Panorama.S2014E36.Workers.On.The.Breadline

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Panorama.S2014E36.Workers.On.The.Breadline
Transcript
00:00Millions of British workers aren't earning enough to support their families.
00:07We've got nothing left at the end of the week.
00:10We're getting by, but just barely.
00:14The government is spending £28 billion a year topping up low wages,
00:20and that means big handouts for some families.
00:23How much do you get a year, then?
00:25Just over £7,000.
00:27That's an awful lot of money, isn't it? Yeah.
00:30Even with government help, some workers still can't afford the basics.
00:35Are you ready for this? Yeah.
00:39That's not there.
00:41We've spent the summer with workers who are living on the edge.
00:45I fell out of love with him because of it.
00:49Um...
00:51It is very hard.
00:53So can anyone solve this £28 billion problem?
00:58From a short- to medium-term perspective, things do look quite grim.
01:03MUSIC
01:22A financial crisis is sweeping through homes across Britain.
01:28It's a serious problem.
01:30Millions of people who can't afford to support themselves and their families.
01:36I'm going to travel across Britain to meet families
01:39who are all struggling with the basics like food and bills.
01:43People who wouldn't survive without state handouts.
01:46And what's surprising about all the people I'm going to meet
01:49is they're all working.
01:53They're the sort of people our politicians are quick to say they want to help.
01:59This party is on the side of hard-working people.
02:03Together we can build a better future for the working people of Britain.
02:07To all the other hard-working families just trying to stay afloat,
02:13I say this.
02:15The Liberal Democrats are on your side.
02:21But despite all the promises, wages aren't keeping up with prices,
02:25and that means more than three million families across the country
02:29don't earn enough to make ends meet.
02:37This is rural Wiltshire, home to the O'Haro family.
02:42John and Zoe both work and between them earn about £20,500 a year.
02:49But they only survive because of a government handout called tax credit.
02:54They get about £9,000 a year.
02:59Could you live without it?
03:00No. I can't live without it.
03:03So it's the difference between getting by and not getting by?
03:05Yeah.
03:12The family's main earner is John.
03:16He works full-time as a chef in this farm shop
03:19and earns above the minimum wage.
03:22But the shop's not yet profitable
03:24and the owner simply can't afford to pay him more.
03:32At the end of his shift, he cycles the five miles back from work
03:36to save the bus fare.
03:41That's a big fruit salad.
03:44At home in Milksham, Zoe is looking after their children,
03:48Amelia, Ruby and Caitlin.
03:53Hello, Zoe.
03:55How are you doing?
03:56She works at a hotel but doesn't have any guaranteed hours.
04:01We should be able to earn enough to live on, really.
04:04The prices of everything's gone up, hasn't it?
04:07And the wages don't go up as high as the other stuff.
04:11And where are you? Do you have enough to get by?
04:13We've got enough to eat.
04:15But it's as basic as that?
04:17Yeah.
04:18Wiggly worms!
04:20We're both doing what we're supposed to be doing.
04:23We're looking after our children, we're working,
04:26so we should be getting enough money,
04:29but it just doesn't work out like that.
04:34The financial pressures can be hard to live with.
04:39Do you rattle over money?
04:41Yeah, all the time.
04:43We get angry with each other.
04:45Yeah, all the time.
04:47We get angry with each other more, don't we?
04:50I do, I get angry with John.
04:52How bad has it been between you because of money?
04:55I've had his bags packed by the door.
04:59Their eldest daughter, Caitlin,
05:01is aware that money is an issue for her mum and dad.
05:05Sometimes you have enough money to buy food and pay,
05:09like, electric and that.
05:12Sometimes you can see it in their faces,
05:14but sometimes they, like, talk to each other about it
05:17and they, like...
05:21..say stuff that sounds upsetting.
05:24I just want them to be happy in what they've got.
05:35The O'Haro family are not unusual.
05:38Across Britain, millions of workers are trapped in jobs
05:41that simply don't pay enough.
05:43More than three million working families can only afford to live
05:47because of government handouts like tax credits and housing benefit.
05:52The idea of topping up wages
05:55goes back to the early 70s and Ted Heath's government.
