Unequal Societies Have Unequal Disasters
Ben Dzialdowski / Nov 22 / Coronavirus
During his speech on the 22nd of September 2020, Boris Johnson used the word ‘we’ 57 times. Johnson’s façade of ‘unity’ and getting “through this winter together” attempts to create a sense of collective struggle against a virus that we are supposedly equally equipped to fight.
This fictitious narrative masks the disparity between social classes, ignoring the exacerbating effect that crises such as COVID-19 have on pre-existing class-based inequalities.
Austerity as the Foundations of Chaos
David Cameron has claimed that “COVID-19 was the rainy day we had been saving for”, referring to the decade of austerity that his government introduced in the wake of our last major crisis. This statement does not correspond to reality. The cuts to public affordable housing, education, and welfare have ensured that both the financial crash and now the COVID-19 pandemic are felt most by lower-income families.
Austerity oversaw the rollback of the state, and in line with UK society, it’s effect was harshly unequal. The butchering of social welfare instigated a sharp rise in child poverty and homelessness, significantly reducing the standards of living for millions in the UK. These conditions laid the groundwork for a virus that thrives in reduced living space, coupled with an economic downturn that further depletes income and job security. Austerity withdrew any margin for disaster among low-income groups, with the broken welfare system forcing impossible decisions of ‘rent or food?’.
The consequences of austerity unquestionably target the poor. The freezing of benefits and the introduction of Universal Credit meant that upon COVID-19’s arrival, the most disadvantaged families were at their maximum level of vulnerability. Wage stagnation alongside increased living costs caused in-work poverty to dramatically increase. Low-income sectors were worse hit, with employees in hospitality twice as likely to live in poverty than other workers. Since the pandemic, this in-work poverty has contributed to the 40% increase in Universal Credit claims, as insufficient incomes are further exacerbated by large-scale shutdowns of low-wage sectors.
With austerity and now COVID-19, the most deprived households and areas are far down on the list of priorities. This has been explicitly demonstrated by Marcus Rashford’s free school meals campaign. The 23-year old footballer has aimed to counteract this neglect by loudly voicing the need to extend the supply of lunches for 1.4 million children during the school holidays. This movement has exposed the governmental disregard for helping those who have been hardest hit by a decade of austerity, and now face the added pressures of COVID-19. Refusing to accept the scheme was a firm stance against ‘togetherness’ and a failure to take responsibility for an issue worsened by years of austerity.
Children in the UK have been severely affected by austerity measures. Since 2010 governmental failure has resulted in 800,000 more children in working families growing up in poverty. This increase mirrors the rising ‘in-work’ poverty trend in the UK, “essentially all” of which can be explained by cuts to benefit entitlements. The very existence of mass child-poverty in the same nation where the government is paying consultants £7000 a day for an unsuccessful private test and trace system is a travesty. Refusing to feed at-risk children when 14% of family households have “experienced food insecurity in the last 6 months”, is a damning indictment of the government’s denial of fundamental human rights. Perhaps the importance of free school meals is unknown to the cabinet, two-thirds of which were privately educated. While much of the government grew up with the resources to prosper, their neo-liberal fulcrums of independence and individualism have resulted in a society where some are set-up to succeed, and others left to go hungry.
COVID-19 and the Class Gap
With low-income households already at breaking point, COVID-19 has added another level of detriment to those in dire conditions. The latest ONS (Office for National Statistics) data has shown that in the most deprived areas the mortality rate is twice that of wealthy neighbourhoods. These rates only exacerbate the pre-existing inequality of life-expectancy between income groups, with pre-COVID-19 figures seeing males in the most affluent areas already living an entire decade longer than those in a lower-earning bracket.
The unequal impact of COVID-19 along class lines runs parallel to the disproportionate level of risk to ethnic minority communities. With inhabitants of more deprived areas at greater risk of infection, the socio-economic policies of the UK which force certain groups into disadvantaged areas, as well as the racial biases that fuel them, have resulted in black individuals having the highest infection rates. Pre-existing societal conditions have therefore ensured that certain communities are over-represented in COVID-19 hot-spot areas. This points to a multi-layered inequality problem, with disproportionate rates of infection and mortality among both ethnic minority groups and the poor. By amplifying the unequal configuration of British society, COVID-19 distinguishes groups who are set up to fail from those allowed to flourish.
COVID-19, like austerity, is taking the lives of the disadvantaged, while simultaneously pushing the same group further away from comfort, security, and mobility. Lockdown measures have seen the majority of executive and office jobs transition into the safe confines of well-furnished, internet-accessible homes that their decent wages supply. Low-income sectors were afforded no such luxuries.
Austerity-era wages and the lack of affordable housing forced shutdown-sector workers to rent primarily from private landlords, a costly, volatile predicament for those with virus-hit incomes. After just 4 months of the outbreak, roughly 227,000 adult private renters had fallen behind on payments. During the same period, half a million renting families expressed fears of becoming homeless due to the virus and its measures. With a Conservative government having already overseen a 33% rise in homelessness during the austerity-era, and the pandemic-related collapse of low-income and service industry sectors, these fears are not unfounded.
As the UK enters another full lockdown, households across the country are preparing for vastly different experiences. Low-earners have been pushed into below-standard living conditions, while the inflated housing market has caused record levels of overcrowding. Almost half of the 3.7 million people living in these conditions are children. Not only does overcrowding have a correlation to higher COVID-19 death rates, but it also causes devastating mental and physical health problems. Such conditions are desperate enough at the best of times, but with instructions to stay at home and the closure of many public places, it leaves a multitude of low-income households facing a much harsher winter than those with the space and resources to cope.
The overcrowding of lower-income households feeds into the disproportionate impact that lockdown measures are having on children across the UK. The children of parents whose jobs are being hit hardest were already achieving worse than their more well-off classmates, but with 5 months of missed school, the gap has only widened. Having less access to personal devices, internet, and tutoring, poorer children have lost up to ten times the amount of learning than their better-off peers, causing at least a 46% rise in education disparity between the children of the highest and lowest income groups. With an education sector that already leaves disadvantaged students 1.5 years behind more affluent children when they leave school, this rise has alarming implications for the social mobility of lower-income groups and further exemplifies the exacerbating effect of COVID-19.
Occupational, housing, and income inequalities that were extensive before the pandemic have only grown with its arrival. The impact on low-income workers and families is not fleeting. Job losses, income depletion, and diminished education services will cause irreparable damage to the poorest rung of our society. There is no going ‘back to normal’ for those whose ‘normal’ was merely surviving.
Final Words
The pandemic has undoubtedly affected most families and individuals in a negative way. Facing no discrimination and being financially secure does not make you immune from the pain and stresses of COVID-19. However, the term ‘inequality’ refers to the disproportionate level of hurt faced by those who are already cast aside. For many, the anxieties of COVID-19 are adding to the constant fear of eviction, not being able to pay the bills, and the stresses of being unable to feed your children. How can Mr. Johnson suggest that we are in this ‘together’ when a decade of Conservative-run governments have only driven us farther apart?