Christmas Cancelled Due To Universal Credit As 5-Week Benefit Delay Leaves Families Penniless

As single mum Joanne Harrison opens her fridge to reveal its meagre contents, she explains she has been stockpiling food for weeks.

Instead of mince pies or other festive treats, the 43-year-old mum from Leeds has been putting aside basics to feed her family over the next month – packets of pasta, frozen bread, rice.

She is one of thousands of people who are being moved onto the government’s new Universal Credit benefit payment this December. And due to the highly controversial five-week delay in payments, she will be left without any benefits until the new year.

The Story Of Three Men In Tents Outside Habitat Paints A Damning Portrait Of Housing In The Age Of Austerity

Outside the flagship Habitat home improvement store on London’s Tottenham Court Road, three homeless men are living in tents. It’s a striking image, one that could almost be a poster for austerity Britain, showing the winners and losers of the housing crisis.

This is reality for the rough sleepers enduring a tough existence on the streets and today, HuffPost UK tells the stories of these three men as figures show an estimated 9,100 people nationwide are now living in tents, cars, trains or buses as the homelessness crisis deepens.

Post-It Notes Reveal Anguish Of Disabled Man Who Killed Himself After £20 Benefit Cut

The note, scribbled on a small square Post-It, says simply: “I am officially begging you please help me!”

These are among the last known words of Mark Barber, a gardener with debilitating disabilities who took his own life shortly after learning his benefits would be cut by £20 a week.

A stack of Post-It notes found inside the 49-year-old’s housing association flat after his death reveal the turmoil the West Sussex man was experiencing over money.

Voter Anger Over Austerity And Brexit Cost Tory MPs Their Seats, Admits May’s New Chief Aide

Theresa May’s most senior adviser has admitted that public anger over austerity and Brexit cost the Tory party seats in the general election.

Gavin Barwell, who lost his own seat in London to Jeremy Corbyn’s “surge”, said that Labour had “tapped into” concerns about years of public sector pay freezes and other Government cuts.

Brutal Austerity Is Coming to a Statehouse Near You

The incoming Trump administration understandably frightens liberals, but right-wing successes at a state level would have moved forward regardless of who won the election. Only four states currently have a Democratic governor and a Democratic state legislature. What's more, bipartisan support for policies of austerity and neoliberalism have led to vast social spending cuts across the country regardless of political affiliation.

Here are five proposed budget cuts that should have progressives up in arms.

Pro-austerity organization finds austerity increases inequality

In the June issue of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) publication Finance and Development, Jonathan D. Ostry, Deputy Head of the IMF Research Department, and two co-authors examine two main tenets of the neoliberal doctrine, and find them wanting.

Does it make sense to pay down debt? When the evidence is assessed it turns out this fiscal consolidation -- code language for austerity -- increases inequality.

“Ponzi austerity” scheme imposed by E.U. and U.S. bleeds Greece dry on behalf of banks, says ex-finance minister

The former finance minister of Greece says the European Union and international financial institutions are imposing unjust “ponzi austerity” on his country, while banks rake in billions and the Greek people suffer.

For years, Greece has faced enormous economic hardship. In the wake of the 2008 Great Recession, the country plunged into a debt crisis. In return for large loans, the Troika — which consists of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund — has demanded that Greece impose harsh austerity measures, cutting social services, slashing government programs and privatizing state assets.

Kansas Governor Justifies Kicking 15,000 People Off Food Stamps

For over five years now, Kansas has served as an economic policy experiment for anti-tax, small-government conservatives. Their lab work is costing the state hundreds of millions of dollars, crippling public service budgets, and making life harder for low-income families without reducing the state’s poverty rate at all.

With his political star beginning to tarnish, Gov. Sam Brownback (R) came to Washington on Wednesday to discuss his poverty policies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. At one point, the embattled governor justified his policy of forcing people off of food stamps if they can’t find a job by likening low-income and jobless people to lazy college students.

Budget 2016: George Osborne’s Cuts Means 370,000 Disabled People Will Lose £3,500 A Year

George Osborne has been warned his cuts to disability benefits will see 370,000 disabled people lose an average of £3,500 a year, as Tory opposition to the plans grow.

The chancellor yesterday confirmed £4.4bn would be slashed from benefits for disabled people over the course of the parliament by cutting Personal Independence Payments (PIP).

Even When Austerity Works, It Doesn't Work

Can a government that adopted austerity policies win an election? Over the past year, this question has been asked in many languages and in many countries. And the answer seems to be, for the time being, a unanimous no.

After Greece, Portugal and Spain, it was Ireland's turn to take the test. It was its chance to submit an exception to the rule. Ireland was the exemplary student in the Troika classroom; it executed the recipe willingly and without complaint. It diminished public spending dramatically, taxed citizens, and cut pensions. But when compared with Greece, it did so with a smaller economical and social cost, and achieved greater success.

