May update – meetings and discussions on income inequality

Workshop: “An Economy for the 99%”
Sat 19 May 2012, 9.30am-12, Quaker Meeting House, St James Street S1 2EW
To make the links between climate jobs and an economy for the 99%. All welcome.
http://alt-sheff.org/events/2045/

Sheffield Equality Group
7pm Wednesday 6th June, Sheffield Quaker Meeting House, St James Street
Monthly meeting of the Equality group, discussing income inequality and local actions. All welcome.

Fairness Commission
Next Fairness Commission meeting is around the topic of unemployment on this Thursday, 17th May, at Arbourthorne Social Centre, East Bank Road, Sheffield, S2 2AL (Opposite the new Medical Centre). The meeting is open to the public from 6.20pm.

Very good chat with Richard Wilkinson before the Fairness Commission meeting last Wednesday. We thought our chat was better than the meeting itself! We’ve put a few questions to the commission about its format and future. You can read a summary report of the discussion and meeting here.

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Discussion points and links
There exists the potential for a wedge to be driven between the majority of small and medium businesses where pay differentials are typically low, and multinationals. An embroyonic idea is “Bosses against bonuses”. The link between tax avoidance and Government cuts could also be made explicit, with a suggestion for the publication of tax records, as happens in Norway and Finland

The economic case against income inequality is strengthening, with clear links being drawn by leading economists to the recession
We need structural change, focussing on moral change, making postivie changes to society permenant. Greed can be made dishonorable, placing the selfish low on a moral hierachy, something that has happened for many other practices. “The Honor Code” by Kwame Anthony Appiah sets out how many moral practices have changed over time
Income inequality is clearly linked to moralilty and trust, as outlined in Eric Uslaner’s “The Moral Foundations of Trust” (the book is available to read online)

What psychologists term “social evaluative anxiety” causes issues with self-esteem, and is linked with depression and substance abuse. By feeling continual threats to social position because of relatively low income (which applies to everyone apart from at the very top) this anxiety is brought out and has harmful effects. The next book Wilkinson and Pickett are writing is around how our natural psychological responses to income inequality cause the harm.

The impacts of income inequality on early development is also important. Social status and stresses in early life lead to changes in how genes are expressed, therefore being another mechanism through which income inequality impacts on health and social wellbeing. See here for a summary

Children form an emotional/cognitive strategy to handle the society they grow up in, and parenting is a way of passing on cultural expectations that shape these strategies.
The example was given of where parents had encouraged their children to fight, in order to “toughen them up” – a reasonable strategy where there are perceived threats to status and selfish strategies are widely used.

However, this was contrasted with more egalitarian societies, with reference to the Continuum Concept by Jean Liedloff, where a tribe commonly attributed problem behaviour to a lack of understanding rather than malicious intent.

Practical policies such as pay ratios and living wage were mentioned to reduce income differences. A new study on the Living Wage shows it really is affordable for the majority of FTSE businesses, increasing wage costs by around 1% for most, and around 5% for only a couple of industries.

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And finally…
If you haven’t heard of crowd-sourcing before, then now is the time! Check out the planned Spirit Level Documentary and put your money to making a world changing movie…

Discuss with Richard Wilkinson, give your ideas, go to the Bridge

Sheffield Fairness Commission – hearing on Poverty, Welfare and Benefits
Wednesday 9th May at Sorby House, Spital Hill, Burngreave
Pre-meeting open discussion from 5pm, with Richard Wilkinson, co-author of The Spirit Level, hosted by Sheffield Equality Group. Public session of the Fairness Commission from 6:15pm to 8pm, hearing evidence on the impact of income inequality and ideas to change it. Click for more information, including posters and flyers to publicise the event. All welcome.

Workshop: “An Economy for the 99%”
Sat 19 May 2012, 9.30am-12, Quaker Meeting House, St James Street S1 2EW
To make the links between climate jobs and an economy for the 99%. All welcome.
http://alt-sheff.org/events/2045/

Sheffield Equality Group
7pm Wednesday 6th June, Sheffield Quaker Meeting House, St James Street
Monthly meeting of the Equality group, discussing income inequality and local actions. All welcome.

