Austerity has killed at least 334,000 people so far

Discussions about serious topics, for serious people
User avatar
Fishnut
After Pie
Posts: 2447
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 1:15 pm
Location: UK

Austerity has killed at least 334,000 people so far

Post by Fishnut » Wed Oct 05, 2022 2:00 pm

New research published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health has attempted to quantify the impact of austerity in terms of mortality rate. After over a century of almost uninterrupted improvements in mortality rates in the UK stopped in the early 2010s and the research found that,
Compared with what previous trends predicted, an additional c.335 000 deaths were observed across Scotland, England and Wales between 2012 and 2019.
The paper can be found here [PDF]. A Guardian article on the findings is here, and the university press release is here. While obviously over a longer timeframe, to put into context, current COVID deaths stand at just under 205,000. (Which if you think about it, means that the Conservative government is responsible for around half a million deaths during its tenure).

Truss has refused to raise benefits in line with inflation and her government is aiming to make even more cuts to services under a bizarre belief that we have been living in a 'fool's paradise' of overspending that needs to be reigned in. How many more people are going to die before their time is up?

As Dr David Walsh, lead author of the paper and Public Health Programme Manager at the GCPH said,
These figures are not only shocking but shameful. And we must remember that these are more than just statistics: they represent hundreds of thousands of people whose lives have been cut short, and hundreds of thousands of families who have had to deal with the grief and aftermath of those deaths. The tragic thing is that these deaths did not have to happen. In the words of the United Nations, in a society as wealthy as the UK, ‘poverty is a political choice’. The UK Government needs to understand the damaging impact of austerity and respond with policies that put us back on the path of improving, not worsening, life expectancy for all. [my emphasis]
it's okay to say "I don't know"

plodder
Stummy Beige
Posts: 2981
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 1:50 pm

Re: Austerity has killed at least 334,000 people so far

Post by plodder » Wed Oct 05, 2022 2:50 pm

Devils advocate:

Where is the evidence that austerity has increased poverty, to what extent etc. fully appreciate things like food banks are a phenomenon that ties in neatly with this policy but does that impact enough people to cause these changes, and wouldn’t the reduced tax burden elsewhere have a positive effect? Where’s the actual evidence?

User avatar
Little waster
After Pie
Posts: 2385
Joined: Tue Nov 12, 2019 12:35 am
Location: About 1 inch behind my eyes

Re: Austerity has killed at least 334,000 people so far

Post by Little waster » Wed Oct 05, 2022 4:38 pm

plodder wrote:
Wed Oct 05, 2022 2:50 pm
Devils advocate:

Where is the evidence that austerity has increased poverty, to what extent etc. fully appreciate things like food banks are a phenomenon that ties in neatly with this policy but does that impact enough people to cause these changes, and wouldn’t the reduced tax burden elsewhere have a positive effect? Where’s the actual evidence?
What reduced tax burden? It was running at a 70 year high under Johnson, turns out cutting public spending in the middle of a recession just deepens the recession, reducing the tax take further. Which as it happens is exactly what classical economics would have predicted would happen and has done since a chap called Keynes identified the phenomenon in the 30s, when the West tested that theory to destruction, something Cameron (PPE - 1st Class with Honours, Oxford Uni, 1988) denied ever having any knowledge of. Meanwhile LW (Harry Potter Studies - 3rd Class, School of Hard Knocks, 1996) was fully aware of.

It's clear the E part of PPE courses is a complete afterthought.

So not only was austerity cruel and un-necessary it failed on even its own terms.

It is almost as if this drive to cut public spending came out a dogmatic ideological wish to shrink the state rather than any rational concept of how to run a modern economy. So anyway back to Truss and Kwasi ...
This place is not a place of honor, no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here, nothing valued is here.
What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us.
This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.

plodder
Stummy Beige
Posts: 2981
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 1:50 pm

Re: Austerity has killed at least 334,000 people so far

Post by plodder » Wed Oct 05, 2022 4:40 pm

I'm aware of the narrative, there is a specific claim in the OP and I'm keen to see the evidence that it was the policy of austerity rather than poverty that killed 334,000 people so far.

