Greater relative poverty has not "just happened."
30 years ago our society was well on the way to drastically reducing inequality.
Then we got a Government that lifted the controls on banks and big companies ... with the result we have now of a messed up economy.
But also there is no attempt to achieve full employment any more. That makes working people too powerful. It's cheaper and easier to have 20% of people on the scrapheap. For life. Their children too.
Anyone who thinks that a poor but bright kid can get ahead through today's schools is living in cloud cuckoo land. State schools are mostly bins, zoos, crowded containers with a mockery of education.
After all we don't NEED very many highly educated people and those we need are comfortably provided by private schools.
The poor smoke more because they are stressed and have fewer options to deal with that than the better off. Health clubs, massage, a quiet sit in the garden even - are not for poor people.
Nor is "simple exercise" quite so easy "stepping out of your front door to just walk" - when your streets are unsafe and you're knackered after a monotonous brain grinding working day of being routinely humiliated by petty managers.
Being poor is not just having less money. It's having less energy, less hope, less options to do anything about it. A fit higher class person could manage fine on a low income. They'd be motivated, interested, ingenious and resourceful about it. The media have done fun projects
