Columbia International Affairs Online: Working Papers

CIAO DATE: 07/2012

The Perfect Storm: Economic stagnation, the rising cost of living, public spending cuts, and the impact on UK poverty

Moussa Haddad

June 2012

Oxfam Publishing

Abstract

The combination in the UK of economic stagnation and public spending cuts is causing substantial hardship to people living in poverty. This amounts to a ‘Perfect Storm’ of falling incomes, rising prices, public service cuts, benefit cuts, a housing crisis, and weak labour rights. By making different political choices, the government can both protect people in poverty and help to stimulate economic recovery in the short term, and set the UK on the way towards economic, social and environmental sustainability in the long term.