Denying people basic human needs for the sake of saving a few quid now is a false economy – the long-term impacts of poverty are a ticking health timebomb
- This article is part of a new series, the heat or eat diaries: dispatches from the frontline of Britain’s cost of living emergency
The current cost of living crisis that threatens to plunge millions more people into poverty is going to have far longer-term impacts than a summer of discontent, a few months of belt-tightening or watching what we all spend at the supermarket. Many well-meaning guides offering advice on “how to cope” have been published over the past few months, and although they offer some practical tips that may help a slender margin of people teetering on the precipice of crisis, the truth is that the majority of those struggling have been sliding into this cesspit of deprivation and destitution for nigh on a decade now.
Twelve years of brutal, deliberate cuts to welfare, social security and health services, 12 years of cuts to mental health services, and the increasing reliance on the voluntary sector to try to catch people as they fall through the gaping holes in the safety net mean that those at the sharp end have very few resources left to turn to in order to cope.
Jack Monroe is a campaigner, columnist and author
The Trussell Trust is an anti-poverty charity that campaigns to end the need for food banks. Show your support at: trusselltrust.org/guardian
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