Child poverty in the UK?

jedster

"I'm going to make a donation to a relevant charity today."

Direct Debit done - Trussell Trust in case anyoneis interested

mtb-idle

woodnut wrote:

I'd be interested to know if anyone on here actually, personally, knows someone who deliberately stays on benefit and deliberately avoids work. I'd be prepared to bet there's not many. Read about it in the Mail/Express/Telegraph whatever, "heard about someone from a friend of a friend," maybe.
Most of us are just a redundancy letter, or even a big interest hike away from being plunged into what we would certainly experience as poverty, relative or not.
Subjectively (and remembering I live oop North), I certainly seem to be seeing a lot more poverty than in the last 15 years.

no although I do know someone who won't take certain jobs offered which pay above a certain wage otherwise they will lose their benefits (brother-in-law's ex-wife)

And i also know someone who claims that her husband has left her so that the council will house her and her two kids even though the husband continues to stay in the house (brother-in-law's ex-wife's eldest daughter).

woodnut

bompington wrote:

woodnut wrote:

I'd be interested to know if anyone on here actually, personally, knows someone who deliberately stays on benefit and deliberately avoids work.

I do. I teach their kids, and if I could tell you (I wouldn't be allowed to, not even heavily anonymised) the stories of extreme fecklessness that I have seen, it might turn you into someone who considers the Mail a bit pinko.
Except that in a lot of cases, it's all they learned from their feckless parents, and so on ad infinitum.

I don't doubt they exist, I'm questioning the prevalance. Govt and the press exagerrate the issue and then base policy on that exagerrated picture.
I don't doubt your exprience for one minute, but it begs the question "what do you do".
Surestart (again, where I live) was making a difference. Scrapped now

daviesee

woodnut wrote:

I don't doubt they exist, I'm questioning the prevalance. Govt and the press exagerrate the issue and then base policy on that exagerrated picture./quote]
I think you are asking the wrong audience.
Most of us on here are well off in poverty terms and as it is a commuting section, working.
Try asking the same question in some of the less well off estates where unemployment has been the norm for generations. In my home town there is one area where hardly anyone has ever worked but as I left there 25 years ago, I can't claim to know them. According to my family though, nothing has changed. In some areas people think that living off benefits for your entire life is normal.

mtb-idle

"daviesee wrote:

I think you are asking the wrong audience.
Most of us on here are well off in poverty terms and as it is a commuting section, working.
Try asking the same question in some of the less well off estates where unemployment has been the norm for generations. In my home town there is one area where hardly anyone has ever worked but as I left there 25 years ago, I can't claim to know them. According to my family though, nothing has changed. In some areas people think that living off benefits for your entire life is normal.

working class?

woodnut

I've seen that clip before, hate it, nasty sneering car-crash TV "look they've got a Staffy, damn peasants".

You could start a whole new thread about class, and class awareness. Everyone thinks they are middle class nowadays (and are encouraged to do so). It used to be you had to have a profession to be middle class.

jedster

actually woodnut, I'm pretty sure that surveys show that people tend to describe themselves as working class. Even when they are clearly Middle class by type of job, income, etc

bit old but here we go:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2207561.stm

davmaggs

woodnut wrote:

I don't doubt they exist, I'm questioning the prevalance. Govt and the press exagerrate the issue and then base policy on that exagerrated picture.
I don't doubt your exprience for one minute, but it begs the question "what do you do".
Surestart (again, where I live) was making a difference. Scrapped now

I would say that this a completely false assumption.

I don't know your background or where you live, but I would say that if you attended state high school in any city or have any link to someone working vaguely in education then you will know of people who fit this criteria exactly. This isn't a five degrees of separation (i.e a bloke in the pub who heard of a family etc etc), this will be first hand accounts.

Get involved in any community project in inner city London or attend the remaining Surestart centres and you will see some childcare sights that will kill off the idea in seconds that this is a Daily Mail fantasy.

woodnut

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/class-exclusive-seven-in-10-of-us-belong-to-middle-britain-2247052.html

But we could bat links back & forth all day long.
FWIW I believe I am working class, lots of people similiar to me believe themselves middle class, like I say, it's a whole different subject to this thread

mtb-idle

Did you go to university? (not aimed at anyone in particular)

you are middle class

rick_chasey

Class chat?

C'mon people, it's not just middle. It's upper middle, middle, and lower middle.

:roll:

woodnut

davmaggs wrote:

I would say that this a completely false assumption.