05:59We are tackling the problem of family poverty
06:03with wider exemptions from charges,
06:06with bigger tax allowances for children
06:09and with the new family income supplement.
06:14Back then, it was claimed by just 71,000 people.
06:21Last year, 3.3 million households claimed
06:25what are now called tax credits.
06:29Throw in other benefits for working families
06:33and that's an annual bill of £28 billion.
06:38The government is paying people to go to work.
06:42It is a huge amount of money.
06:44We do need to address the causes of that high bill.
06:49What would happen to those people if that money was just taken away?
06:53Well, they'd find it extremely hard to make ends meet.
06:57They wouldn't be able to pay bills for essential things
07:01like electricity, gas, water.
07:04I think it's a very significant change in our society.
07:08It's a change in a way that makes it fundamentally much harder
07:13for people with families to keep their head above water.
07:25Even people working for some of Britain's biggest companies
07:28rely on large state payouts.
07:33I've come to Scotland to meet a couple who both work for Tesco.
07:40Between them, Mark Payne and Agnes McFadyen
07:43earn about £15,500 a year.
07:47That's topped up by the government
07:50with tax credits of around £7,000 a year.
07:55If we didn't have tax credits, we could not...
07:58We couldn't eat, we couldn't feed the kids,
08:00so without that, I don't know what we would do.
08:02I really don't.
08:03£7,000. That's an awful lot of money, isn't it? Yeah.
08:15Mark is a delivery driver in his hometown of Port Glasgow.
08:19He works full-time.
08:21Hiya.
08:23Tesco pays more than the minimum wage,
08:26but it's still a long way short of what Mark needs to live.
08:30I've got one sop, that's avocados.
08:35Mark's partner, Agnes, looks after their three children.
08:41She also works for Tesco, part-time as a shop assistant.
08:45But two wages from Britain's biggest private employer
08:48is not enough to get by,
08:50even with a £7,000-a-year top-up from the government.
08:54We just can't make ends meet at all.
08:57As hard as we try and we budget, we can't save.
09:01We can never, ever, ever put away money.
09:03There's never money free.
09:07In the past six years, the cost of basics,
09:09including bills, food and clothes,
09:11has risen to £1.5 billion a year.
09:14But average earnings by only 9%.
09:28Although Mark and Agnes work at Tesco,
09:30they say they can't afford to do their main shop there.
09:34There are 50p.
09:39£1.49.
09:41£1.49.
09:43Everywhere else, a pound on here.
09:47£1.50 everywhere else.
09:53They look for the best bargains,
09:55but they say they still struggle to buy enough food to last the week.
10:01The past couple of weeks, it's got to the stage where,
10:03say, come Wednesday, it'll be like,
10:06there's not enough air for our tea, we'll just feed the rains.
10:10We might not eat.
10:13Definitely on a Thursday, it happens every Thursday dinner.
10:16You're lucky if you've got one meal in your stomach a day.
10:19Did you ever imagine that life would be like this?
10:21No.
10:22With you both working?
10:23No.
10:24People, friends of ours, kind of believe the situation that we're in.
10:29So they'll say,
10:30but you two are working, it shouldn't be this.
10:32And we still don't understand how it is so hard to live.
10:41There is no simple explanation,
10:44but Mark and Agnes are being affected by long-term changes in our economy.
10:51Low-paid workers saw their spending power increase steadily from the mid-90s.
10:57But that levelled off ten years ago,
10:59and for the past five years, they've been getting poorer.
11:05Big changes in the world economy
11:07are also affecting the sort of work available in Britain.
11:11Globalisation is having an effect on the kind of labour market
11:14and the kind of jobs we have in the United Kingdom.
11:17So there is a longer-term trend, particularly here in the UK,
11:20to have more lower-skilled, low-paid work.
11:25That's dragged a whole new group of people into poverty.
11:29For the first time, the majority of people in poverty are from working households.
11:35I've arrived in Birmingham.
11:37It used to be an industrial heartland
11:40with plenty of well-paid manufacturing jobs,
11:43but now people are doing different work.
11:46Good afternoon, thank you for calling National Debt Line.
11:49You're speaking to Steve. How can I help you?