For more meetings of interest, don’t forget to check out the excellent http://alt-sheff.org/

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Actions points from the last meeting:

• Idea of a “Fairness/Equality/One Sheffield/Jolly Levellers Fortnight”, similar to “Fairtrade Fortnight” – around reducing inequalities in the City. We just want a better/sexy title so any ideas, please send them in!
• Pictoral/Infographic representation of the final Equality report would allow for easier monitoring of progress and identification of gaps
• Need to ask questions of the Fairness Commission regarding several issues

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Links from meeting discussion

The reality of life on a low wage and unemployment

Paul Kingsnorth, Real England: The Battle Against the Bland

At current rates we will hit Victorian levels of inequality by 2035, so prepare by reading the new paperback of “London Labour and London Poor” by Henry Mayhew

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And finally…

If “Se7en” was your kind of fillum, or you like your Scandinavian drama, then BBC4′s latest import might be up your street. It asks, albeit in a fairly gruesome way – if there is uproar to a person murdering innocent people, why the silence over the countless victims of income inequality…

April news – Greedy bankers, social ranking and pies

Forthcoming Meetings

Wednesday 2nd of May
Discussion of income inequality, Sheffield Fairness Commission and future campaigns, at the next Equality Group meeting.
7-9pm at Sheffield Quaker Meeting House

Wednesday 9th of May
Fairness Commission on poverty, with Richard Wilkinson (co-author of the Spirit Level) speaking. There will be an opportunity to meet up with Richard beforehand – venue still to be confirmed.
Pre-meet from 5pm, commission meeting from 6pm.

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A Spirit Level for the Fairness Commission

A few of us went to the first Sheffield Fairness Commission armed with copies of the Spirit Level, which was mentioned by Danny Dorling and Jack Czauderna in their presentations of evidence. The meeting was very interesting, with good speakers and questions from the commission – although sadly there isn’t any chance for input from the plebs gallaries. Income inequality will be at the forefront in the next meeting, but it was good to see such a strong message in another theme. See the full report.

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News and Links

“A great supply of money from the richest five per cent and a great demand to borrow among the remaining 95 per cent creates the type of debt burden we are seeing right now. The state has borrowed money, at home or abroad, to finance the consumption of the less affluent.” – an IMF economist outlines how inequality causes credit crunches

“fair is what provides the greatest average happiness. That principle is good for the majority of people. The problem with averages is that things can still be unfair for some. The majority might be deliciously happy because the minority get cooked up for them in a big pie.”, Fairness in the fabulous Now Then (I may be biased)…

“the highest average cash gain occurs in the second-richest tenth of the income distribution. As a percentage of income, the gain is roughly the same from just below the middle to just below the top of the income distribution, with the bottom and the very top gaining by less than this” – the Institute for Fiscal Studies shows that the raising the personal tax allowance isn’t all that it has been spinned
Meanwhile, the minimum wage gets more minimal, with no increase for those below 21 and 11p for everyone else…

“Though the findings might seem to suggest that low social rank, or a decrease in social rank, can lead to reduced immune health, the team said it was “encouraging” that the effects can be counteracted by a change in the social environment.” – The latest research (albeit with monkeys) shows how social rank (and, for us, income inequality) impacts on health

“How many people know that 90 per cent of taxpayers in Britain could be better -off and the country could save almost £200 billion a year in pay and people would have differentials between their income levels which were no greater than those enjoyed in 1970?” – Danny Dorling proposes austerity for the rich

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And finally…

With all the talk about bankers being paid too much, perhaps they should take heart that they were not viewed as negatively as after the 1930s crash (well that’s up to 2008 at least…)

Meeting 4th April and… football!

The next meeting of the Equality Group is at 7pm, Wednesday April 4th at Sheffield Quaker Meeting House. On the agenda is income inequalities, the fairness commission, and future campaigns etc. All welcome.

