TUC lambasts ‘Tale of Two Pandemics’ as pickpocket PM raids the low earners

It has been “A Tale of Two Pandemics”, says the TUC, with the fortunate able to save a wall of money to stash away or pay off mortgages or just spend on treats, while the poor have been plunged into a Dickensian nightmare of poverty and debt.

Whatever next from Boris Johnson, the pickpocket PM? A return to the workhouse?

Snatching the pandemic’s £20-a-week universal credit uplift out of the hands of the poorest Britons, and leaving their children to go hungry in the process, does rather make you wonder how far away from that we actually are.

The union body’s latest polling – conducted by BritainThinks among 2,134 workers – illustrates what it describes as the “Covid class divide”.

Low-paid respondents (those earning less than £15,000) were found to be almost twice as likely as high-paid workers (£50,000+) to say they have cut back on spending since the pandemic began. High earners were also more than three times as likely as low-paid workers to expect a pay rise in the next 12 months.

Low-paid workers were, meanwhile, four times more likely than high-paid workers to say they could not afford to take time off work when sick. Only a third said they would get full pay if they were taken ill.

Statutory sick pay is, of course, a miserly £96 a week and 2 million people, mostly women, don’t even qualify for that.

Financially, self-isolation was and still is, a potential killer for low earners who have been asked to make a choice between fulfilling their social obligations and protecting their colleagues or going hungry. Imagine being in that situation.

Yes, yes, emergency funds were made available via councils but awareness of the scheme is low, the money takes time to arrive and successful applications have proved hard to find. The TUC has aptly described it as a “failing scheme few have heard of”.

You may wonder, with Congress said to kick off next week, how it can call for an extension to the Job Retention Scheme, popularly known as furlough, at a time when the UK economy is having its legs cut off courtesy of the government-created supply chain crisis that has its roots in a shortage of lorry drivers.

The answer is that while some industries are indeed desperately in need of labour as they recover, others are still struggling. Some commentators and MPs like to give the impression that people can simply undertake a little hop, skip and jump from one industry to another when most of them would fall flat on their faces were they asked to do that. It’s not as easy as it looks, especially in cases where you need skills to pull off the trick. It’s frequently impossible.

Needless to say, the industries that are furthest away from a jobs recovery, those with the highest rates of furlough according to HM Revenue & Customs stats, are also full of low-paid workers. Think arts and entertainment, accommodation, food and “other services”.

Workers in these industries have seen their meagre reserves eaten into while on furlough, which imposes a 20 per cent pay cut, remember. They now face the very real risk of being thrown onto the jagged rocks of the newly cut universal credit. So it’s actually a hop and a skip and jump from the simmering frying pan of low pay into the hot fire of poverty.

The food banks are going to be busy, but will the supermarkets have the stock they need to keep them full as the supply chain crisis escalates?

“It’s pretty stark,” TUC boss Frances O’Grady said to me prior to the release of the research. “We know living standards have been falling in real terms over two decades and the lowest earners have borne the brunt. What we need is an economic reset, a new age of security and dignity. We could make a huge difference by banning zero-hours contracts.”

That would be a start. It isn’t just low pay that blights the British labour market. Its evil twin – low labour security – is regularly found tagging along.

Throw in a higher minimum wage, better sick pay, and enhanced collective bargaining rights for unions and their members and while these problems wouldn’t be eliminated, they would be dramatically eased.

As it is, low earners are set to get hit by yet another body blow in the form of a national insurance hike so Johnson’s posh constituents can keep hold of their fancy homes when they need long-term care. Yep, the pickpocket PM’s at it again with a double dip into both pockets. It won’t be long before he’s at people’s handbags and coats as well.