11:51National Debt Line is a free advice service for people struggling with money.
11:56It's where people turn when they're desperate.
11:59Can I check, have you ever phoned us before for advice?
12:02This is the first time that you've called us.
12:05Advisers like Elaine say they're speaking to more and more workers
12:09who can't pay their bills.
12:11I would say the majority, really, of people who speak to me are in work,
12:15but just still don't have quite enough coming in to make ends meet.
12:19This is the moment when Andrew Hall decided to ask for help.
12:24I've called you because I've had a change in circumstances.
12:28He's got a position where, well, I thought,
12:30I'm not going to stop feeding the family,
12:33I've got to do something about the payments, really.
12:36He and his wife Sharon ran up debts of £26,000
12:41when their wages didn't cover their household bills and mortgage.
12:47Andrew's a sheet metal worker and Sharon's a shop assistant.
12:51They earn a basic wage of about £26,000 between them.
12:56And used to get about £5,000 a year in tax credits.
13:01But they lost their government top-up when the rules changed.
13:07That meant they couldn't keep up with their debts.
13:10That's when it started going really wrong, wasn't it, really?
13:13Yeah. It was on catch-up right from there.
13:16And where does that leave you?
13:18I knew the bills because I was doing it all and I said we can't do it.
13:22At least it's not too cold.
13:24After months of worry, they now have a debt management plan.
13:29In that period when you were struggling, what was that like?
13:32Very dark days.
13:34Didn't know when the next food was coming in
13:37and if we'd have to go searching round the cheaper shops
13:40to get the best deals and never, ever went out
13:44and was always arguing any phone calls that come in.
13:47I wouldn't answer the phone.
13:49I just couldn't cope.
13:51I fell out of love with him because of it.
13:57It was very hard. Very hard.
14:05For single people, it can be even harder.
14:09If you don't have any children living with you,
14:12your low wage may be pretty much all you have to get by.
14:17Jason May works for a fast-food chain in Stockport.
14:21Now, he's on a zero-hours contract
14:24and he's paid just above the minimum wage.
14:27He earns about £10,000 a year
14:30and gets a government top-up of about £300 a year.
14:34KNOCK AT DOOR
14:39Hi, Richard. You OK? You all right?
14:41Not too bad.
14:43We've got no carpets down here. Why's that?
14:46I can't afford them. Really? No.
14:49When I first moved in, I had plans and measured it all out
14:52and got prices, but once I'd seen what I was earning...
14:57Life can get very hard for Jason as payday approaches.
15:01Let's have a look. Are you ready for this? Yeah.
15:06There's nothing there.
15:08What about in here? There's nothing in here.
15:11What about in here? Freezer.
15:14Empty. It's not worth having on.
15:16Fridge. Empty.
15:19Not even milk for a cup of tea.
15:23He's run out of money and hasn't eaten since yesterday.
15:28Today, it's been a long day
15:30and I'm getting really hungry now.
15:34I just feel a bit weak.
15:36How regularly are things like that when there's just not enough food?
15:40I enjoy it at the time.
15:42The last fortnight's been harder than normal, but...
15:47..towards the second week before I get paid,
15:49cos I get paid fortnightly, the last few days can get difficult.
15:53How does it affect you as a person, living like this?
15:56It's hard. I'm just hungry.
15:59Can't go out. You see people laughing and joking outside.
16:02They're coming back from the pub or nightclub, wherever they've been.
16:07I'd like to do that once in a while.
16:10You can't, can you?
16:13Just got to get on with it.
16:21Jason doesn't want us to name the fast-food company he works for.
16:25He fears he'll lose his job.
16:30But a trade organisation that represents them says people can beat.
16:36They can beat poverty by getting promoted.
16:39There are a huge number of jobs
16:41that are slightly above minimum wage level,
16:44but there is also a huge number of jobs that are above that.
16:49What we see is a large number of people
16:52who come in on lower pay scales, but that move up.
16:58Whatever employers say about promotion prospects,
17:01more than one in ten workers earns less than £7 an hour.
17:07If you're on the minimum wage, it's almost inevitable,
17:10with some exceptions, that you have too little.