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Sheffield Fairness Commission

The first evidence, on health, has been submitted by groups across the city. Plenty to consider and many ideas on how the city can get better. Members of the Equality Group attended the meeting. The wider issues of income inequalities were frequently mentioned. For more on the commission, and our submission, see:
http://sheffieldequality.wordpress.com/next-steps/fairness-commission/

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Equality News

Not much change for income inequality with the 2012 budget, a lot of hopes pinned on Universal Credit, and don’t have kids…
http://www.ifs.org.uk/budgets/budget2012/budget2012robjoyce.pdf

“‘I think the concept of the squeezed middle is misplaced. It’s actually a vanishing middle, or a shrinking middle,’ says Stewart Lansley, economist and author of a book about income inequality. The absence of a middle puts the brakes on social mobility and aspiration, he argues, because there is no realistic passage out of the bottom income brackets. ‘That’s very bad for running economies, because you don’t have this continuum, you don’t have aspirations. It makes it difficult for cities to manage, and we’re becoming much more of a low-paid economy with this big top’” http://t.co/53P4BAs6

“The Seesaw staff [offer] numeracy and literacy skills, help with budgeting and job applications, and parents use the centre’s phones to apply for jobs or to try to talk to Jobcentre Plus. … A core goal for the centre is to get parents moving up the ladder of opportunity rung by rung. The lack of economic growth, the absence of private sector jobs and the dearth of extra hours for part-timers means that the rungs are rapidly disintegrating, leaving an increasingly unbridgeable gap. The working poor are also expected to be exemplary and stay within the strict rules of austerity.” – Life on the breadline, one family’s story…

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National meeting of local Equality Groups

A national meeting of the Equality Trust for local group co-ordinators was held in London on March 24th. The main priority was communications, particularly the sharing of resources (campaigns, activities, etc) between groups. It was agreed a meeting of local Equality Groups and the Equality Trust should steer the campaigning of the Equality Trust, to get more co-ordination between local group actions and the national group. It was agreed the local groups should stay autonomous, i.e. able to direct their own campaigns etc. In general the development of the Equality Trust and local groups has been very quick for the three years, with much accomplished.

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And finally…

Research indicates footballers with equal pay play better

March news + links

Next meeting
The next meeting of the Equality Group is on Wednesday (7th March) with discussion on the group’s submission to the Fairness Commission, and the potential for a wider conversation around fairness in the city. Also on the agenda is a consultation on how the national Equality Trust can better support local groups. The meeting is at 7pm in the Quaker Meeting House, all welcome.

p.s. Please note that if you are part of a group considering to submit to the fairness commission – the deadline is 4th April, with any evidence on health inequalities requested by the 21st March. For more see https://www.sheffield.gov.uk/fairnesscommission.

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Social mobility and income inequality

“In the 1980s, income differences widened dramatically in the UK. Economists from the London School of Economics compared the social mobility of Britons who were born in 1958 to those born in 1970. They found that people who were born in 1970 had a smaller chance of moving into a higher income stratum than those who were born and grew up during times of greater income equality. Widening income differences meant that those born rich were more likely to stay rich, and those born poor to stay poor” – From the latest research digest, concentrating on social mobility, from the Equality Trust

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Protest against Workfare
1pm Saturday 3rd March meeting on Devonshire Green

Sanctions removed for workfare, but unpaid “work experience” remains

Steve Bell questions the positive impact of the “f*** off and die scheme”

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News and Links

March is move your money month – get with a bank that believes in more equality…

Why debt has become the only money in town, informative films at PostiveMoney.Org

The Spirit Level Documentary aims to crowdsource the film of the book – please help!

You can’t just put a smile on it – the dangers of the “happiness movement”

Fairness Commission, notes and news

Could what fairness is for many people in Sheffield get missed by the “great and the good” who form the fairness commission? Should a big conversation about what is fair sit alongside the commission to provoke change? A working group to produce proposals is meeting Wednesday 22nd February: 7pm at Quaker Meeting House. All welcome, please get in touch if you want more details.

 

The next meeting of the Equality Group will consider the submission to, and possible actions around, the Fairness Commission – as well as the usual chat around income inequality issues. Please come along, Wednesday 7th March, 7pm at Quaker Meeting House, St James St (just by the Cathedral).

