Guernsey Press

If poverty is intolerable then end it all

IT USED to be so simple.

Published

Back in 1971 no one could earn more in benefits than the wage of a greenhouse worker. The idea was to stop people getting more in benefits than if they worked.

The link disappeared long ago, along with most greenhouse workers.

The cap stayed in place, however, and was adjusted over the years to the point where it now stands at £670 per household per week, or £34,840 a year.

For those not having to live off it, it seems a reasonable sum. After all, median earnings per worker for the island as a whole are just over £32,000.

However, Employment & Social Security says that the cap is creating real problems. Although it has been increased five times since the turn of the century, it is still putting families at risk of poverty.

This is especially true of larger families, who have been hit hardest by the new income support system and the end of rent rebate.

Under the old system a family with five children living in social housing would not have been affected by the benefits cap as the heavily discounted rent did not count as a benefit.

That is no longer the case and larger families are increasingly disadvantaged to the point where households with three or more children who are claiming benefits are bound to be held by the cap in what ESS terms ‘an intolerable level of poverty’.

Those families, many of whom have jobs, are already paying their rent from money which should go on food, clothing and other essentials.

As many as 224 families with 721 children are said to be living in poverty.

The committee says it cannot accept that.

In the short term it wants to increase the benefits cap to £750 per week (£39,000 p.a) at an increased cost to the island of £330,000.

But that still leaves 109 families with 428 children in poverty.

If the committee’s definition of intolerable poverty is accepted, the question must be how it can be right that those families are left to wait for a longer-term solution.

If it is not accepted then the whole premise of the committee’s argument has to be challenged.