Prioritising Women and the Poverty Emergency in a Post-Covid Economy

Prioritising Women and the Poverty Emergency in a Post-Covid Economy

Evidence shows that low-income, working class people – those most politically invisible and powerless within society and in particular, low-income single parent women – have again been most harshly impacted by Covid, including many lost lives and livelihoods. Being unable to afford rent or mortgage, buy in additional help to support children through trauma, have adequate access to safe outdoor and indoor space, savings or the option of downsizing, have added up to a particularly harmful set of pressures for many women.

We stand in solidarity with the daily struggles of our less politically visible sisters and call on the Labour Party to recognise poverty and class as significant equalities issues, intersecting with and compounding other equalities factors, causing untold misery and harm. The Poverty Emergency declaration commits councils to addressing poverty as an equalities issue, to working collectively with other councils to improve poverty data, to be more proactive in lobbying government and to put people and poverty alongside planet at the heart of recovery from COVID. It promotes a rights-based rather than charitable recovery model that includes community education and support regarding collective ownership, in order to shape a community-led more equal and democratic economy. We call on the Party, and the new Women’s Committee, to support Labour-led councils to take actions for women and their families, to support the Poverty Emergency declaration, as put forward by Cheshire West and Chester Council, and to promote Community Wealth Building initiatives such as those supported by Preston Council and North Ayrshire Council.

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More information: https://www.classactivist.com/poverty-emergency