debt-ridden workers

A total of 5.4 million adults , 11% of the adult population , spend more than they earn, according to a survey , a rise of 600,000 or 12% from the 4.8 million adults found to spend more than they earned when the survey was carried out in 2008.

A further 13 million just break even at the end of every month.

26 million have less than £100 left in their bank account after paying all their bills.

Of those who needed to borrow to plug the gap between what they earned and what they spent, almost half used an overdraft while just over a third resorted to their credit cards.

People struggling to stay afloat financially are unlikely to be rescued by wage rises, with pay rise averaging 1.9% while inflation accordingt to the CPI measure was 3.5% .

Whatever the reasons for which people get in debt, it is likely to become a spiral from which extrication is hard: continually half-robbing Peter to half-pay Paul . Most people under capitalism exist in “quiet desperation”, hair-breadths away from financial calamity. To talk of the proliferation of debt as a consequence of irresponsibility, of failing to cut coats according to the cloth, is beside the point. For the great majority, there chronically isn’t enough cloth to keep out the cold. The respectable with credit cards and no histories of default are in debt just the same, paying monthly for what they cannot otherwise afford. Debt is a demonstration of the inescapable poverty problem of the working class.