User avatar
Gfamily
Light of Blast
Posts: 5180
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 1:00 pm
Location: NW England

Re: Austerity has killed at least 334,000 people so far

Post by Gfamily » Wed Oct 05, 2022 4:52 pm

plodder wrote:
Wed Oct 05, 2022 2:50 pm
Devils advocate:

Where is the evidence that austerity has increased poverty, to what extent etc. fully appreciate things like food banks are a phenomenon that ties in neatly with this policy but does that impact enough people to cause these changes, and wouldn’t the reduced tax burden elsewhere have a positive effect? Where’s the actual evidence?
Joseph Rowntree Foundation examine poverty and produced the following analysis using data up to 2020
https://www.jrf.org.uk/data/overall-uk-poverty-rates

Poverty rates for different demographic groups
Joseph Rowntree Poverty levels.png
Joseph Rowntree Poverty levels.png (41.57 KiB) Viewed 1879 times
plodder wrote:
Wed Oct 05, 2022 4:40 pm
I'm aware of the narrative, there is a specific claim in the OP and I'm keen to see the evidence that it was the policy of austerity rather than poverty that killed 334,000 people so far.
That's a bit like you asking for evidence that government incompetence rather than Covid caused 210,000 (or whatever) deaths
My avatar was a scientific result that was later found to be 'mistaken' - I rarely claim to be 100% correct
ETA 5/8/20: I've been advised that the result was correct, it was the initial interpretation that needed to be withdrawn
Meta? I'd say so!

User avatar
lpm
Junior Mod
Posts: 5944
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 1:05 pm

Re: Austerity has killed at least 334,000 people so far

Post by lpm » Wed Oct 05, 2022 4:58 pm

Unfortunately Covid lockdowns will have a similar impact via increased poverty. Which isn't to say they cost lives - they preserved a functioning NHS and saved many lives (and society would have voluntarily have lockdowned without govt action anyway).

By 2024 we'll know how bad it's been due to the triple whammy: austerity, then Covid, then cost of living.
⭐ Awarded gold star 4 November 2021

monkey
After Pie
Posts: 1906
Joined: Wed Nov 13, 2019 5:10 pm

Re: Austerity has killed at least 334,000 people so far

Post by monkey » Wed Oct 05, 2022 5:21 pm

lpm wrote:
Wed Oct 05, 2022 4:58 pm
Unfortunately Covid lockdowns will have a similar impact via increased poverty. Which isn't to say they cost lives - they preserved a functioning NHS and saved many lives (and society would have voluntarily have lockdowned without govt action anyway).

By 2024 we'll know how bad it's been due to the triple whammy: austerity, then Covid, then cost of living.
The paper looks at pre COVID times only.

(I've only skimmed it)

IvanV
Stummy Beige
Posts: 2663
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 11:12 am

Re: Austerity has killed at least 334,000 people so far

Post by IvanV » Wed Oct 05, 2022 5:42 pm

plodder wrote:
Wed Oct 05, 2022 4:40 pm
I'm aware of the narrative, there is a specific claim in the OP and I'm keen to see the evidence that it was the policy of austerity rather than poverty that killed 334,000 people so far.
As noted earlier, in a country with the wealth of the UK, the extent of poverty is a political choice. The rate of poverty is considerably related to the level of public "spending", though much of the "spending" that is relevant to poverty reduction is in fact transfers of various kinds.

We have the highest level of poverty of any European country of similar income levels. The methods used to keep poverty lower in, for example, Germany, involve greater government outgoings to support incomes, funded by greater government incomings in the form of tax. So austerity, in the form of lower government outgoings, is an important part of why we have higher poverty rates than our peers. We don't choose to redistribute to lower it. That manifests itself in a smaller government budget, which we call "austerity".

Another contributor to poverty is the fact that our education system highest rate of poor literacy and numeracy in people currently leaving education of our peers, and unlike them has failed to reduce that rate in recent decades. I'd suggest that was related to spending too. But you can argue it is also down to incompetence.

I suspect there are more. But I read that nugget on our poor educational outcomes at the lower end of the system just the other day.

