How will covid19 (and brexit) affect your future finances ?

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slinger
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Re: How will covid19 (and brexit) affect your future finances ?

Unread post by slinger »

I'm seeing a lot of "well you voted for it, it serves you right," type posts on social media as if somehow having voted for it will make shit even worse than it is for us who did not vote for it. Newsflash: It's the same shit, and we're all in it.

Self-righteousness and "We all told you," seems to be the order of the day from many remainers but there is, for me at least, no comfort whatsoever to be found in that attitude. Yes, I can say that we as remain voters saw most of this coming and spent ages telling people. That really doesn't make me feel any better now. All it means is that people like me, who spent hours proselytising on social media and banging on doors, failed.

The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer, it's the way of the world, the way it's always been, but with the twin hammer-blows of COVID-19 (a second wave is being predicted for this winter) and crashing out of the EU with our economy in the crapper and no trade deals to speak of, the gap between rich and poor is going to get much wider, much faster. Working poverty is on the increase, child poverty is on the increase, cases of child malnutrition in England have doubled in the first half of this year - almost 2,500 children have been admitted to hospital with malnutrition in the first six months of the year - and don't look like abating any time soon under this government. The Trussel Trust, just one network for foodbanks reported a soaring  89% increase in the need for emergency food parcels during April 2020 compared to the same month last year, including a 107%  rise in parcels given to children. The top three reasons given when accessing foodbanks are as follows:

#1 Income Not Covering Basic Costs (includes in-work poverty) - 33.11%
#2 Benefit Delays 20.34%
#3 Benefit Changes 17.36%

Universal Credit is an unmitigated disaster as far as I'm concerned, and I'm in no way alone in thinking that. Having to wait 5 weeks before receiving any money is a killer, literally. The suicide rate among the unemployed has risen too. "We'll give you a loan," say the government, "to offset the wait," when what they mean is we'll give you an advance out of the money we owe you, and then when you finally do get the balance it'll be short, so you still won't have enough to live on.

You might not have realised it, but we're the lucky ones. We've got the time and the money to sit at home, access the internet, and moan about our lot in life to anyone who will listen.

By this time next year, it's quite possible that some of us may have lost that luxury or at least have something very real to moan about for a change.

I hope that's cheered everyone up. :lol: As ever, all opinions are purely my own, and quite possibly wrong. It's been known to happen.
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