A new article by Professor Peter Taylor-Gooby examines the paradox of declining support for welfare spending at a time of rapidly growing inequality and rising poverty.
High unemployment and the much greater insecurity of many people’s lives as the economy stagnates render the issue more perplexing. The article presents new data to show how policies that reduce poverty can be made more acceptable to a public worried about subsidies for ‘workshy’ claimants by focusing on wage levels and on the costs of a normal family life. For many people at the bottom, wages are too low to rent adequate housing or pay fuel bills and child care costs. Professor Taylor-Gooby proposes that increasing the minimum wage to living wage levels, controlling rents and providing good quality, low cost child care would do a great deal in reducing the numbers in poverty.
The article ‘Why Do People Stigmatise the Poor at a Time of Rapidly Increasing Inequality, and What Can Be Done About It?’ is published in Political Quarterly.