 

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“There is near consensus within academia concerning the link between inequality and violent crime. Indeed, as seemingly small reductions in income inequality can lead to sizeable falls in violent crime, these findings have powerful policy implications. The uncertainty surrounding the transmission mechanisms are an additional reason to target economic inequality directly. As Elgar and Aitken [9] suggest, ‘…crime reduction policies that ignore income inequality relinquish much of their potential impact on reducing homicide.’”

 

http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/resources/publications/research-digest-1-violent-crime-web

 

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Notes of February meeting

Concern that the priorities and suggestions of the commission will be responding to the needs of Sheffield Council, and with reliance on the usual faces and ideas. Needs to be about “the rich” as well as “the poor”.

 

The “Big Conversation” budget planning event in Leeds was cited as a possible model for engaging in real talk about what fairness means. Disagreement over whether it would be best as a spread out series of events, possibly attaching to other events, or a more focussed ‘weekend’ involving various activities to attract interest and involvement. Potential for other funding (e.g. Equality and Human Rights Commission). A working group will draw up proposals.

 

Need to get ordinary people involved and go somewhere positive with that involvement. Disagreement over whether “fairness” is a useful word to engage people. There will be very different views on what “fairness” is, for some it will be about reducing income inequality, for others it will be about reducing rights for immigrants, or benefit claimants, and so on. That is no reason to avoid the discussion, but does raise the issue of what the reality is for many.

 

A list of questions were sent seeking clarification of some points. The answers to these are on our website:

http://sheffieldequality.wordpress.com/next-steps/fairness-commission/

 

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News and Links

 

Move your money to a better bank, and help build a better banking system
http://www.moveyourmoney.org.uk/

 

Need the latest research on income inequality, low pay, wage ratios etc? It’s all here…

http://www.onesociety.org.uk/research/

 

Workfare in trouble as Waterstones and Sainsbury’s pull out, saying they do not want to “encourage work for no pay”

http://t.co/p5qbhhYW

Inequality harms economies

http://www.oxfam.org/en/policy/left-behind-by-g20
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/feb/05/inequality-leads-to-economic-collapse

 

January update

Thanks to our lobbying, Sheffield Green Party is putting a motion to the next Full Council meeting on 1st February asking Sheffield Council to publish pay ratios for both itself and the major companies it deals with, in support of the Equality Trust campaign. Please please keep up the pressure by contacting your councillors if you have not already done so. We also still need to get cross-party support for the fairness commission.

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Ask your Councillor to support the Fairness Commission

We need to ensure that all councillors support the Sheffield Fairness Commission and increase the likelihood any actions will be pushed forward. The national Equality Trust has a simple tool to help you contact your councillors, as well as a suggested letter. If you click on the Councillors name you will see the letter. To make it more specific to Sheffield, I suggest you replace the last line of each letter with something like:

“Such an action will set the ground for the forthcoming Sheffield Fairness Commission. I trust that you will support the work of the Commission in helping the Council become a powerful force for reducing excessive inequality, both in Sheffield and as part of wider actions across the UK. By taking these actions you can play an important part.”

You are, of course, welcome to personalise the message as you like:
http://e-activist.com/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=118&ea.campaign.id=12070

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Next meeting

Wednesday 1st February, 7pm at Quaker Meeting House – discussing the priorities of the Sheffield Fairness Commission (see below), with tea and biscuits! All welcome.

http://www.sheffieldquakers.org.uk/m/shqu/TRAVEL_MAP_0.pdf

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Sheffield Fairness Commission

Regarding representation of the group on the Fairness Commission, we received the following message from Lee Adams: “Thanks. I have consulted Alan Walker, the Chair, and unfortunately the commissioners are decided. They are personal invitations and they will not represent organisations or groups. The equality group is very welcome however to provide written evidence we will be putting out a call for this in February.”

The terms of reference for the Commission can be seen here:

http://sheffieldequality.wordpress.com/next-steps/fairness-commission/

The list of priorities for the Fairness Commission will be the subject of discussion of the next Equality Group meeting.

