About 2.4 million households – nearly half of all claimants on universal credit – have on average £62 docked each month to repay benefit advances, tax credit overpayments and debts owed to landlords and utility companies.

With energy and food prices soaring and benefit levels pegged way below inflation, the deductions often leave struggling households without enough money to afford food or pay their bills, forcing some claimants to turn to food banks to survive.

The Commons cross-party work and pensions select committee urged ministers to give households extra “breathing space” by suspending all benefit deductions until inflation dropped to a manageable level or benefits were increased to accurately reflect living costs.

The committee noted that while the government has urged creditors to accept reduced monthly repayments from households battling the cost of living crisis, it “isn’t following its own advice” when it comes to deductions levied as a result of government policy rather than individuals’ behaviour. The bulk of benefit deductions are for advance payments made to new universal credit claimants, introduced to help tide them over the built-in five-week wait for a first payment. They are interest-free but must be repaid from future benefit payments.

The benefits uprating mechanism, which set benefit increases in April using inflation estimates from the previous September, had effectively caused a real-terms fall in income for low-income families and was “not fit for purpose”, the MPs’ report said.

Stephen Timms, Labour chair of the committee, said: “Deductions by [the] DWP from benefits are contributing to the hardship, and the government should give those struggling some much-needed breathing space by following its own advice to other creditors and pausing repayments until the threat of inflation recedes.” He continued, “A properly functioning social security safety net should be agile enough to respond to worsening economic conditions, but the high levels of inflation have laid bare the dysfunctional nature of parts of the system – not least that any increase in benefits is already seven months out of date when it takes effect.”

The report called for an urgent review of the benefit cap, which has been frozen at the same level since 2016, despite a statutory requirement to do so every five years. The committee noted that capped families did not even receive the 3.1% below-inflation benefits increase.

 Cuts introduced from 2010 meant that UK social security spending would be about £34bn lower next year than it was in 2010, the committee noted.

Benefit deductions should be stopped until inflation falls, say MPs | UK cost of living crisis | The Guardian

 Around half of U.S. seniors living alone can’t afford their basic necessities.

Fifty-four percent of older U.S. women who live on their own and 45% of older men in the same situation are either impoverished by federal standards or cannot cover their necessary expenses, according to the Elder Index, a project of the Gerontology Institute at the University of Massachusetts Boston. 

5M older women living alone, 2M older men living alone, and more than 2M older couples having incomes that made them economically insecure

“…The cost of living is just too high for older Americans, and their earned benefits aren’t keeping pace with these costs,” the Alliance for Retired Americans tweeted.

 Ramsey Alwin, president and chief executive of the National Council on Aging, explained, “There’s a myth that Social Security and Medicare miraculously take care of all of people’s needs in older age. The reality is they don’t, and far too many people are one crisis away from economic insecurity.”

Around Half of US Seniors Living Alone Can’t Afford Basic Expenses: Study (commondreams.org)

Auto Workers (UAW) members made history last November, winning direct elections of national officers (“one member, one vote”) in a membership referendum. The road to the referendum was paved with corruption: officials embezzling and misusing funds and taking bribes from an employer. Many auto workers are frustrated at years of contract concessions that have allowed automakers to build a two-tier workforce, with the number of temporary and lower-paid workers ballooning.

Now delegates are headed to a Constitutional Convention where candidates will be nominated for the top slots. The whole process will put to the test whether reformers can break the iron grip of the Administration Caucus, the one party that has ruled the union for 70 years.

The election will cover 14 positions: president, secretary-treasurer, three vice presidents (traditionally assigned to each of the Big Three automakers: General Motors, Ford and Stellantis (formerly Chrysler), plus nine regional directors.

Neil Barofsky, the federal monitor assigned to clean up the scandal-ridden Auto Workers, issued his third report on the state of anti-corruption reform among UAW leadership on July 19, days before the union’s convention.

The report details the monitor’s extreme frustration with union officials’ stonewalling over many months, stating that “the Union’s cooperativeness veered sharply in the wrong direction.”

Top officers “repeatedly failed to even respond to the Monitor’s requests for interviews and documents” and concealed evidence of a high official’s “mishandling of a sum of cash.”

Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD) has put forward a platform for delegate candidates with the motto, “No Corruption. No Tiers. No Concessions!” Dozens of UAWD members have been elected delegates by their locals on this platform. 

UAW Delegates Head to Convention and Prepare for First Direct Elections | Labor Notes

 Millions of people will be plunged into “unmanageable” debt this winter unless the government comes up with more support for those struggling to pay their energy bills, the business and energy select committee have warned.

In a report focusing on how to ease punishing energy costs now, while guarding against future crises, said a £15bn package of support for bill payers, announced in May, had already been rendered obsolete by soaring energy prices, a driving force behind a 40-year-high 9.4% inflation rate that has been eroding household finances.

 Bills are now forecast to reach £3,244 when the next price cap takes effect in October. Bills will have risen by nearly £2,000 within a year, compared with the £1,200 that Sunak’s measures will make available to only the most vulnerable households.

Energy bills will push millions into unmanageable debt, MPs warn | Energy industry | The Guardian

 The highest deforestation rates since 2009. The third most active hurricane season on record. Extreme rainfall, floods, and landslides displaced tens of thousands of people. Rising sea levels. Glaciers in Peru lost more than half their size. 2021 was a challenging year for Latin America and the Caribbean. That’s according to the World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Latin America and the Caribbean 2021 report 

 the second most disaster-prone region in the world,

 It states that “sea levels in the region continued to rise in 2021 at a faster rate than globally.

