
© Guy Smallman/Getty Images
Homelessness in central London during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic.
Destitution levels in Great Britain are expected to double in the wake of the pandemic with an estimated 2 million families, including a million children, likely to struggle to afford to feed themselves, stay warm, or keep clean as the recession deepens, according to a study.
The estimates, carried out for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), described "increasing, intensifying" levels of extreme poverty experienced by some of the country's poorest households in recent years, and highlight a social security system increasingly failing to protect society's most vulnerable.
Cuts in social security rates over the past decade, together with design flaws in universal credit and disability benefits, as well as the harsh impact of welfare reforms such as benefit caps, were driving sharp rises in extreme poverty even before Covid struck, the study says.
Comment: If Cuomo ever lets folks out of their houses, he should be voted into oblivion.