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News and Links

Stop RBS bonuses!

http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_rbs_bonuses_a

“I’m working 7 days a week to make ends meet because my wages haven’t gone up but everything else has. I don’t enjoy life anymore because I’m working all the time.” – stories and stats from the squeezed middle
http://www.resolutionfoundation.org/media/media/downloads/Squeezed_Britain.pdf

“unfair pay in the wider workforce also has adverse impacts on the wider economy and on all taxpayers. This is not only because of the obvious effect of low pay on suppressing spending, but also because levels of debt tend to be higher where pay gaps are wider. At the bottom end of the pay scale, there is a direct cost to taxpayers. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) estimates that pay below the living wage costs taxpayers £6bn a year in benefits and forgone revenue.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/23/vince-cable-executive-pay

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Go to the Movies!

I would strongly recommend the film Inside Job, a penetrating account of the financial crisis from an American viewpoint, narrated by Matt Damon. It will not offer you much comfort as it points out towards the end that virtually all the economic experts recruited by Obama to sort out the mess come from the investment banks which played a leading part in creating the mess in the first place – and also that many of the most distinguished economists from the elite universities in the USA lack objectivity because they have received large sums of money from these same investment banks.

You can watch it on your computer through this link, running time of two hours:

http://player.vimeo.com/video/25491676?autoplay=1

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Social immobility

Despite evidence that social mobility is low in the UK…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/mar/10/oecd-uk-worst-social-mobility

…and that income inequality is likely to increase, which will push social mobility even lower…

http://andrewleigh.org/pdf/InequalityMobility.pdf

http://www.americanprogress.org/events/2012/01/krueger.html

…the belief that Britain is a meritocratic country where social mobility rules, may be driving public views of welfare reform…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/25/welfare-reform-not-expense-equality

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Live        Sheffield
Among       Equality
Equals          Group

January Campaigns and Notes

Did you know that it would take over a thousand years for someone picking potatoes for Tesco to earn the pay of their Chief Executive? There are three important campaigns this month that you can take part in, from the national to the local, to challenge the status quo. If you could set aside just fifteen minutes or so for all three, you would be keeping the issue in the minds of our representatives. Notes of the last meeting, covering the Fairness Commission and Workfare, are below. 
 
Avaaz tax avoidance campaign
Firstly, the lobby of Government on tax avoidance by the excellent online campaign group Avaaz (which is a great way of taking part in effective and socially conscious campaigns):
 
http://www.avaaz.org/en/goldman_sachs_pay_your_tax/
 
Lobby your MP for a more equal society
Our second campaign seeks to influence MPs, follow the link to take part:
 
http://sheffieldequality.wordpress.com/2012/01/05/lobby-your-mp/
 
Ask your Councillor to support the Fairness Commission
In Sheffield the Fairness Commission will soon start, but not all of the parties may support it; we need to ensure that all councillors support the commission and increase the likelihood any actions will be pushed forward. The national Equality Trust has a simple tool to help you contact your councillors, as well as a suggested letter. If you click on the Councillors name you will see the letter. To make it more specific to Sheffield, I suggest you replace the last line of each letter with something like:
 
“I am aware that the forthcoming Sheffield Fairness Commission is likely to look into these issues also. I trust that you will support the work of the Commission in helping the Council become a powerful force for reducing excessive inequality, both in Sheffield and as part of wider actions across the UK. By taking these actions you can play an important part.”
 
You are, of course, welcome to personalise the message as you like:
http://e-activist.com/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=118&ea.campaign.id=12070 
 
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Sheffield Equality Group Meetings
 
The next meeting of the group is Wednesday 1st February, 7pm at Quaker Meeting House, including a workshop on the fairness commission, discussion of universal benefit and fairer taxation, and a report back from the national Occupy conference in Sheffield. All welcome.
 
Meetings of Sheffield Equality Group are the first Wednesday of every month. Future topics include “Do we argue for less inequality, or income equality?”
 
