Today's news contains a report about the government's failure to prevent increasing child and pensioner poverty. It is unfashionable to say this, but child poverty is to a large extent a consequence of the decline in the family. Single women with highly paid jobs may be able to function effectively as single mothers, but if the mother has no qualifications and can only do a menial task, or the child is not old enough to allow her to go out to work, then child poverty will be an inevitable consequence. And with the tax and benefit system the way it is, then it is quite likely that there will be no incentive to work, but rather to continue living on the bare subsistence provided by benefits. Tax credits were meant to address this but are evidently too complicated for people to get to grips with. Pensioner poverty is a separate issue. The Chancellor's raid on the pension funds cannot have helped, but the main effects of that have yet to come. Most pensioners will have worked, ...
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