In Britain the Conservative Economic Policy is Having an Effect on Hunger

The Effect – Increasing It

At this point in the review of European economic policy which is supposed to revive the continent’s economies by a implementing policies of austerity, one would think that all the evidence exists to demonstrate that this is the wrong policy.  Actually, as Paul Krugman and others have pointed out, no real evidence is needed at all.  The policy is directly opposite what basic Econ 101 would prescribe, and has resulted in exactly the outcome that basic Econ 101 says would happen.  Disaster.

Earlier this Forum has commented on the fact that in Greece the policy has resulted in children going to school hungry.  Now it turns out in Britain the policy has resulted in a doubling of the number of individuals who need help from food banks and other sources of food support.

Denise Bentley“In the past few weeks, it’s been really difficult, not just for myself but for other food bank managers,” said Denise Bentley, who set up the Tower Hamlets food bank two and a half years ago. “We are being so pressured to fill the gap that is now being created by the welfare reforms – and we’re not that. We are meant to be short-term help.”

The number of people in Britain receiving emergency food rations has more than doubled in the past year, data showed on Wednesday, as inflation eroded incomes and government spending cuts pushed hundreds of thousands into crisis.

The Trussell Trust, which runs the largest network of food banks in the UK, saw referrals to its centres jump to almost 350,000 in the year to April 2013, up from 130,000 the previous year. The charity estimates that about half of the households it helped had at least one person in work, and a third had children.

Now  reasonable persons who implemented the policies that resulted in this might conclude that maybe, just maybe a change is needed.  But the people who implement policy with this result are not reasonable, and so their orders to “more of the same”. 

Economic recessions and hard times are some times unavoidable.  In the case of Europe, the current conditions are almost entirely avoidable.  All that is required is for the powers in charge to admit they were wrong.  This is expected to happen right after Donald Trump joins a monastery and takes a vow of silence.