New data shows inequality is everywhere

There is an increasingly clear trend in data on what we used to consider 'exceptional' personal circumstances – they aren't really exceptional any more. A range of statistics which we would once have identified as being representative of outliers in society now look more like a consistent feature.

As a democracy we need to shift our mindset away from a 'them and us' attitude to these problems and to begin identifying them as something which affects us systematically across our society.

Today it is being reported that one in four people in Scotland have direct experience of homelessness, either themselves or through a close friend or family member. It is separately being reported that high levels of anxiety, low self esteem and worse are becoming normal patterns for teenagers and even younger children.

Meanwhile earlier in the week the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey revealed that only half as many people report being in a financial state where they are managing well than those who aren't (30 per cent to 20 per cent).

The most interesting finding beneath that statistic is that in the very top social category (the ABs), nearly one in ten people say they are not managing well financially (it is one in six for ABC1s). Among Scotland's wealthy cohort, financial duress is not uncommon.

The smaller signs of problems across society include that 52 per cent of people in Scotland have been cutting back on non-essential spending, 36 per cent have dipped into their savings, and nearly one in five have cut back on essential items including food. Nearly half (44 per cent) are cutting back on heating and lighting and more than one in ten (12 per cent) took out a loan or borrowed from friends or family to get by.

Common Weal is currently in the final stages of completing a major policy project and one of the most eye-catching findings is the extent to which even the richest ten per cent of Scots have very measurably done badly out of the economy of the last 20 years.

This is the repeated and recurring error made in talking – and in particular media reporting – about inequality. It is almost always presented as a '20 per cent problem', something which affects those in the bottom 20 per of the income scale. It is a fundamental misunderstanding of inequality.

From the bottom of the income scale to nearly the very top, almost no-one in Scotland is not directly, materially impacted by inequality. Its effects are most identifiable at the bottom end of the spectrum (though not really most visible because of how little interest the media really shows in that fifth of the population), but they are identifiable all the way up.

There were always instances of some of the most affluent mismanaging their money but when one in ten are finding it hard to get by, that is systematic. And when children exhibit mental duress, it is primarily to do with social media but it is also a symptom of inequality.

One of the most significant pieces of social research over the last 20 years is one which has arguably had the least impact on public policy – The Spirit Level. Sometimes data speaks for itself, and The Spirit Level presented relentless amounts of data to prove beyond doubt that rising inequality is bad for almost everyone in almost every way.

This research wasn't challenged and wasn't debunked, it was just ignored. Policy is based on lobbying, not evidence, and the lobbyists all lobby for greater inequality. That is what is meant by the code words 'deregulation' and 'tax cuts'.

The interesting point here is that there is no politics of inequality in Scotland at all (it is rarely that even the Scottish Greens lead on economic inequality) yet the widespread impacts of inequality are being felt consciously by a majority of Scots now, are being felt acutely by a quarter of Scots and are being felt to a significant degree across all parts of the income spectrum and is measurably affecting almost everyone.

An effective politics of inequality would have a substantial market among the population, but the political orthodoxy is that there are no votes in it. The media is largely disinterested and the politicians never talk about it. Yet its effects are becoming embedded right across society and will soon get worse as AI accelerates inequality further.

Common Weal has been consistently focussed on inequality and will soon be producing a number of pieces of work which will help to identify its current impacts in Scotland. But that doesn't change the solutions, because this problem has been identified for decades and Common Weal's work has been based on it from the beginning.

We need a new policy approach if things are not to deteriorate further, and if there is one theme to the book Sorted, that is it.