There's something familiar about the folk getting screwed over here

One of my emails to BirminghamLive subscribers - you can sign up for them here?https://lnkd.in/ePAcVtMN

What do climate change, Brexit, the cost of living crisis and the?financial implosion of Birmingham City Council?have in common?

Sadly, this isn't the introduction to a joke.

The answer is all of them hurt poor people the most.

This week, we learned of the extent of the financial nightmare for?Europe's biggest council, and it is more than a bit alarming.

In essence, the authority needs to?magic up ￡750 million?to pay its bills.

It's awful for the thousands of people working there, it'll potentially knock on to thousands more in supply chains - but there is one group of people who ALWAYS get the hardest hit by economic movement - families struggling to?make ends meet.

Ironically, they are also struggling to pay their bills.

In any area that really matters, there is a damning data point that points to those getting screwed by inequality.

Finance - poor people pay higher rates of return, job opportunities - more limited, health - fewer options, lower life expectancy - I could go on.

OK, I will. Education gaps, food insecurity, social exclusion, higher crime rates - it never ends.

We have reported quite a bit on road safety recently,?culminating in a fascinating Facebook Live broadcast?from our people and politics editor Jane Haynes.

Once again, the areas where there are clusters of poverty are the places where people are injured most.

Now the council. The latest news of a ￡760 million bill for equal pay will bring about an issue with a distinctly unequal response.

Everyone faces issues like hedges being trimmed, bins being collected, leisure centres and so on.?We've tried to look at the impact here.

Not everyone, though, shares in the housing nightmare. If you're in a mould-ridden house and been waiting on the council to fix it, you'll be in a black hole of despair today, especially if you have kids whose health you're worried about

And if you're one of the poor sods stuck in temporary accommodation and 300th on the waiting list for a home there can be little hope of any respite.

They are the people I am thinking about today.

This isn't politics - it's people's lives - and it's always the same people who pay.