Struggling to make ends meet

During this current ‘age of austerity’ the working class is being attacked on all fronts. Many of the ruling class’s offensives are disguised, implemented through the back door and intended to avoid the attention of the working class until they are pushed through. However they cause very obvious misery. One such offensive is the dual measures of rising living costs and the holding down of wage.

The capitalist class owns the companies from which we purchase our food, energy, living space and means of getting to work every day and the higher a price they charge for these the more money they make out of the working class. Currently the Retail Price Index, which compares the cost of living from year to year, shows us that it is 5.2% more expensive to enjoy the same standard of living as it was last year.

Contributing to this is the fact that the average energy bill has risen by 14.2% due to the latest price rise. The average Gas and Electricity bill for the year has jumped from £1,132 pre-price hikes, to £1,293. More and more working class families will have to make the choice between heating and eating this winter. A  statistic from USwitch highlights that last winter over 14 million household went without heating at some point because they couldn’t afford to pay for it.

The price of food too is on the rise due to capitalist profiteering.  Food and drink has risen in price by 6.2% in the past 12 months, leaving families with a £100 weekly grocery bill having to find an extra £322 a year. Clothes and footwear are 4% dearer whilst the cost of furniture and households goods has risen by 5.8%.

Simply getting to work every day too is becoming increasingly unaffordable for many workers. Petrol is rarely available for less than £1.30 a litre, bus fares are on the rise and train fares have risen by 8% on average in the last year. For the workers commuting from Stockport to Manchester everyday a 12-month season ticket on Virgin Trains is soon to go up from £568 to £613.

Even the price of having a roof over your head is on the rise. London saw the biggest annual increase in rents – up 6.6%, or £63 a month, to hit a new record high of £1,025 per month in August. The West Midlands and the north-east were next in line with increases of 6% and 4.3% but all across the United Kingdom the cost of rent is on the rise.

In the past the rise of the cost of living has been partly offset by a corresponding rise in the average wage which has ensured that workers can afford to maintain a decent standard of living. During the current age of austerity however the opposite is happening. The bosses, whilst collecting fat pay cheques and bonuses themselves are, where they aren’t actively slashing wages, offering poxy pay rises which amount to a pay cut. According to the financial times the average pay rise for workers in the last year has been 2.5% with many not even getting that. With inflation running at 5.2% the pay deals amount to a 2.7% pay cut. Added to the increased pension contributions public sector workers will be expected to make workers now have significantly less money to pay for the necessities of life.

The capitalists are using the pretext of the economic crisis to call for a pay freeze in several sectors. The trade union bureaucracy happily buys into that and often doesn’t dare to “threaten” the economy with demanding the justified pay rise. If workers don’t want to be deprived of their basic means of living anymore they will have to take on the fight themselves and beyond the limitations of the capitalist system.