User avatar
dyqik
Princess POW
Posts: 7527
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2019 4:19 pm
Location: Masshole
Contact:

Re: Austerity has killed at least 334,000 people so far

Post by dyqik » Wed Oct 05, 2022 5:46 pm

IvanV wrote:
Wed Oct 05, 2022 5:42 pm
plodder wrote:
Wed Oct 05, 2022 4:40 pm
I'm aware of the narrative, there is a specific claim in the OP and I'm keen to see the evidence that it was the policy of austerity rather than poverty that killed 334,000 people so far.
As noted earlier, in a country with the wealth of the UK, the extent of poverty is a political choice. The rate of poverty is considerably related to the level of public "spending", though much of the "spending" that is relevant to poverty reduction is in fact transfers of various kinds.

We have the highest level of poverty of any European country of similar income levels. The methods used to keep poverty lower in, for example, Germany, involve greater government outgoings to support incomes, funded by greater government incomings in the form of tax. So austerity, in the form of lower government outgoings, is an important part of why we have higher poverty rates than our peers. We don't choose to redistribute to lower it. That manifests itself in a smaller government budget, which we call "austerity".

Another contributor to poverty is the fact that our education system highest rate of poor literacy and numeracy in people currently leaving education of our peers, and unlike them has failed to reduce that rate in recent decades. I'd suggest that was related to spending too. But you can argue it is also down to incompetence.
The thing about competence is that more money can buy more of it, and more money can also help keep competent staff even if they have to deal with incompetence and inefficiency around them.
Last edited by dyqik on Wed Oct 05, 2022 5:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
EACLucifer
Stummy Beige
Posts: 4177
Joined: Fri Dec 13, 2019 7:49 am
Location: In Sumerian Haze

Re: Austerity has killed at least 334,000 people so far

Post by EACLucifer » Wed Oct 05, 2022 5:47 pm

A quick comparison of average household wealth in Britain (austerity) and America (no austerity) should serve as a quick check if this is in the right ballpark re: causes.

2008, British household wealth was a fraction above parity with American household wealth
2022, it's dropped to something like 2/3rds of American household wealth.

Millennie Al
After Pie
Posts: 1621
Joined: Mon Mar 16, 2020 4:02 am

Re: Austerity has killed at least 334,000 people so far

Post by Millennie Al » Thu Oct 06, 2022 2:01 am

Fishnut wrote:
Wed Oct 05, 2022 2:00 pm
New research published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health has attempted to quantify the impact of austerity in terms of mortality rate.
There's something very strange about the data illustrated in that paper. From 1981 to 2010 the EASRs seem to have declined linearly. That means that Thatcher, Major, Blair, and Brown were all equally good. Then there's a kink, and Cameron and May were bad, but equal to each other despite the first Cameron government being a colaition with the LibDems. This looks more like an artifact than a genuine measurement. If not, we would be delighted to return to a Thatcher government and should encourage Liz Truss to be a wholehearted Thatcherite.

Millennie Al
After Pie
Posts: 1621
Joined: Mon Mar 16, 2020 4:02 am

Re: Austerity has killed at least 334,000 people so far

Post by Millennie Al » Thu Oct 06, 2022 2:03 am

IvanV wrote:
Wed Oct 05, 2022 5:42 pm
As noted earlier, in a country with the wealth of the UK, the extent of poverty is a political choice.
The definition of poverty is also a political choice.

User avatar
bjn
Stummy Beige
Posts: 2915
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2019 4:58 pm
Location: London

Re: Austerity has killed at least 334,000 people so far

Post by bjn » Thu Oct 06, 2022 7:16 am

EACLucifer wrote:
Wed Oct 05, 2022 5:47 pm
A quick comparison of average household wealth in Britain (austerity) and America (no austerity) should serve as a quick check if this is in the right ballpark re: causes.

2008, British household wealth was a fraction above parity with American household wealth
2022, it's dropped to something like 2/3rds of American household wealth.
Not disbelieving you, but do you have a reference for that? I like to be sure of my ammunition in various fights I may get into if I use that.