17:13You're not going to starve,
17:15but whether you can actually do more than survive
17:18and actually have a life is a different question.
17:25The economy is growing again.
17:27Over the last year,
17:29over a million people have got into work.
17:36But unions say most new jobs are in low-paid industries,
17:41and that's having a major impact on millions of lives.
17:47You ready, Caitlin?
17:49It's certainly true for Zoe and John,
17:52who've struggled to buy Caitlin a uniform for her new school.
17:56It's short, so the rest will fit you.
18:00Most of it is second-hand.
18:03Could be a bit bigger, couldn't it?
18:05Put ten pegs in there.
18:08I don't like it.
18:10I'd like to be able to go and buy her a whole brand-new uniform,
18:13everything, but I can't afford an extra £150...
18:18..on one shopping spree for just a few tops.
18:22The growth of the working poor
18:24is a problem that's in everybody's interest to solve.
18:27Working families don't want to be trapped in poverty
18:30dependent on benefits,
18:32and taxpayers don't want to be paying out £28 billion a year.
18:38So what's the answer?
18:40Could low-paid workers do more hours and work their way out of poverty?
18:46Well, for Mark in Port Glasgow, there's little incentive to work harder,
18:51and it's because he's on a state handout.
18:55If he works overtime, money is deducted from his tax credits.
19:01It's called clawback,
19:03and he says he loses 76 pence in every extra pound he earns.
19:09Is it worth it?
19:10I mean, if you're going to be skinned anyway,
19:12is £2 an hour going to help?
19:14It's not.
19:15I think it's actually degrading.
19:17It's embarrassing.
19:18It's an absolute slap in the face to people.
19:20It's wanting to get on a wee bit.
19:24It must be depressing for people,
19:26but I think it's a good thing.
19:28I think it's a good thing.
19:30I think it's a good thing.
19:32I think it's a good thing.
19:34I think it's a good thing.
19:36I think it's a good thing.
19:37I think it's depressing for people
19:39to see so much of their extra earnings clawed back.
19:45You've got to take the money back to a certain extent
19:48as people earn more.
19:49The question is, where is the best place to kind of draw that line?
19:57Oh, oh, oh, oh! Daddy's knee's working.
20:00For Zoe, it's the high price of childcare
20:03that's stopping her from working more hours.
20:07Nursery fees, for just Ruby,
20:09would mean I'd earn about £1 an hour after paying nursery.
20:13But obviously I've got Amelia as well,
20:15so that would be even less money.
20:17So I would be paying more money to nursery than I would be earning.
20:22How does that feel, then, that you can't actually kind of
20:25earn your way out of it, if you like?
20:27It's hard. It is hard to know that.
20:31The cost of childcare has risen by 77% over the last ten years.
20:36Nobody quite understands
20:38why childcare costs have gone up so much in recent years.
20:42That can make it virtually not worth your while,
20:47or you can even be worse off by working longer hours.
20:52Jason's hours aren't guaranteed,
20:54and he usually only gets about 30 a week.
20:57He says he wants to earn more.
20:59What about getting another job?
21:01What about trying to get a job that pays a bit more?
21:04I've tried. There is none.
21:06Perhaps if I could drive and broaden my horizons,
21:09but I can't afford to get lessons. No.
21:15Low pay has become a political battleground,
21:18with both main parties unveiling plans
21:21to tackle the £28 billion problem.
21:25The Tories say they will freeze tax credits for two years
21:29if they win the election.
21:31The fairest way to reduce welfare bills
21:34is to make sure that benefits are not rising faster
21:37than the wages of the taxpayers who are paying for them.
21:43Labour has promised to raise wages instead.
21:46We will raise the minimum wage by £1.50 an hour by 2020
21:52to over £8 an hour,
21:54a rise in pay of £60 a week for a full-time worker
21:58on the minimum wage, or more than £3,000 a year.
22:05Labour says it will encourage profitable companies to pay even more.
22:10But business leaders have warned that any sharp increases
22:13could cost jobs.
22:16If pay were to go up significantly,
22:18then there is a risk that the number of jobs would go down.
22:21But I think the bigger risk
22:23is that the total reward package beyond pay would be cut.
