The United Kingdom and Human Rights - College of Social ...

82 Human Rights, Values and Choice
criteria. Current welfare rights provide for minimal
needs, but result in relative deprivation. Between 1979
and 1987 the income of the bottom 10 per cent, of the
population fell in real terms by 5.7 per cent, and for the
next decile by 1.1 per cent. In short, the poorest 20 per
cent, suffered real cuts in their standard of living. In
contrast, the increase in annual income for the total
population measured over 23 per cent. Being an average
figure, that indicates the enormous increase in incomes
of the rich compared with those of the poor. By 1990,
following social security changes involving the loss of
Single Payment Grants (replaced by loans and grants
from the Social Fund if lucky) and the introduction of
the Community Charge ("poll tax"), as well as failure in
the new arrangements to compensate for rates' contributions
and water rates, poor individuals and childless
married couples suffered an even greater overall reduction
in standards of living in the years from 1981 to 1990.
The falling incomes of the poor are an unintended
result of Government economic policies. Trickle down
theory is a modern variant of Mandeville's, Montesquieu's
and Smith's view that private spending by the
rich will result in distribution of wealth to workers—they
all gave the sexist example of a woman buying luxurious
clothing. 30 A decade of experience now shows that
trickle down policy, applied in conjunction with a
reduction in higher rates of income tax and an increase
in differentials between social security payments and the
pay of low paid workers in order to encourage the
seeking of work, although applied in good faith with the
expectancy that the poor would benefit, failed to achieve
that effect.
It will now be obvious that views of minimal
distributive justice, combined with the values of "the
work ethic" and individual responsibility, led to acceptance
of trickle down policy and the encouragement of