IvanV
Stummy Beige
Posts: 2663
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 11:12 am

Re: Austerity has killed at least 334,000 people so far

Post by IvanV » Thu Oct 06, 2022 9:02 am

Millennie Al wrote:
Thu Oct 06, 2022 2:03 am
IvanV wrote:
Wed Oct 05, 2022 5:42 pm
As noted earlier, in a country with the wealth of the UK, the extent of poverty is a political choice.
The definition of poverty is also a political choice.
Don't give them ideas. Fortunately, we have not had anything much in the way of unpleasant political interference in the definition of poverty in this country, and hopefully it can remain that way.

Clearly there are a variety of distinct concepts you can stick the word "poverty" onto. And within each concept, typically you also have to choose a specific numerical level.

We use a best practice definition of poverty in this country, suitable for the situation of a developed country, based on the median income. That's a concept of poverty that is more closely related to an idea of inequality and social exclusion, rather than a concept based on survival. Bare survival should not be an issue in a developed country, at least for those able to look after themselves. In developing countries, a survival-based concept is often used, because such countries often have a lot of people close to the edge of bare survival. There are entire books on the topic that I shall not try and summarise here.

plodder
Stummy Beige
Posts: 2981
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 1:50 pm

Re: Austerity has killed at least 334,000 people so far

Post by plodder » Thu Oct 06, 2022 11:07 am

Gfamily wrote:
Wed Oct 05, 2022 4:52 pm
plodder wrote:
Wed Oct 05, 2022 2:50 pm
Devils advocate:

Where is the evidence that austerity has increased poverty, to what extent etc. fully appreciate things like food banks are a phenomenon that ties in neatly with this policy but does that impact enough people to cause these changes, and wouldn’t the reduced tax burden elsewhere have a positive effect? Where’s the actual evidence?
Joseph Rowntree Foundation examine poverty and produced the following analysis using data up to 2020
https://www.jrf.org.uk/data/overall-uk-poverty-rates

Poverty rates for different demographic groups
Joseph Rowntree Poverty levels.png
plodder wrote:
Wed Oct 05, 2022 4:40 pm
I'm aware of the narrative, there is a specific claim in the OP and I'm keen to see the evidence that it was the policy of austerity rather than poverty that killed 334,000 people so far.
That's a bit like you asking for evidence that government incompetence rather than Covid caused 210,000 (or whatever) deaths
The “all people” line is pretty much flat?

User avatar
Gfamily
Light of Blast
Posts: 5180
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 1:00 pm
Location: NW England

Re: Austerity has killed at least 334,000 people so far

Post by Gfamily » Thu Oct 06, 2022 11:26 am

plodder wrote:
Thu Oct 06, 2022 11:07 am
The “all people” line is pretty much flat?
Probably indicative of increasing inequality - some people are fine, and others are bearing the burden of poverty.
If you're happy with that, I guess you're very happy with the way things are going.
And I suppose death is one route out of poverty.
My avatar was a scientific result that was later found to be 'mistaken' - I rarely claim to be 100% correct
ETA 5/8/20: I've been advised that the result was correct, it was the initial interpretation that needed to be withdrawn
Meta? I'd say so!

IvanV
Stummy Beige
Posts: 2663
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 11:12 am

Re: Austerity has killed at least 334,000 people so far

Post by IvanV » Thu Oct 06, 2022 11:38 am

Millennie Al wrote:
Thu Oct 06, 2022 2:01 am
If not, we would be delighted to return to a Thatcher government and should encourage Liz Truss to be a wholehearted Thatcherite.
Mrs Thatcher had her grocers' daughter economics and wouldn't be making large unfunded tax reductions. I think that is probably the main difference.

Mrs Thatcher realised that substantial impediments to productivity in Britain in the 70s lay in structural issues, and that ended up being her main battleground. The economic "medicine" of the early Thatcher period, very tight money and harsh austerity, advised by right-wing voodoo economists, was over-cooked and resulted in a much worse recession than more sensible policies. So there were early mistakes due to trying to be purist rightwing. But she did learn from that and concentrated on other things in the mid-period.

