Declining Living Standards

According to an article in the Independent more than five million people are classified as low paid and an increasing number of public sector workers are struggling to make ends meet:

There is also a smaller but growing number of people living on incomes below the value of out-of-work benefits in very deep poverty.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation said that 400,000 families have suffered from a combination of benefit cuts from the bedroom tax, and council tax benefit.

The Huffington Post has a similar story:

British workers are suffering the biggest fall in living standards since the Victorian era, as their austerity measures have continued to squeeze their incomes and leave many working in low-paid jobs, according to new research.

The New Economics Foundation (NEF) found that more than 5 million people are currently working in low-paid jobs, earning less than £7.47 an hour, and one million of them are working in the public sector.

In a report titled "Raising the Benchmark", the nef concluded: “Workers on low and middle incomes are experiencing the biggest decline in their living standards since reliable records began in the mid-19th century.”

Will the Children`s Commissioner have something to contribute to the debate I wonder, and if not, why not?  Will the growing and enormous range of children`s charities who accept public funds be able to offer the Government advice, as they normally do?  No ?

Isn`t it interesting how austerity is accepted as if there was nothing that anybody could do about it?