I don't know your background or where you live, but I would say that if you attended state high school in any city or have any link to someone working vaguely in education then you will know of people who fit this criteria exactly. This isn't a five degrees of separation (i.e a bloke in the pub who heard of a family etc etc), this will be first hand accounts.

Get involved in any community project in inner city London or attend the remaining Surestart centres and you will see some childcare sights that will kill off the idea in seconds that this is a Daily Mail fantasy.

When my kids were very young we did attend a local Surestart, some people who attended had real problems. The main one being a massive lack of opportunity.

"They should get a job".

At the moment in the UK there are 6 unemployed people per vacancy.
I could stomach the "get a job, force them to work" mentality, if the jobs were there.
My point is, yes there are people who would rather remain on benefits than work, but not nearly as many as the popular press tries to make out. These cases are then used to demonise a whole group of people who then have their opportunities even further eroded.
Another point, those people who WOULD rather remain on benefits than work, and pass this attitude on to their children, what do we (as a society) do about it. Surestart was a good, largely successful step in the right direction and would have made a real difference. But it's been closed down now.
So what do we do about child poverty, leave them where they are and condemn them to the same miserable life and attitudes as their parents? Maybe forcibly remove them from their parents and give them to worthy people who've concentrated on their career and left it too late to have their own kids.?...just asking!
I'm sorry, but, if we are to ever tackle poverty, and poverty of aspiration, we need to stop blaming the poor, it didn't work in Victorian times and it won't work now.

rick_chasey

woodnut wrote:

davmaggs wrote:

I would say that this a completely false assumption.

I don't know your background or where you live, but I would say that if you attended state high school in any city or have any link to someone working vaguely in education then you will know of people who fit this criteria exactly. This isn't a five degrees of separation (i.e a bloke in the pub who heard of a family etc etc), this will be first hand accounts.

Get involved in any community project in inner city London or attend the remaining Surestart centres and you will see some childcare sights that will kill off the idea in seconds that this is a Daily Mail fantasy.

When my kids were very young we did attend a local Surestart, some people who attended had real problems. The main one being a massive lack of opportunity.

"They should get a job".

At the moment in the UK there are 6 unemployed people per vacancy.
I could stomach the "get a job, force them to work" mentality, if the jobs were there.
My point is, yes there are people who would rather remain on benefits than work, but not nearly as many as the popular press tries to make out. These cases are then used to demonise a whole group of people who then have their opportunities even further eroded.
Another point, those people who WOULD rather remain on benefits than work, and pass this attitude on to their children, what do we (as a society) do about it. Surestart was a good, largely successful step in the right direction and would have made a real difference. But it's been closed down now.
So what do we do about child poverty, leave them where they are and condemn them to the same miserable life and attitudes as their parents? Maybe forcibly remove them from their parents and give them to worthy people who've concentrated on their career and left it too late to have their own kids.?...just asking!
I'm sorry, but, if we are to ever tackle poverty, and poverty of aspiration, we need to stop blaming the poor, it didn't work in Victorian times and it won't work now.

gabriel959

woodnut wrote:

I'd be interested to know if anyone on here actually, personally, knows someone who deliberately stays on benefit and deliberately avoids work. I'd be prepared to bet there's not many. Read about it in the Mail/Express/Telegraph whatever, "heard about someone from a friend of a friend," maybe.
Most of us are just a redundancy letter, or even a big interest hike away from being plunged into what we would certainly experience as poverty, relative or not.
Subjectively (and remembering I live oop North), I certainly seem to be seeing a lot more poverty than in the last 15 years.

Wrong.

At least 4 of my neighbours don't work for lifestyle choices but claim benefits. 2 of them are parents to 3 children, they just had a 3rd child so they could be given a bigger house, I am sorry but they are parasites.

Other people I know, women mainly, stay at home deliberately when they could be working but live in council houses and get paid benefits.

The other one is a single mum with 2 children, which of course, doesn't work.

I know plenty of other cases but they are 2nd and 3rd hand.

I have also got some neighbours who need their benefits, they either have mental or physical (or both) types of disabilities, they clearly need the help and I am all in for them getting the money they need but if you are in working age and don't suffer a disability you should be working or looking for work. I don't want to be supporting lifestyle choices with my taxes.

walkingbootweather

gabriel - Are you saying that these people are committing benefit fraud, and if so why don't you report them?

Or are you just unhappy that our society chooses to pay benefits to those that do not work?

kieranb

I do love some of the arguments here about family size and poverty, maybe if enough subscribe to it this type of thinking could be used to solve world over population - apply the thinking to the poor nations, ban them from having children and link our overseas donations to countries with low birth rates?

