Poverty and inequality on the rise in Europe

This prediction follows a series of damning results which all converge: French society is undergoing an unprecedented decline in the conditions of social existence. A rise in poverty had already been pointed out by studies that Insee published in 2010 and 2011. In one of them, it noted that in 2009, compared to 2008, “10.1 percent of the active population over 18 were poor, that is, a 0.6 percent increase.” In another, it signaled the growing inequality in property ownership: between 2004 and 2010, “the relationship between the average total property of the top 10 percent of households and that of the poorest 50 percent of households” “increased by nearly 10 percent.”

The same situation exists in Europe. Eurostat, the European statistical institute, notes that in practically every country in Western Europe there has been an increase in the percentage of the total population receiving less than 60 percent of the median national available income, after social transfers, a population that consequently runs the risk of poverty and marginalization.

The percentage rose from 18.9 percent to 19.3 percent in France between 2005 and 2011, and from 18.4 percent to 19.9 percent in Germany. In Spain and in Ireland, which are subject to draconian austerity programs, it jumped respectively by 3.6 percent, from 23.4 percent to 27 percent, and by 5 percent, from 30 percent to 35 percent of the total population. The Scandinavian countries have not been spared. In Denmark, the rate increased from 17.2 percent to 18.9 percent; and in Sweden from 14.4 percent to 16.1 percent.

The same trend holds for inequality in the distribution of income. In the France of Nicolas Sarkozy, the relationship between the share of total income enjoyed by the top 20 percent of the population and that received by the bottom 20 percent of the population rose from 3.9 in 2007 to 4.6 in 2011. In Ireland it went from 4.8 to 5.3, and in Spain it went from 5.3 to 6.8.

For over two decades the countries of Western Europe stood out thanks to a rather continual increase in their standard of living and a certain decrease in inequality. The seizure of power by finance capitalism has put an end to that trend, essentially because it has led to a massive increase in joblessness. As Insee has noted, in a deceptively pedestrian style, in one of the afore-mentioned studies:

In the euro zone, the unemployment rate has gone up from 7.6 percent to 10.1 percent: poverty can be reduced only by fighting joblessness.

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