Briefing Paper 549 – Outliving the High Cost of Living by Kenny Pasensie
The ‘poverty premium’ that flows from price increases of petrol, diesel, illuminating paraffin, electricity, etc., affects the poor differently than the rich or the middle class. This ‘poverty premium’ is best summed up by a Terry Pratchett Discworld character, Captain Samuel Vimes,[i] who muses that the rich are rich because they manage to spend less money. They have choices about what to buy – the poor do not. The narrator of the story expounds on this by focusing on Vime’s boot buying habits:
[i] Terry Pratchett (1993): Men at Arms