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“If we cared about overcoming the effect that poverty and low incomes have on educational achievement, we shouldn’t tinker with the 15% of education but go directly to the source, the 60% of socioeconomic factors. If you want poor children to do better in school, forget about their education, just make them less poor.”
http://mondediplo.com/2012/01/14education
 
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Notes of January meeting
Apologies: June. Attending: Graham, Leela, Jack, Jason, Jean, Joe, Peter, Rachel
 
MPs Lobbying Letter
Group agreed it would be good to lobby MPs. Letter will go up on the website after checking with Graham B (Jason).
 
Fairness Commission
The group wishes to be involved in the commission and will contact Lee Adams (Jason). The next meeting will discuss what we think the priorities of the Comission should be. There was a suggestion we could focus on basics (food, shelter, water) and relate those to income inequality (e.g. poverty and benefit changes leading to homelessness, wealthy own multiple homes and pushing up house prices). To inform the discussion Joe will collate details on commssions elsewhere.
 
Workfare
There was discussion of the Government policy to force people into work if they had spent six months unemployed, or threaten loss of benefits. The feeling was that in any case compulsion was unjust, and that at least the work should be for non-profit making companies. The risk was that companies such as Tesco would use Workfare for cheap labour and not hire people on proper wages, and continue to not pay taxes that could support out of work people into proper employment. Jason suggested circulating a draft flyer that could be used for a local campaign. See www.boycottworkfare.org/ for more.

Lobby your MP

Please lobby your MP on income equality, asking them to curb executive pay and introduce fairer taxation. Below is an example letter, although please do customise it for your MP with anything relevant you have experience of, or are aware of.

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MP Contact Details

Brightside and Hillsborough (inc. Burngreave, Firth Park, Shiregreen and Southey)
Mr David Blunkett
Email: dbconstituency@aol.com

Central (inc. Broomhill, Nether Edge, Manor Castle, Walkley)
Mr Paul Blomfield
Email: paul.blomfield.mp@parliament.uk

Hallam (inc. Crookes, Dore, Ecclesall, Fulwood, Stannington, Totley)
Mr Nick Clegg
email: nickclegg@sheffieldhallam.org.uk

Heeley (inc. Arbourthorne, Beauchief, Gleadless Valley, Greenhill, Graves Park, Richmond)
Ms Meg Munn
Email: munnm@parliament.uk

Sheffield South East (inc. Beighton, Birley, Darnall, Mosborough, and Woodhouse)
Mr Clive Betts
Email: bettsc@parliament.uk

Not sure who your MP is? Find your MP.

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Example letter

Dear [your MP's name here],

I am writing regarding the appalling lack of Government action on bringing about a more equitable society in the UK. Whilst statements from Ministers constantly refer to fairness, this is not reflected in new policy. We are undergoing very severe and damaging spending cuts so measures to ensure wealthier people and companies contribute to dealing with our financial crisis are both fair and overdue.

It is currently difficult to identify measures capable of real impact that have a good chance of being adopted in the current political environment. Two specific ones I would ask you to support at present are:-

Curbs on Executive Pay
David Cameron’s statements indicating shareholders will be given a binding say over executive pay is welcomed. However, it has been widely noted that: this has not stopped excessive pay in other countries; the majority shareholders are themselves often highly renumerated; companies are likely to find loopholes to keep up renumeration in other ways. For proper oversight employees should be given more power in deciding executive pay levels in their companies, with non-managerial staff sitting on the panels responsible for this. Whilst there has been concerns this might be “tokenism”, the system works well in other countries where it is not approached in a tokenistic way, and benefits companies through making staff at all levels contribute to the direction of the company. It must be made very clear that pay levels for top executives have become grossly out of balance with those of ordinary people, and that this harms the cohesion of our society.

“Robin Hood” Tax
Please support a “Robin Hood” tax on all investment transactions. David Cameron has decided to stay out of the EU “fiscal compact”. His refusal to accept a financial transaction tax is clearly one reason why the deal “was not in Britain’s interests”. It is worth stepping back and considering why the City of London has become such a large financial centre. The UK Government made policy decisions over a number of years, designed to encourage banks to set up here as opposed to other countries. These decisions included bringing about a lax tax regime and led to excessive profits in what had become one of the most profitable business sectors anyway. If we are to re-balance the economy, I believe it is reasonable to risk losing a few companies within our large financial sector. After all, manufacturing still contributes far more to our economy and twice as much in taxes as the financial sector. However, this risk is reduced anyway because of the imminent new EU transaction tax. We should lead other countries by introducing a Robin Hood tax here and then urge the other EU countries to likewise use their tax for projects to improve sustainability. Other countries should then follow, as most nations see the benefits of the idea, they only hold back for fear of disadvantaging themselves relative to others.

