Poverty in the Year against Poverty 2010
09-02-2010

By: Preben Brandt

Since the Lisbon Summit in 2000 the Danish government has, as well as the governments in the other EU countries, set itself the target to work for abolition or at least reduction of poverty and social exclusion.

In 2008 the EU countries agreed to let 2010 be the European Year against Poverty. In this connection the Danish government has committed itself to coordinate and carry out national, regional and local activities that focus on fighting and reducing poverty and social exclusion. Could this be the reason why the government decided to mark the year 2010 by lowering the taxes considerably?

Did the government imagine that the citizens, having more money at their disposal, could afford things and activities that were not possible as long as the income taxes were heavier? Did the government have in mind a single parent with two children, earning only a low salary and no education? Would he or she, because of lower taxes, now be able to buy the fourteen year old daughter the computer she needs so terribly in order to make her school work as well as her class-mates? And did the government imagine that the immigrant family who couldn’t find a place in the labour market would no longer risk being forced to leave their home or no longer have to eat the cheap and unhealthy food they used to get?

Of course the lower income taxes are not due to such motives. A liberal capitalist government would never think of that. On the contrary the change of the tax system has been arranged in such ways that people with a high income get the greatest advantage of the change. It is all about increasing the profit and pleasing the rich people and the people with the lowest income won’t have more money for themselves after they have paid their income tax. On the contrary, because of the higher duties on water and electricity many people will have less money at their disposal. It is also difficult to see a sign of the government’s wish to assure more money and better conditions of life to the poor people living on the low social security benefit.

I could easily imagine, however, that a decent government, ruling a rich country during the Year against Poverty would make sure that no citizen was put directly into poverty.

I would rather have seen the government admit that the poverty, created by its own economic policy, doesn’t bring any good to anyone but on the contrary brings poverty to quite a lot of families. In the discussion about poverty one of the arguments of the government is that we have no financial poverty in Denmark but rather a poverty caused by a social and personal way of functioning in the society. So, poverty measured only on people’s income is not important, says the government.

It is quite easy to understand the unwillingness to measure financial poverty as long as the system is dominated by the idea of the work-shy uneducated person, whom the society tries to force to work by granting an unemployment benefit so low that nobody can live from it.

Now, in the beginning of the Year against Poverty it is not difficult to see that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. We can also see that a few millions of Danish kroner have been set aside to relieve and inform about poverty.

Measured by the guidelines of other EU countries, poverty in Denmark has increased during the last ten years. There are several good reasons to observe how poverty will develop during  the Year against Poverty.

(The article was printed in the newspaper "Arbejderen" on the third of February 2010).