The 2021 Atlantic hurricane season brought 21 named storms that included seven hurricanes and was the sixth consecutive above-average season.

 extreme rainfall led to tens of thousands of homes being destroyed or damaged and hundreds of thousands of people displaced

The record-setting drought in Chile continued in 2021, marking the 13th consecutive year of the “Central Chile Mega-drought,” which placed the country at the center of the region’s water crisis.

Climate Change Impacts Threaten Latin America and the Caribbean | Inter Press Service (ipsnews.net)

 A fifth of UK households now have an average shortfall of £60 a week between what they earn and what they need to cover essentials such as energy bills, rent, transport and food, as the rising cost of living leaves people with the lowest amount of spare cash in almost five years.

Living costs, up 11% year on year in June, led to a record 18% drop in average household disposable income of £175.80 a month.

The average household had £200 a week left after paying tax and essential bills last month – a figure that has fallen for eight consecutive months.

The squeeze on cash is leading people to cut back on non-essentials.

Those on the lowest incomes were hardest hit. Those in north-east England and Northern Ireland fared worst.

Mark Nalder, head of payments at Nationwide building society, said: “Following a peak in spending during May, our data suggests households have started to cut back across the board and where they can. This is happening as we enter the summer period where customers will want to enjoy themselves, so it will be interesting to see how these often conflicting interests are balanced.

“As we head into the holiday season, we expect budgeting to continue being a feature as the nation prepares for even higher costs with inflation continuing to climb and the energy price cap rising again this autumn.”

Fifth of UK households now have ‘negative disposable income’ | UK cost of living crisis | The Guardian

 The total value of £10m-plus London homes changing hands so far this year has topped £1bn 

Anthony Payne, managing director of property service LonRes, said there was “a hell of a lot of money around chasing very few properties, and of course that is pumping up prices”.

He said the drop in the value of the pound, which has fallen by 11% since the start of the year to $1.20, had attracted overseas buyers looking for “a deal”.

“The rich have a lot of money at the moment,” he said. “Governments have thrown in huge liquidity, and whilst a lot of people are in pain financially, a lot of rich people have a lot of money to spend. They want to put it into property, and lock in while interest rates are low. Buying agent searches for super-prime properties, registered on LonRes, are at their highest level ever, which would all point to continued momentum in the immediate months ahead.”

Record number of £10m-plus London properties sold as pound falters | The super-rich | The Guardian

 Spiralling inflation, volatile financial markets and the soaring cost of living are leading to the “great unretirement”.

According to data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) analysis shows there was an increase in economic activity (people working or looking for work) of 116,000 among the over-50s in the past year. More than half the total increase is among men aged over 65 – whose economic activity levels increased by 66,000, or 8.5%, in a year – with 37,000, or 6.8%, more women over 65 in or looking for work. Experts say in-depth research indicates the increase is driven by former people in retirement returning to work, rather than people working longer. 

“People who thought they could retire comfortably during the pandemic are having to unretire and find work again to bring in extra income and top up their pensions while they still can,” said Stuart Lewis, the chief executive of Rest Less, a digital community for the over-50s. “Increasing numbers of retirees are feeling poorer than they’ve felt before, with consumer confidence at a record low and purchasing power eroded on a monthly basis,” he added. “All this is driving the trend of unretirement.”

Caroline Abrahams, the charity director at Age UK, said it was no wonder that significant numbers of retired people were “scrambling to return to work in an effort to shore up their finances against the storm…Carefully laid retirement plans, which looked economically sustainable a year ago, are now shot to pieces…”

Ros Altmann, the former pensions minister and Conservative peer, said, “The fear of inflation has caused huge anxiety and driven some to return to work even if their health may not be up to it.” 

Britain’s ‘great unretirement’: cost of living drives older people back to work | UK cost of living crisis | The Guardian

 Elizabeth Warren warn that the Federal Reserve, the American central bank’s approach to tackling inflation “risks triggering a devastating recession” without directly addressing many of the key drivers of recent price surges.

Warren argued that aggressive rate hikes “are largely ineffective against many of the underlying causes of this inflationary spike,” such as gas and food prices. Last month when asked whether the Fed’s rate hikes are expected to bring down gas and food costs, Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Fed, admitted  forthrightly, “I would not think so, no.” Nevertheless, Fed officials appear poised to stay the course with another 75-basis-point rate hike.

Warren noted that “when the Fed raises interest rates, increasing the cost of borrowing money, it becomes more expensive for businesses to invest in their operations.”

“As a result, employers will slow hiring, cut hours, and fire workers, leaving families with less money,” the senator wrote. “In the bloodless language of economists, that’s referred to as ‘dampening demand.’ But make no mistake: If the Fed cuts too much or too abruptly, the resulting recession will leave millions of people—disproportionately lower-wage workers and workers of color—with smaller paychecks or no paycheck at all.”

Warren went on to directly criticize former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, pointing to his recent claim that the U.S. needs “five years of unemployment above 5% to contain inflation—in other words, we need two years of 7.5% unemployment or five years of 6% unemployment or one year of 10% unemployment.” The current U.S. unemployment rate is 3.6%.

“If Messrs. Powell and Summers have their way, the resulting recession will be brutal. As in past downturns, Republicans in Congress will press for austerity—tax cuts for giant corporations and the rich, weaker regulation on big businesses, and little economic support for the most vulnerable.”

Elizabeth Warren Accuses Fed Chair of Fomenting ‘Devastating Recession’ (commondreams.org)