at every level in society. And that is where individual Christians and the Churches have a key role to play.
a major campaign
Church Action on Poverty, Housing Justice and groups ranging from Save the Children and Help the Aged to Oxfam and the Refugee Council are planning a major campaign, running through 2008, to mobilise public opinion in the churches and beyond, to press all political parties to commit not just to end child poverty, but to a goal of ending poverty across all the generations in the UK by 2020.
The campaign starts with Poverty and Homelessness Action Week - 27 January 2008 to 3 February 2008. During the week we hope that churches and other partners will organise at least 100 poverty hearings or similar events across the country – precisely to give a voice to those with direct personal experience of the catastrophic impact that poverty, debt, low pay or bad housing can have on families and communities.
The success of the MakePoverty History was in rekindling our ambitions, that by mobilising public opinion with the churches and beyond, we could put pressure on our political leaders to bring about policies which could make global poverty history.
Our task, and our challenge, is now to bring this hope back home.
For more information on Poverty and Homelessness Action Week and the 2008 campaign visit www.church-poverty.org.uk
Niall Cooper is National Coordinator of Church Action on Poverty and an Elder of Trinity Community Church, Moss Side.
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