Possible Clues:

• Sell-off with one put into poverty
• Is a time amid hardship resulting in loss of public assets?
• Transfer from public to private ownership
• Government action, as it develops in hardship
• In hardship, it's a restructuring that's often opposed by unions
• I remained still in poverty -- it was Thatcher's policy
• In distress a short time before one's transfer from the public sector
• Government sell-off placed one in hardship