8 ms·

Londoner here. I think those from outside this city, let alone outside this country, would be amazed at the amount of working poor there are here, let alone non

by jmfldn 4y ago

Londoner here. I think those from outside this city, let alone outside this country, would be amazed at the amount of working poor there are here, let alone non-working poor. Yes, it's a 'rich' city, it's also got a lot of the worst poverty in the UK too. We are in a bad shape generally in the UK, a lot of this country is pretty behind other g8 nations these days on quite a few key development metrics.

altacc 4y ago
I moved out of London about 15 years ago but continued to visit and work there and the difference in such a short amount of time is shocking. The income disparity and cost of living was bad when I lived there and seems to have gotten significantly worse each year. It's bad for Londoners and it's bad for London as it has a sterilising effect on London life and culture.
- machiaweliczny 4y ago
  If I had too guess problems are due to assets inflation (foreign buyers) + hard Brexit instead of staying in trading union like Switzerland.
  - jmfldn 4y ago
    Yep for sure. Asset inflation caused by things like quantative easing, the poorly-implemented covid furlough scheme and various other 'trickle up' economic policies over the decades, helped to fuel the rampant wealth inequality we see now. A lot of this money goes into property speculation for example. Sky high house prices are in no small part caused by this. Austerity measures also played a massive part in where we are now. Brexit hasn't helped either.
  - 908B64B197 4y ago
    I think a lot of commonwealth countries are realizing now that allowing questionable foreigners to park their questionably acquired wealth into assets might have artificially have boosted their countries perceived prosperity, but was no substitute to real economic growth based on innovation. It's a painful to take a look at cities like London and Vancouver and compare them to SF and Seattle.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  I had some people visit from London and after seeing my average 2 bedroom apartment in Australia, acted like I must be some kind of multi billionaire. Uh, no, this is what the average person here can afford. I can’t imagine how bad the standard of living in the Uk has got.
  - jmfldn 4y ago
    I mean... it's not that bad but everyone has gone down a notch in the last 10-20, years imho. The only people living in 4+ bed detached / semi detached houses are people with inherited wealth or huge joint incomes. Doctors, senior software engineers, people who work in finance. Your average middle class professionals, teachers, civil servants, lecturers, journalists and so on, will all have gone down a rung in the ladder. They're doing OK, but probably living in a smaller terraced house or maybe a flat.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
easytiger 4y ago
There are "working poor" in London because benefit systems and uncontrolled immigration allow people with no means to have 3,4 children despite having existed without money to sustain themselves. I can provide a great many examples. 1 in 5 people in England were not born there and in central London boroughs around half (or more) of the populations of various boroughs live in social housing. The poverty you describe is not a result of government indifference to poverty, it's sustained and generated by policies designed to ease poverty.
- Retric 4y ago
  1 in 5 people in England where born outside the country because the population is below replacement rate especially when you consider people leaving the UK. You need a large percentage of the population to have 3-4 kids to be a sustainable country.
  - easytiger 4y ago
    > because Explain the causal effect especially apropos small boat arrivals behind this apparently inevitable gravitational force
    - Retric 4y ago
      Remove all immigrants and children of immigrants from the UK and it would have an extremely old population. As in median age of ~60+ in dire economic straits which would push everyone who could to abandon the country. Small boat arrivals are a trivial number of people irrelevant to this discussion. You can’t have both negative population growth and 300,000+ people leaving the country every year for very long without massive issues. And those massive issues are going to push even more people to leave resulting in even more issues. Which would effectively force the country to promote immigration even if it doesn’t want immigrants the UK needs them. Alternatively, if the population growth rate was positive then the country wouldn’t have nearly the need for immigrants to be stable.
      - bernawil 4y ago

by jmfldn 4y ago

altacc 4y ago

I moved out of London about 15 years ago but continued to visit and work there and the difference in such a short amount of time is shocking. The income disparity and cost of living was bad when I lived there and seems to have gotten significantly worse each year. It's bad for Londoners and it's bad for London as it has a sterilising effect on London life and culture.

machiaweliczny 4y ago
If I had too guess problems are due to assets inflation (foreign buyers) + hard Brexit instead of staying in trading union like Switzerland.
- jmfldn 4y ago
  Yep for sure. Asset inflation caused by things like quantative easing, the poorly-implemented covid furlough scheme and various other 'trickle up' economic policies over the decades, helped to fuel the rampant wealth inequality we see now. A lot of this money goes into property speculation for example. Sky high house prices are in no small part caused by this. Austerity measures also played a massive part in where we are now. Brexit hasn't helped either.
- 908B64B197 4y ago
  I think a lot of commonwealth countries are realizing now that allowing questionable foreigners to park their questionably acquired wealth into assets might have artificially have boosted their countries perceived prosperity, but was no substitute to real economic growth based on innovation. It's a painful to take a look at cities like London and Vancouver and compare them to SF and Seattle.
Gigachad 4y ago
I had some people visit from London and after seeing my average 2 bedroom apartment in Australia, acted like I must be some kind of multi billionaire. Uh, no, this is what the average person here can afford. I can’t imagine how bad the standard of living in the Uk has got.
- jmfldn 4y ago
  I mean... it's not that bad but everyone has gone down a notch in the last 10-20, years imho. The only people living in 4+ bed detached / semi detached houses are people with inherited wealth or huge joint incomes. Doctors, senior software engineers, people who work in finance. Your average middle class professionals, teachers, civil servants, lecturers, journalists and so on, will all have gone down a rung in the ladder. They're doing OK, but probably living in a smaller terraced house or maybe a flat.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

easytiger 4y ago

There are "working poor" in London because benefit systems and uncontrolled immigration allow people with no means to have 3,4 children despite having existed without money to sustain themselves. I can provide a great many examples. 1 in 5 people in England were not born there and in central London boroughs around half (or more) of the populations of various boroughs live in social housing. The poverty you describe is not a result of government indifference to poverty, it's sustained and generated by policies designed to ease poverty.

Retric 4y ago
1 in 5 people in England where born outside the country because the population is below replacement rate especially when you consider people leaving the UK. You need a large percentage of the population to have 3-4 kids to be a sustainable country.
- easytiger 4y ago
  > because Explain the causal effect especially apropos small boat arrivals behind this apparently inevitable gravitational force
  - Retric 4y ago
    Remove all immigrants and children of immigrants from the UK and it would have an extremely old population. As in median age of ~60+ in dire economic straits which would push everyone who could to abandon the country. Small boat arrivals are a trivial number of people irrelevant to this discussion. You can’t have both negative population growth and 300,000+ people leaving the country every year for very long without massive issues. And those massive issues are going to push even more people to leave resulting in even more issues. Which would effectively force the country to promote immigration even if it doesn’t want immigrants the UK needs them. Alternatively, if the population growth rate was positive then the country wouldn’t have nearly the need for immigrants to be stable.
    - bernawil 4y ago