Violet Elizabeth Bott economics

From the recent JRF report upon poverty in Scotland:

Trapped in low pay – built on gender discrimination

While the National Minimum Wage and the National Living Wage (NLW) have created a more predictable floor within pay levels, the real Living Wage (rLW) is now the widely accepted minimum rate for good employers to pay or aim for. When we refer to ‘low pay’ in this report, we mean pay below the rLW.

Knowing the importance of the rLW, we show that 1 in 10 workers are in persistent low pay, that is, that they have earned below the rLW for at least four of five years. Very few people in low pay are able to sustainably move out of low pay with only 1 in 20 moving to pay above the rLW in the same 5-year period.

To translate, “We and our mates made up a number for nice wages. If anyone disagrees with us that earning below this is poverty then we’ll sthwceam until we turn blue.”

Just to emphasise how silly a number this is. At 1750 hours a year, that’s £19,075. For a single person that’s in the top 6% of global incomes. For a single parent with 2 kids that’s top 15% of the global income distribution. Yes, of course that is PPP adjusted.

That’s not, in fact, poverty. All it is is a little less than other people in the same country get - and more than some others of course. And we really do insist upon this - in opposition to all the Ms Botts out there - that a little bit of inequality simply is not the same thing as poverty.

Poverty is not having a bowl of rice a day - rather than this worrying about whether the second pair of sneakers is bought in JD Sports or Primark.