Obviously Thatcher determinedly increased inequality. She reduced the top rate of taxation to 40%, just like Truss tried to repeat! Later, it was mainly lower rungs of taxation were reduced rather than the top. But it was her attempt to reform local taxation to increase inequality even further with the poll tax that led to her downfall. So in the end she couldn't increase inequality as much as she wanted to, which is quite parallel to Truss.

Overall it would generally be said that Truss & Co are rather to the right of Mrs Thatcher economically. But actually the parallels are quite striking. Mrs Thatcher's early economic decisions were also unnecessarily damaging and based on voodoo. She determinedly increased inequality. Mrs Thatcher would have gone further if she hadn't been impeded.

IvanV
Stummy Beige
Posts: 2663
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 11:12 am

Re: Austerity has killed at least 334,000 people so far

Post by IvanV » Thu Oct 06, 2022 11:51 am

Gfamily wrote:
Thu Oct 06, 2022 11:26 am
plodder wrote:
Thu Oct 06, 2022 11:07 am
The “all people” line is pretty much flat?
Probably indicative of increasing inequality - some people are fine, and others are bearing the burden of poverty.
If you're happy with that, I guess you're very happy with the way things are going.
And I suppose death is one route out of poverty.
The graph is based on a relative poverty index. So the proportion of people below some standard fraction of median household income is roughly flat. This is consistent with a Gini coefficient being roughly constant. It doesn't mean that the poor had the same income over time, rather it means that the proportion of people with an income below the standard fraction of median income remained the same. Of course there could be changes of income shape within those groups, but this is not revealed.

To understand the implications of this, consider this illustration. Suppose we have just three classes of people, high income, mid income and poor, and their proportions remain constant over time, and within each group they all have the same income (massive simplification!)

Suppose at the start these have incomes of £10k, £20k and £50k. Now suppose that incomes per capita grow by 50% (after inflation adjustment) over a period of 25 years or something.
So now, at constant poverty, constant inequality, the incomes are £15k, £30k and £75k.

So our chosen measures of poverty and inequality remain the same. But in an absolute sense, the gap between the poor and the high income used to be £40k, but now it is £65k. So the extra things that the well-off can enjoy has substantially grown. The gap between poor and mid used to be £10k, but now it is £15k. So mid people can now enjoy £15k worth of better things, rather than £10k worth. So you can say, in that sense, inequality has grown. But by the usual standard measures, poverty and inequality remained constant.

I think this is very much what has happened in this country. A lot of people can now enjoy a lot of things they couldn't previously enjoy. But the gap in what they can enjoy relative to the poor has widened in an absolute sense, and they don't quite realise that. Other countries are generally better at supporting the incomes of the lowest in society, whereas we have forgotten about them.

Edited for a missing "not"

User avatar
dyqik
Princess POW
Posts: 7527
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2019 4:19 pm
Location: Masshole
Contact:

Re: Austerity has killed at least 334,000 people so far

Post by dyqik » Thu Oct 06, 2022 12:28 pm

bjn wrote:
Thu Oct 06, 2022 7:16 am
EACLucifer wrote:
Wed Oct 05, 2022 5:47 pm
A quick comparison of average household wealth in Britain (austerity) and America (no austerity) should serve as a quick check if this is in the right ballpark re: causes.

2008, British household wealth was a fraction above parity with American household wealth
2022, it's dropped to something like 2/3rds of American household wealth.
Not disbelieving you, but do you have a reference for that? I like to be sure of my ammunition in various fights I may get into if I use that.
A simple check right now is that US monthly median wage is $4,511 Vs £2,111 in the UK. Even at a 2:1 exchange rate, US wages are higher, while property prices and rents are lower or similar at the current exchange rate.

Tax burdens are about the same, if you lump health insurance into taxes. (Lower sales tax over here, but much higher property tax)

User avatar
dyqik
Princess POW
Posts: 7527
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2019 4:19 pm
Location: Masshole
Contact:

Re: Austerity has killed at least 334,000 people so far

Post by dyqik » Thu Oct 06, 2022 12:36 pm

Directly comparing household wealth yourself is hard, because the US figure seems like it subtracts mortgages while the UK one looks like it doesn't.