What happens, say if you had a good job and could afford a modest sized family of 2 children, suddenly the multinational company you work for decides to close the facilities as it is rationalizing it's opperations due to the global economic situation. Suddenly you find yourself unemployed with a family to support and maybe there is no equivalent job you can get nearby, should the child be taken off them?

notsoblue

MTB-Idle wrote:

Did you go to university? (not aimed at anyone in particular)

you are middle class

Nah, its determined by whether or not you can hum the theme tune to The Archers.

clarkey cat

The only truly accurate test of what class you are is the Findus Crispy Pancake test.

Never heard of them? Upper.
Heard of them but never tried them? Upper middle.
Tried them. But at a friends house? Lower middle.
Used to have them at home? Working class.

I've tried all other formulations. This is the only one that works every time.

woodnut

^^^^ with Noodle Doodles at the side

Bikequin

The definition of working class is when your TV is bigger than your bookcase.

clarkey cat

The definition of working class is when your TV is bigger than your bookcase.

oh simper simper

rick_chasey

Bikequin wrote:

The definition of working class is when your TV is bigger than your bookcase.

This man is obviously of the 20th Century.

Has he not heard of electronic devices?

BelgianBeerGeek

Rick Chasey wrote:

Bikequin wrote:

The definition of working class is when your TV is bigger than your bookcase.

This man is obviously of the 20th Century.

Has he not heard of electronic devices?

What's a book?

EKE_38BPM

MTB-Idle wrote:

Did you go to university? (not aimed at anyone in particular)

you are middle class

What a load of rubbish.

My youngest nephew: Ethnic minority, single parent household, inner city school, two kids in the family who have different fathers, council house.
He went to uni and came out with a BA (hons)
My eldest nephew: Ethnic minority, single parent household, inner city school, council house.
He went to uni and came out with a BA (hons)

If you met them or just reading those brief descriptions, you wouldn't say middle class.

Bikequin

Rick Chasey wrote:

Bikequin wrote:

The definition of working class is when your TV is bigger than your bookcase.

This man is obviously of the 20th Century.

Has he not heard of electronic devices?

QED - You don't actually have to read the books!

mroli

To all those people who say there isn't child poverty in the UK. Can I suggest you volunteer with a children's charity - DDD, I note that you think that there isn't poverty in London, perhaps Kids Company?

I have done days going to people's houses to paint them and try and make them more liveable and it breaks my heart every time to see these kids living in terrible conditions.

Yes, there might be people starving in Calcutta and the level of poverty might be more extreme, but I don't like the thought of any kid going hungry in a street next to me.

daviesee

Bikequin wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Bikequin wrote:

The definition of working class is when your TV is bigger than your bookcase.

This man is obviously of the 20th Century.

Has he not heard of electronic devices?

QED - You don't actually have to read the books!

Sideline anecdote:-
An ex-pat friend of mine in Atlanta did woodwork as a hobby/business on the side. Before the crash he was getting orders to do wooden bookcases for entire collections that were being bought specifically for the purpose of filling the shelves that the cases were being built for :? :?:
He seriously doubted a page would be turned.

kieranb

mroli wrote:

To all those people who say there isn't child poverty in the UK. Can I suggest you volunteer with a children's charity - DDD, I note that you think that there isn't poverty in London, perhaps Kids Company?

I have done days going to people's houses to paint them and try and make them more liveable and it breaks my heart every time to see these kids living in terrible conditions.

Yes, there might be people starving in Calcutta and the level of poverty might be more extreme, but I don't like the thought of any kid going hungry in a street next to me.

Done the same (volunteer days with Kids company) through work. Some filthy miserable conditions for children to live in.

SimonAH

My god. According to the above I'm so fcuking posh that the Queen needs to work on her courtsey, well, next time she drops round anyway.

SimonAH

Back on message though.

There is undeniably child poverty in the UK. There are without doubt thousands of kids living in squalour in the UK today.

I would however submit that bar an infinitessimally small proportion of the whole, these kids are in the position they are because of shiite parenting, not because of a lack of a state safety net.

Food banks? I agree totally, and have also by the way donated. This is a stop-gap to bridge the needy between state A and the system catching up and putting them in state B.

If however your child is hungry and metaphorically shoeless in the UK then radical action is needed to either re-direct you or separate you from your child and let you self desctruct in peace.

I would tear the roofs from houses before I would let my children go hungry or uncared for.