Everyone should have their basic needs met, but we need to go further to enable people to play a constructive role in society
The principle in detail
No one should live in absolute poverty, which is unjust because it denies people their immediate material needs, such as food, clothing and shelter. However, not having to choose between eating and heating is too low a baseline. Living in relative poverty (below 60% of the median income) is also unfair, because it deprives people of agency, dignity and self-respect, damages their mental and physical health, and limits their opportunities to fully participate in, and contribute to, society. And the absence of wealth is just as unfair and damaging as the absence of income, because having zero or negative wealth has an increasingly big impact on life chances.
Where we are today
What the public think
85% of Britons think that economic inequality is an important problem (69% are specifically concerned about levels of wealth inequality in the UK), while 84% are concerned about poverty.
What to do about it
Policy solutions to the absence of fair essentials in the UK include addressing structural challenges in the economy as well as scrapping the two-child limit on benefits, tackling insecure work, reducing housing costs, and introducing a citizen’s wealth fund paying out an annual dividend.