The headline median figure for each is $121k vs £302k, (over £500k in the South East) which clearly isn't calculated on the same basis, as that's completely at odds with the median income.

User avatar
EACLucifer
Stummy Beige
Posts: 4177
Joined: Fri Dec 13, 2019 7:49 am
Location: In Sumerian Haze

Re: Austerity has killed at least 334,000 people so far

Post by EACLucifer » Thu Oct 06, 2022 12:52 pm

Annoyingly, I now can't find the source I used :roll:

User avatar
lpm
Junior Mod
Posts: 5944
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 1:05 pm

Re: Austerity has killed at least 334,000 people so far

Post by lpm » Thu Oct 06, 2022 1:08 pm

Around 3,340,000 people in total will have died during austerity, so claiming 334,000 early deaths from austerity seems reasonable. 10%. Not sure if the paper splits out by age, but obviously most of these early deaths will be pensioners surviving on nothing but the state pension (which is about 30% of pensioners).

The way to tackle these deaths from poverty/austerity is to hit hard against the main causes of diseases of poverty - smoking, alcohol, gambling and poor diet. Measures here would simultaneously raise disposable incomes and reduce ill-health directly.
⭐ Awarded gold star 4 November 2021

monkey
After Pie
Posts: 1906
Joined: Wed Nov 13, 2019 5:10 pm

Re: Austerity has killed at least 334,000 people so far

Post by monkey » Thu Oct 06, 2022 1:41 pm

lpm wrote:
Thu Oct 06, 2022 1:08 pm
Around 3,340,000 people in total will have died during austerity, so claiming 334,000 early deaths from austerity seems reasonable. 10%. Not sure if the paper splits out by age, but obviously most of these early deaths will be pensioners surviving on nothing but the state pension (which is about 30% of pensioners).
They have results for <65 only in the supplement. It's about 1/5 of the total excess deaths in absolute terms, but the relative increase was much larger than the whole population.

User avatar
lpm
Junior Mod
Posts: 5944
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 1:05 pm

Re: Austerity has killed at least 334,000 people so far

Post by lpm » Thu Oct 06, 2022 2:03 pm

monkey wrote:
Thu Oct 06, 2022 1:41 pm
lpm wrote:
Thu Oct 06, 2022 1:08 pm
Around 3,340,000 people in total will have died during austerity, so claiming 334,000 early deaths from austerity seems reasonable. 10%. Not sure if the paper splits out by age, but obviously most of these early deaths will be pensioners surviving on nothing but the state pension (which is about 30% of pensioners).
They have results for <65 only in the supplement. It's about 1/5 of the total excess deaths in absolute terms, but the relative increase was much larger than the whole population.
That's interesting. It's higher early deaths in the <65 than I would have expected. It's a terrible outcome for a society to be losing the abilities of working age people.
⭐ Awarded gold star 4 November 2021

User avatar
Woodchopper
Princess POW
Posts: 7057
Joined: Sat Oct 12, 2019 9:05 am

Re: Austerity has killed at least 334,000 people so far

Post by Woodchopper » Thu Oct 06, 2022 2:34 pm

lpm wrote:
Thu Oct 06, 2022 2:03 pm
monkey wrote:
Thu Oct 06, 2022 1:41 pm
lpm wrote:
Thu Oct 06, 2022 1:08 pm
Around 3,340,000 people in total will have died during austerity, so claiming 334,000 early deaths from austerity seems reasonable. 10%. Not sure if the paper splits out by age, but obviously most of these early deaths will be pensioners surviving on nothing but the state pension (which is about 30% of pensioners).
They have results for <65 only in the supplement. It's about 1/5 of the total excess deaths in absolute terms, but the relative increase was much larger than the whole population.
That's interesting. It's higher early deaths in the <65 than I would have expected. It's a terrible outcome for a society to be losing the abilities of working age people.
I haven't had time to look into this paper but as far as I remember important factors in the decreasing life expectancy in the US over a similar period were drug overdoses, suicide and cirrhosis. They mainly affected men of working age rather than pensioners.

Post Reply