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Child poverty

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From: The Socialist issue 941, 22 March 2017: The Tories are rotten: kick them out!

Search site for keywords: Children - Poverty - Women - Parents - Cuts - Child poverty

Four million kids in poverty
Single parents to lose £2,850

Fight Tory attacks on women and children

Women march in Madrid for International Women's Day photo CWI (Click to enlarge)

Suzanne Beishon, working parent

"When I stood on the steps of Downing Street and said I wanted this to be a country that works for everyone - I meant it." Theresa May has Tory rhetoric down.

This was what she spewed on International Women's Day when announcing that a pretty measly £5 million would be put towards helping women back to work after taking time out to raise a family.

Except why would you want to go back to work when the grim reality is that working parents in Britain, especially single parents, will be some of the hardest hit by cuts in the Tory budget? A single parent of two who works 17 hours a week faces losing out on £2,850 a year by 2020.

The research for the Child Poverty Action Group has also shown that a single parent working 24 hours a week would lose £2,465; one working 16 hours a week would miss out on £2,205; and an unemployed single-parent would lose £1,538.

Researchers said these cuts will have a massive impact on child poverty figures. Figures which this week showed child poverty at its highest level since 2010. A devastating four million now living in relative poverty - an increase of 100,000 in 2015-16.

Household data published by the government showed 67% are from working families, with the biggest surge among children of single parents who work full time.

Despite Tory newspeak, work clearly doesn't pay. On the contrary, this vicious government and its big business mates are doing everything possible to pick the pockets of "hard-working families."

The May government isn't strong. The budget and its cuts aren't set in stone. Already Chancellor Philip Hammond has been forced into a humiliating climbdown on his tax raid on the self-employed.

We can force them back on these vicious cuts that plunge children into poverty - with a collective fightback, including coordinated industrial action and campaigning for a working class political voice.

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Finance appeal

The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society in numerous ways. It is making clear to many that it is the working class that keeps society running, not the CEOs of major corporations.

The results of austerity have been graphically demonstrated as public services strain to cope with the crisis.

The government has now ripped up its 'austerity' mantra and turned to policies that not long ago were denounced as socialist. But after the corona crisis, it will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.

The Socialist Party's material is more vital than ever, so we can continue to report from workers who are fighting for better health and safety measures, against layoffs, for adequate staffing levels, etc.
When the health crisis subsides, we must be ready for the stormy events ahead and the need to arm workers' movements with a socialist programme - one which puts the health and needs of humanity before the profits of a few.