The real issue is over being a low pay high cost economy, at the moment we have what was memorably described over two hundred years ago as a ‘System of Universal Pauperage’ where even households on median or higher income get something largely because of sky high housing costs
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery. The blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the god of day goes down upon the dreary scene, and—and in short you are for ever floored.
Wilkins Micawber, Ch12 David Copperfield