22:28So things like staff discounts,
22:30things like paid breaks, pension contributions.
22:35So what business would look at is other parts of reward,
22:39not just pay.
22:42Poverty experts say that whoever wins the election
22:45will still be paying billions to top up the wages of the low-paid.
22:50I don't think you can say that somebody has a real plan.
22:55A lot of people have been saying for a long time now
22:58you need to make sure
23:00that you pay attention to people's education,
23:03that they're able to earn more,
23:05and that you also try to make sure
23:08that you pay attention to people's education,
23:10that they're able to earn more,
23:12and that you also try to encourage employers to pay more.
23:15But if you improve qualifications
23:17and then people come out qualified and end up stacking shelves,
23:20then that doesn't solve the problem.
23:22So this is an enormous, national, costly problem
23:25to which there's no obvious solution?
23:27There's no easy solution.
23:32And that leaves millions of working families
23:35facing years of hardship.
23:37There's a spider. Can she hear you?
23:40So for Mark and Agnes,
23:42a barbecue in the local park
23:44is the nearest they're likely to come to a holiday.
23:48This is pretty much our equivalent to a week in Ibiza.
23:59We're not the only people. There's a lot of young families.
24:02It's exactly the same position as we are.
24:04And I suppose you can either complain or you can keep working.
24:09Good girl.
24:12Mark and Agnes' employer, Tesco, declined to be interviewed.
24:16But they told us that it pays
24:18one of the highest hourly rates in the industry,
24:21which is just one aspect of our broad reward package.
24:24It also provides training to support career development.
24:30Muah. Love you. Love you too.
24:33Say bye-bye to your sisters. Bye-bye. Give me a kiss.
24:36Back in Melksham, it's Caitlin's first day at secondary school.
24:40Muah. And I'll see you when you get home from school then.
24:45All my clothes is, like...
24:48..come from family.
24:51I don't mind cos I normally get my normal clothes
24:55from, like, friends and family
24:57cos most of my friends and family are my age.
25:01So, yeah, my friend's there.
25:13At home, Zoe and John are still wrestling with the bills.
25:18I do worry about what I spend
25:20and he always tells me not to spend the money.
25:22But, yeah, I'd like to not have to worry about what I'm spending.
25:26The way it's going, I can see it's getting more and more in debt.
25:29I can't see us getting any better unless certain things change.
25:34And that's many things.
25:36That could be...
25:38..from the childcare, to my work, to your work, to a lot of things.
25:43If things don't change and this carries on with the way we are,
25:47we potentially could lose this house.
25:50I've got to be honest.
25:52We're not...
25:54..nearly as rich as we've got.
25:56Cos we're paying it. We're not.
25:58We're not paying all our bills.
26:06Life may get tougher for families like Zoe and John's.
26:11Tax credits are capped at a 1% rise a year,
26:15but living costs are rising faster.
26:19I fear that, for many people, life will get harder.
26:24Unfortunately, when you cut public spending,
26:26the most vulnerable people who have the greatest need for that spending
26:30are the people who suffer.
26:32And so I think, from a short- to medium-term perspective,
26:36things do look quite grim.
26:47In Stockport, Jason's long wait for food is finally coming to an end.
26:53It's just gone midnight and his wages should now be in his bank account.
26:59I get paid today, so I know it's early hours of the morning,
27:03but I've not eaten for 25 hours.
27:07It's just an all-night garage.
27:09There's a cash machine there that I use to check my money's got in
27:12so I can get some food and some electric.
27:16I know it's late, but it has to be done.
27:24That's what I've been paid, £298,
27:27and £5 off the government for working tax credits.
27:30Very nice.
27:35So he has just over £300 for the next fortnight.
27:40That needs to cover rent, food and bills.
27:45See you later. And you. Bye.
27:54Jason can eat tonight,
27:56but he says that when his wages run out, he'll go hungry again.
28:02Like millions of low-paid people in Britain,
28:05he's working but trapped on the breadline.
28:15It's Checkmate, with new tricks catching a killer in the world of chess,
28:19next tonight on BBC One.
28:21On BBC Three now, the easy living stops
28:23as more young couples get a wake-up call,
28:25experiencing life away from hotel mum and dad.