The Empathy Fix

INTRODUCTION

It's a dark December afternoon and I'm late for my video call. I'm hosting a conversation for my podcast, Poverty Unpacked, and I'm aware that my guests are waiting on the other end, probably with devices eating away at valuable mobile data. You'd think that after all that time working from home during the pandemic, Zoom hiccups were a thing of the past. Not on this occasion, though, and I feel more frazzled with every minute that passes. Cursing myself for my technological ineptitude, I finally manage to log on. Soon enough my guests start appearing on my screen. To my relief they look remarkably patient and reassuringly good-natured.

'Sometimes my daughter is absolutely freezing and begging me to turn the heating up. But it's just too expensive.' Brian, a single dad from London, is the first to respond to my question about what it's like to get by on a low income in modern-day Britain. Affable and considering his words carefully, he explains that he faces the impossible choice nearly every day of heating his home or buying dinner. 'People say we live in a rich country but there's millions of people that just haven't got enough money for basic needs such as food or heating.' It's a bitterly cold day and my heart sinks realising that winter has only just begun.

Things have gone from bad to worse for Brian in the last few years. When we speak, in December 2021, benefit payments in the UK haven't increased in line with inflation, meaning he can afford less now than he did five years ago. Unexpected expenses, such as setting up an internet connection so that his daughter could continue her schooling during COVID lockdowns, hit him hard. A cost-of-living crisis not seen in the UK since the 1970s is creating an even greater squeeze.

'How it is possible that in one of the world's wealthiest countries, you're forced to forgo one basic good so you can afford another?' I ask. Sounding exasperated, Brian responds. 'Politicians talk a lot, but it never seems to actually come down to any firm actions. They make announcements of what needs to change but it never leads to people having enough money to be able to support themselves and their families.'

As a social scientist who has researched hardship and injustice for nearly two decades, I've had the privilege of talking with many people around the world about what it means to live on little. From far-flung corners of rural Africa and overcrowded low-income neighbourhoods in some of Asia's megacities to hidden pockets of suffering in Europe, I have sat with those who find themselves at the sharp end of deprivation and inequality. Together with colleagues I have collected information about reasons for slipping into poverty and efforts that can help break the cycle. Keen to transform learnings into positive change, I have participated in discussions about how to turn things around at the United Nations in New York, the European Parliament in Brussels, and government offices in Accra, Kathmandu and London. In all those years of listening to stories, analysing data and examining policy options, I kept returning to the same observation. Poverty may look different from one place to the next, but it also has one common denominator: it exists because we let it happen.

For Caroline, my other guest on the podcast, staying warm in the evening at her house in a small town in Northern Ireland means huddling in front of an open fire with her teenage daughter. She assures me there's nothing remotely romantic about this. Although Caroline has a job, her income isn't enough to make ends meet. She doesn't mince her words when sharing her thoughts about having to queue to receive a parcel from the food bank. 'Has our society become so inhumane that we think it's okay for people to have to beg for food?'

I don't need to be in the same room with Brian and Caroline to sense their weariness. The veneer of their friendly smiles barely disguises deep fatigue. Instead of sleeping, they spend their nights worrying about how to pay bills. Needing to weigh up the expense of getting to the hospital against the cost of a food shop inevitably takes its toll. Both struggle with stress and anxiety. The inability to provide for their children tugs at their self-esteem. 'I feel totally useless as a father not being able to support my daughter and keep her warm at home,' says Brian. I can hear the tremor in his voice.

It's not just the lack of money that makes things hard. 'It kind of feels like an Oliver Twist scenario sometimes. You're having to beg, you have to justify your pennies,' Caroline explains when I ask her about the support she receives. Brian weighs in: 'You get all these programmes on television, and they make it look as though you're just out to get money for nothing and get whatever you can from the government. But that's not the attitude of most people on low incomes.'

Caroline nods her head in agreement. 'People on a low income have a desire to want better for their children and themselves,' she sighs, 'but many of us struggle to attain that because we're stuck in a cycle of being devalued and undermined by the system. It just feels like it's an ever-growing cycle. How do you break that cycle?'

My conversation with my guests mirrors those I've had with many others who find themselves trapped on a low income. Brian and Caroline's experiences are unique, yet they are also emblematic of one of the biggest challenges of our time. After decades of success in reducing poverty, progress has stalled. We live in a world of unprecedented and unimaginable wealth, yet millions struggle to put food on the table.

In the UK alone, one in five people live in poverty.1 Approximately 3.8 million people experienced destitution in 2022, almost two and a half times more than in 2017. Britain is the sixth largest economy in the world,2 yet as many as one million children regularly find themselves going to bed hungry, having to sleep in an unlit or unheated house, or without a roof over their heads. These figures mirror the situation in other rich countries. Across Europe, more than one in five people are at risk of poverty or being socially excluded.3 In the US, every tenth person experiences deep deprivation.4

Global figures are mind-boggling. Worldwide, 648 million people live in extreme poverty - roughly 8 per cent of the global population. This is based on a threshold of a mere $2.15 per day. Adjusted per country to reflect price differences, this amount is a pittance in richer as well as poorer countries. When using a slightly more lenient threshold of $6.85 per day, the number of people in poverty rises to a staggering 3.6 billion.5 With just over 8 billion on this planet,6 that's nearly half of us. Throw the globe's population in a giant bingo tumbler and almost every second person falling out is struggling to make ends meet.

This isn't to say there hasn't been any progress. Economic growth, medical advances and investment in public services are some of the factors that have contributed to widespread improvements in living conditions. Extreme poverty fell by almost two thirds between 1990 and 2018.7 Malnourishment, measured by the proportion of children under five years who are too short for their age, dropped from 33 per cent in 2000 to 23 per cent in 2020.8 And while two centuries ago almost half of all children died before their fifth birthday, this fell to 4 per cent in 2017.9

Sadly, today's picture looks anything but rosy. Crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, war in Ukraine and the Middle East, a rise in the cost of living, and the ongoing climate catastrophe have left and continue to leave their mark. For the first time in decades, we are no longer witnessing progress in the fight against adversity and deprivation. In 2022, the proportion of children in extreme poverty globally was the same as it was in 2019.10 In some countries, such as the UK, the number of poor children rose in recent years.11 In others, such as the Netherlands, child poverty is set to rise if no action is undertaken.12 Worldwide predictions suggest that stagnating poverty rates are a best-case scenario, but an increase in poverty is a real prospect.13

Let me be clear: we didn't end up here by chance. We got here by choice.

Widespread destitution and hardship don't exist because there isn't enough money to go around. Hunger and deprivation don't persist because the pie isn't big enough. It's because the size of its pieces and how they're distributed is outrageously uneven and incredibly unfair.

'We're all in this together' was the much-repeated adage during the COVID-19 pandemic. In reality, the opposite happened. Since the beginning of this decade, in the wake of an unprecedented global health crisis, a handful of business giants have expanded their already vast amounts of wealth at the expense of millions losing their jobs and livelihoods. Anti-poverty charity Oxfam estimates that the world's five richest men more than doubled their fortunes in the first few years since 2020.14 At the same time, over half of the global population saw their wealth decline. Billionaires are now 34 per cent richer than they were at the start of the 2020s, yet the real incomes of hundreds of millions of workers declined in the face of high inflation and sky-rocketing cost of...