Recession Comparison - 1930's versus 2014

There have been some alarming stories in the BBC News site about increasing reliance on food banks and The Guardian about a return to 1930's levels of poverty in Britain. But just how bad is modern poverty compared to pre-Welfare state poverty?

There was an excellent article in The Register today about comparing a modern recession to the great economic crash of the 1930's. Without wishing to diminish the anguish that any one individual family is going through having fallen on hard times, collectively the UK is vastly better off than it was back then.

GDP per capita in 1935 for the UK was $6,000 (inflation adjusted) whereas today it's $24,000, so we are a vastly richer country  as on average now. There's four times more (per person) to go around than there was back then. The Register article points out that Britain in 1935 was about as rich as Albania is today. 

Source: Social Democracy 21st Century Blog

Likewise, average wages were about £11,000 (inflation adjusted) in 1935 versus £24,000 today. The average income across the country back then was lower than the minimum wage is today!

For the unemployed, Public Assistance Committee handouts for a family of five (i.e, after eligibility for dole had run out) provided £2,750 a year, or just £53 a week (inflation adjusted) in the 1930s. For a family of five!

This isn't to detract from the hardships that individuals on their uppers are going through today, but relative poverty today's recession hit society doesn't have anything on the absolute poverty of yesteryear.

(Source: The Register)