How are you coping? Cost of Living Spike Hits the Delphius Household Hard.

 Well, I had to have the chat with the boss today. "Sorry Guv, but I can't afford to keep coming into work. I'm going to have to find work closer to home".

Now my fuel bill is running at £100 a week and energy prices are on the up, that means I'll be paying close to 50% of my wages just on getting to work and energy.

As it is, a third of my monthly wage will be going on petrol alone.

It's unsustainable unfortunately. Like a lot of other poorer people, I'm having to asses my options. Do i go for a similarly-paid job closer to home? Do I really jack in a job that I enjoy doing and go shelf stacking instead?

This is the dilemma that most people on or close to minimum wage face. As of the 1st of April, my hourly rate is 10p and hour higher than minimum wage. The problem employers have, if all the jobs pay the same wage, then jobs become interchangeable and the deciding factors are the cost of transport to the job and the quality of the workplace.

Unfortunately employers don't pay any attention to quality of the workplace, so it boils down to transport costs. The closest job wins out.

Sadly this is then a factor affecting social mobility. Without the ability to move freely about the country or a job that pays a wage that allows you to move freely, your physical mobility is curtailed. That then impacts social mobility, because the jobs that may have provided a leg-up, with opportunities to move up the ladder are removed because the cost to the person to get to that job, to do that particular job and access those benefits is higher.

This is where the minimum wage kills social mobility. 

It's also an indication of capitalism gone wrong. Instead of investing in staff and increasing productivity through training and benefits, employers are all diving to the bottom and instead paying the lowest wage, curtailing training and instead handing profits to shareholders and owners. It's not far short of exploitation of the poor. Maybe we haven't got to the slums of Salford that prompted Marx and Engels to write their various essays, but it's effectively the modern equivalent if you go on any council estate.

Capitalism is supposed to benefit all of those in society. Not just the rich and the middle class. The poor too should also get a slice of the profits. Otherwise you disenfranchise them. Remove their ability to function in society and bad things happen. The gangs of London, the stabbings and the drug abuse across the country are all symptoms of selfish capitalism.

Politically, extremist parties arise. 

Frankly, I don't think Communism or far-left Socialism isn't the response to unfettered Capitalism. Marx thought so, but Communism is just as bad for the poor as Capitalism.

There needs to be a more balanced version of capitalism that provides for all. Entrepreneurs need to have the freedom to innovate, they need to be rewarded for generating jobs. But the corporations that are established and insist on worker exploitation and tax avoidance need to be reined in.

The rich need to pay more to help the poor, we need to stop giving benefits to the middle classes who quite clearly don't need them and we need to get the rampant money devouring beast that is the NHS under control.

I've said it until I'm blue in the face that the big tech corporations need to start paying back into the system the money they take. If needs be offshoring of corporation tax liabilities needs to be made illegal. You do business in the UK, what you do stays in the UK and benefits the UK. You don't asset strip the UK by paying tax in another country. 

That would be a start. No need for 90% tax rates for the rich, but I'd put them on warning that if tax avoidance becomes the norm then they will be the next target.