The cuts are class war!

Submitted by martin on 11 September, 2010 - 10:05
Cuts

According to research from the TUC, the coalition government's planned cuts will hit the poorest 13 times harder than the richest.

The poorest ten per cent will lose the equivalent of 20% of household income through cuts in services; the richest ten per cent, just 1.5%.

Just counting the impact from loss of services, the TUC reckons that lone parents will lose the equivalent of 11% of household income, and single pensioners 8.7%.

Everyone but the top 10% (by income) will lose more from service cuts than the Lib/Tories' tax cuts.

The TUC survey does not factor in cuts in benefits, which will also obviously hit the poor, but not trouble the rich.

Speaking to the Guardian, TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said the TUC "would not be calling immediately for a general strike". Indeed. But the fact he feels obliged to field the question shows the size of what's ahead.

Comments

Submitted by martin on Sun, 12/09/2010 - 08:44

The cuts also mean that some who are not now poor will become so, by losing their jobs. The government's targets for public spending cuts are impossible without cutting about 10% of public sector jobs.

Analysis by the TUC indicates that even if private-sector jobs now expand at the same rate as they did in boom-time, before the crisis started in 2007-8, it will take 14 years for that growth to compensate for the loss of public-sector jobs.

In fact public-sector cuts will hit private-sector jobs too, as private-sector businesses which supply the public sector shrink.

The TUC figures indicate that almost everywhere outside London, the South, and Wales, it would take over 20 years for compensation for public-sector job cuts to come, even assuming uninterrupted boom for those 20 years.

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