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What the hell just happened?

The Guardian’s just published a sensible, accurate, piece on poverty and inequality.

Who made this mistake?

6 thoughts on “What the hell just happened?”

  1. “it would be far better simply to subsidise low wages for those able to work”

    That’s what we do with Working Tax Credits, and we had (pre-Covid) very high employment rates.

  2. “That’s what we do with Working Tax Credits, and we had (pre-Covid) very high employment rates.”

    Could that be part of the explanation for the much complained about low productivity of the British workforce?

    I mean, if you subsidise low-output people to work you’d get low productivity, wouldn’t you? It’s obvious that having them at work rather than mouldering on a dole could be better for them and for the rest of us, but does it carry the consequence of low productivity? If so, does that low productivity matter all that much?

  3. I note that the three years pre-covid are picked out as being especially helpful to the low skilled. The author could have said the first three years of Trump’s administration. I wonder why he didn’t.

  4. @dearieme
    I’ve always thought that excluding the un/under-employed from the denominator of the productivity quotient is silly.

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