The energy and inflation situation sounds pretty bad in Europe and particularly in the UK. Now, these are definitely political opinion articles so I would take them with somewhat of a grain of salt. But if the facts and figures quoted here are even roughly correct (which I haven’t independently verified), if sounds like the UK is losing its middle class.

Let me back all that up with…well…the statistics coming out of Britain are mind-boggling, and I mean that. Consider just a few. Inflation’s projected to hit 18%. 18%. Meanwhile, in the rest of the rich world, it’s peaking — at least for now. I quoted you the one about 70% of households living in fuel poverty already, but consider it again. What would you say if 70% of people in your country had to choose between food and energy? But it hardly ends there. There are more food banks than McDonalds in Britain. Raw sewage is washing up on beaches. Entire villages are running out of water, and soon enough the country will be water poor, yet there’s no plan or agenda to fix any of this.

eand.co

HM Revenue & Customs, on the other hand, suggests that average earnings were £26,000 before tax and £23,500 after tax in 2019-20, but it forgets national insurance, which might reduce this by £2,000, and almost compulsory pension contributions that might deduct another £800 after tax relief, leaving £20,700 to really spend. What that means is that the average household requires two working adults to make it work. It also suggests that having average earnings in the UK means earning less than £15 an hour.

Can such a household now have a decent lifestyle on this level of income? Given that this household is very unlikely to be able to afford a mortgage, rents matter here – and average rents in the UK are now over £1,100 a month, or over £13,000 a year…

What is obvious in all this is that a person on the average income in the UK is already struggling to make ends meet. Frankly, every person and household in this situation is likely to be in financial difficulty. They will already have to make difficult choices. Anything that tips the balance against them now literally leaves them beyond their limits.

Independent

Some of this is certainly due to the pandemic, the Ukraine war, etc. But maybe food, energy, and water prices are also sounding warnings that our unsustainable treatment of the natural environment is finally having consequences. While the underlying trends of pollution, degradation, and resource overuse accumulate slowly and gradually, our society may be able to make small adjustments to adapt to them as long as conditions are relatively stable and predictable. But then random shocks happen to the system, and we are not able to recover back to the trend, and our quality of life can suddenly erode and never quite get back to where it was.