Conclusion
Please continue to press the government on equality issues. Try to impress upon them the real anger that is being generated in this city by their failure to address this issues. Please support the specific points above and adequate funding for our vital public services.

Yours sincerely

Christmas news

Campaign

Please join 38 Degrees in their lobby of HMRC to stop tax dodging deals

Your council can act to reduce the pay gap, lobby your councillor now!

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News and links

“The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which uses a thoughtful and innovative methodology to estimate the minimum income necessary to achieve a ‘socially acceptable” standard of living, reckons that a family of five with one breadwinner – my situation today and my father’s at the time – needs £690 a week before tax. Since 80 per cent of employees earn less than that, it is easy to see why many families require two incomes, and why many struggle at Christmas” – Tim Harford

Economists call for a Brandeis tax to tackle inequality directly, the tax would limit income to a multiple of the median income (the authors suggest 36 times, £900,000 per year in the UK). See the NY Times op-ed piece and the detail.

“If we are going to get back to real capitalism, we need to focus as much attention on our culture and values as on our economy.” Conservative MP’s defence of the capitalism of Adam Smith against neoliberal “crony capitalism”. Meanwhile the Conservative leadership are talking about redefining child poverty as figures show it increasing.

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Are You a Quaker?

The national Equality Trust have had enormous help and support right from the start from individual Quakers and Quaker groups up and down the country. If you are a Quaker and receive this email as one of our supporters or local group members, we would love to hear from you. Please contact Kathryn Busby of the national Equality Trust at: kathryn.busby@equalitytrust.org.uk This is for an article which will be published sometime early in 2012 in The Friend magazine.

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Attitudes to Poverty and Wealth

Bankers who think they are “entitled to a bonus under almost any circumstances” consider legal action to get them, whilst a study finds many carers get less than Minimum Wage, with no legal redress: (ONS finds 300,000 workers get less than the minimum wage)

The British Social Attitudes Survey found over half of people think poverty will increase in the next ten years. One in five people think poverty is due to injustice in society, twice as common was the belief that poverty is an inevitable part of modern life, and a quarter think poverty is due to laziness encouraged by generous benefits. On child poverty, the report states “people agree that child poverty exists in Britain, often to a substantial degree, and view action to reduce it as important and as a role for central Government. The public also shares the Government’s view that child poverty has multiple causes, among which they tend to emphasise parental problems”. The majority (60%) believed ordinary people did not get a fair share of the nations wealth. That question was one of many where people who had been privately educated were less sympathetic to social justice, even accounting for social class, the authors concluding that “private education does perpetuate a form of separate development in Britain or ‘social apartheid’”.
Guardian Summary
Full report

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Sheffield Fairness Commission

The commission will be chaired by Alan Walker, professor of Social Policy (especially around welfare and social justice) and Gerontology (study of older people in society). The Commission will be a select committee model – calling people in to give evidence before drawing up recommendations for the Council. The full message from Lee Adams is below:

Dear Colleagues, I am replying to your email to the Chief Executive.

We are indeed setting up a Fairness Commission, it is to be chaired by Professor Alan Walker and will begin in February 2012. I am the lead officer. We are in the process of selecting commissioners to serve on the commission which will be run as a select committee. It will appear on the Forward Plan shortly – but it may be a decision by the Leader not necessarily going to Cabinet. However, it has been agreed by the Leader informally at present and planning is proceeding. You may be pleased to hear that Richard Wilkinson will be involved – though I am unsure yet if it will be as a commissioner or a witness. We will likely put out a call for witnesses and evidence early in 2012. I hope this reassures you – I’d be pleased to know more about the Sheffield Equality Group.

Kind regards, Lee Adams, Deputy Chief Executive