What Austerity Is Doing to Our Infrastructure

Talking about infrastructure is like a dentist appointment. No one wants to do it, but if we put it off, even more serious consequences are all but guaranteed down the road.

We didn't need the tragedy in Flint, Michigan, to prove that the foundation of our society -- our water systems, schools, transit, highways, and bridges -- is crumbling. But, according to a new report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), now -- not down the road -- is the time to talk about infrastructure.

Harper economics: Planets revolve around the earth and austerity creates growth

What a month it's been. While the first half of 2015 has not been kind to Canadians and the economy, July has proven to be worse.

On the economic front, we have had a tumultuous month capping a tumultuous first half of the year. When Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz described Canada's economy as "atrocious," little did we know how atrocious it was going to get.

The absurdity of government austerity

Austerity is practiced by people on a spiritual path. It involves turning inward, seeking the source of creation within one's self. In meditation and yoga, the attachment to external sensory inputs is dropped. The "outside world" is accepted as it is, but no particular importance is given to it. 

Austerities such as a simple diet and clothing, an unadorned living space, fasting, or sitting motionless for prolonged time periods may be helpful in attaining a deeper inner calm.

Joe Oliver Says No To Quantitative Easing

TORONTO - Finance Minister Joe Oliver says he doesn't see any need for quantitative easing, despite concerns that the country may have fallen into a recession.

"We don't see any need for quantitative easing in this environment," Oliver said Tuesday at Ryerson University in Toronto, where he was promoting an expanded free trade agreement with Israel.

"I mean, after all, we've seen 90,000 jobs created this year, and we look forward to a positive year of growth.

How Can Greece Break Out of the Austerity Trap?

Greek banks have reopened this week, but Greece’s economy remains trapped in a tragic financial standoff—ironically, an economic war orchestrated by the monetary system originally designed to promote peaceful cooperation. So as the protests, financial panic, and political brinksmanship run their course, can anyone envision Greece actually rebuilding from this mess? Whether it leaves or stays under the yoke of the German-led technocracy, Athens will need to find an alternative path to recovery.

Greek Protesters Clash With Police As Parliament Debates Austerity Bill

ATHENS, July 15 (Reuters) - Protesters threw petrol bombs at Greek police outside parliament in Athens on Wednesday as lawmakers prepared to vote on a painful austerity package that European creditors have demanded in return for a new bailout to keep the country in the euro.

The clashes, the most serious Greek street violence in three years, erupted as Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was struggling to contain a backlash in his own leftwing party against the deal that he was forced to accept after grueling talks in Brussels earlier this week.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras Must Now Sell Rescue Deal To Greece, Introduce Punishing Austerity

BRUSSELS (AP) -- With members of his own party openly denouncing a preliminary rescue deal struck with Greece's European creditors, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras must fight to cling to his government's majority after he was forced to shred election promises and introduce punishing austerity measures in exchange for the bailout.

Tsipras, who flew home Monday from grueling night-long negotiations with European leaders, will chair an executive meeting of his Syriza party early Tuesday before lawmakers begin a two-day debate on the deal - set to heap more tax hikes and spending cuts on a country already suffering through six years of recession.

Austerity Has Failed: An Open Letter From Thomas Piketty to Angela Merkel

The never-ending austerity that Europe is force-feeding the Greek people is simply not working. Now Greece has loudly said no more.

As most of the world knew it would, the financial demands made by Europe have crushed the Greek economy, led to mass unemployment, a collapse of the banking system, made the external debt crisis far worse, with the debt problem escalating to an unpayable 175 percent of GDP. The economy now lies broken with tax receipts nose-diving, output and employment depressed, and businesses starved of capital.

Thomas Piketty: Germany Shouldn't Be Telling Greece To Repay Debt

Thomas Piketty isn’t mincing words when it comes to the Greek debt crisis.

In an interview with German newspaper Die Zeit last month (and translated recently by business analyst Gavin Schalliol), the leading French economist pummeled Germany for its hypocrisy in demanding debt repayment from Greece.

Greece's rejection of austerity is just the beginning

Even with a historic political victory in his pocket after seeing his nation vote overwhelmingly against the imposition of further austerity in exchange for a new loan package from foreign creditors on Sunday, Yanis Varoufakis, the outspoken finance minister of Greece's Syriza-led government, announced his resignation on Monday morning. 

In a statement posted to his personal blog, Varoufakis said he "shall wear the creditors' loathing with pride" after it was made clear to him that his "absence" from future talks was urged by negotiating members of the so-called Troika -- the European Commission, European Central Bank, and International Monetary Fund.