Child poverty

No one is suggesting benefits be paid by charities, Wealthy people contribute to charities right across the charitable world from the causes you support, valdali.

And it an illusion that if we 'soak the rich' we will get vast quantities into the coffers. The really very wealthy are few in number

Increase income tax by one penny across all incomes and it will raise £6.9 billion.

Raise income tax by 5% on incomes over £250,000 a year and you get only a couple of billion. the idea that if we taxed rich people lots more we would get a huge rise in income is an illusion. Were you to raise the rate for only those whose income is £500,000 it would be even less.

There is also a question of the justice of taking 60-70% of someones income in taxes. If people have worked hard to build a business, or have saved and invested well, surely they should be allowed to keep half the income they earn.

The argument is made that clever accountants manage to make the most of legal tax avoidance. You can hardly blame wealthy people for that. The solution for that lies with the government itself. they are theones that set up all these tax avoidance schemes. It is up to them to dismantle them.

Our whole tax sytem in this country is quite unnecessarily complicated and therefore open to exploitation - and that is the government's responisbility.

M0nica

Wyllow3

The very rich don't care and many don't try to help. What is wrong with them 😡

Never understood.

That is not true. Many wealthy people donate £millions to charitable causes each year and most seem to have charitable foundations.

Many of the wealthy do not want all the fawning around them that beng seen to be giving to charity can cause so choose to donate money uietly in privacy or anonymity.

I've always thought charity is great for the donor but not so good for the recipient.

Far better to pay taxes for services / allowances that will provide a safety net for children in poverty, & services that are more universal rather than charities that are great for the children that benefit from them but don't reach most.

Pensioners traditionally haven't liked applying for pension credit because they're too proud. How much worse for them if they had to apply to a charity to top-up their pension? Old people don't have a monopoly on self-respect.

I do give to charities but mainly for warzones / overseas aid / disaster appeals.

Luckygirl3

The causes of child poverty in Britain run deep - there is no quick fix.

People who become parents who have felt alienated by the rigid school system and treated like cast-offs - they then become drop-outs with no stake in our society so drift into parenthood whilst unable to support a family.

This has been happening over generations - today's parents are the children of alienated parents and so the cycle of deprivation whirls on and on.

We need real solid properly funded support services for young families to help their children become good parents in their turn. Come on Kier - get behind this.

As to international child poverty caused by wars ....... I see no solution at all. There are leaders around the world who treat people, including children, as expendable - as pawns in their game. How to bring this to an end? I truly have no idea whatsoever. It is too huge and too fundamental. I despair....

Excellent post, Luckygirl.

Nanny27

And as has often been pointed out before, poverty is relative. Children in some, often war torn countries with no shelter or any food or medical care versus children in our country with somewhere to live (may not be very nice) a free education and health care. Do we have children in uk who do not have access to decent food?

There’s non so blind as them who can not see.
Or, in some cases,as them who don’t want to see 😡

Oh, the dreaded "some people"

Well, not the reply I expected.

And, of course, some people do write on her to virtue signal.
And some come across as terribly smug even though they may not mean to.

Allira
I remember a thread about crafts and when I said I was knitting blankets for charity and gave a link if anyone was interested, I was told to stop 'virtue signalling'. So I did keep quiet about it after that, but did wonder what kind of forum I'd joined!

So often it is not what someone says but the way that they say it that leads to comments about virtue signalling. The problem is, communicating in print removes all expression, nuance and optional meaning

If I write 'Oh yes, I like him' it will be read as a statement of fact. But if I say it, I can say it sarcastically, or with a uestion mark and in half a dozen ways that change its meaning.

And, of course, some people do write on her to virtue signal.

GrannyGravy13

Wyllow3

The very rich don't care and many don't try to help. What is wrong with them 😡

Never understood.

The rich people I know (and some are extremely rich) do not brag about their charitable activities/donations.

How do you know that they do not care or try to help?

There have been numerous threads on GN since I joined, and rich people doing charitable works have been called ^lady/lord bountiful (as an insult)…

Yes, they have.
Only doing it to make themselves look virtuous, apparently.

I remember a thread about crafts and when I said I was knitting blankets for charity and gave a link if anyone was interested, I was told to stop 'virtue signalling'.
So I did keep quiet about it after that, but did wonder what kind of forum I'd joined!

Fallingstar

As an erstwhile teacher I can assure you there are kids in this country who have no access to three meals a day, some making do with the meal they have at school and when they are not at school am not sure how they survive. In schools throughout the UK there are teachers who will provide some kids with a round of toast when they arrive and the chance to shower and change their clothes. These kids are often dull eyed and dirty, some are carers for a disabled parent, others are simply neglected or their parent/parents can’t make ends meet.
They have no agency and are robbed of the chance of a half decent education due to missing school or being too malnourished/tired to take part.
It breaks my heart.

I remember my friend telling me about such children. The teachers and dinner ladies made sure they were well fed. She taught in a primary school which my DD attended and you'd think, looking at them playing happily, all the children were loved, cared for and fed, but there would always be one or two as you describe. This is an area which has a mixed population and you'd think no real deprivation but surprisingly there can be anywhere.
Some children go without a proper meal all through the school holidays.

Wyllow3

The very rich don't care and many don't try to help. What is wrong with them 😡

Never understood.

The rich people I know (and some are extremely rich) do not brag about their charitable activities/donations.

How do you know that they do not care or try to help?

There have been numerous threads on GN since I joined, and rich people doing charitable works have been called ^lady/lord bountiful (as an insult)…

watermeadow

There should be no child poverty in Britain. Of course there is, but I remember when every classroom had a few children who were dirty and smelly, with uncombed hair and feet in plimsoles or wellies.
There can’t be many now who have no mobile phone or no TV at home and they are all clean.

Your local primary school obviously did not include children from the local deeply deprived council estate.

My grandchildren's primary school drew its pupils almost eually from an area of nice inter-war semidetached and a small council estate, used by the council as a dumping ground for problem families. There were children there dirty, poorly dressed and illshod. Children who probably did not even have beds.

The Zarach charity zarach.org/ provide beds and bedding for childre. They estimate 900,000 children in the UK to do not have a proper bed or bedding. The chairty has distributed bed and bedding to 17,000 children.

I've had to send my daughter to school with salad cream sandwhiches, because its all i had.

Thats because i believed the "better off in work" spiel that was about at that time.

I've also gone without a tv, and have never had "the latest mobile phone".

There should be no child poverty in Britain. Of course there is, but I remember when every classroom had a few children who were dirty and smelly, with uncombed hair and feet in plimsoles or wellies.
There can’t be many now who have no mobile phone or no TV at home and they are all clean.

When I worked for a local charity supporting children with ASN and their families, we did see some who were genuinely living in poverty and struggling to get by from one week to the next.
And let's not forget that whatever the cause of children going hungry, it is NEVER the fault of the child - so the focus should be on feeding the ones who need it.

My concerns about the education system and its role in dragging some children down is not about the teachers, who are fighting a rearguard action to help these children, often to the detriment of their own well-being. I take my hats off to them. But so often they are fighting the system - they can see what the problems are, but no-one is listening.

And voters aren't interested in the main - they vote in their own self-interest (which I guess is sort of the point of democracy) but it leaves these young people adrift. As their parents were and theirs before them.

Sarnia

Some sweeping generalisations from Luckygirl3. I never felt alienated being educated in the 50's/60's. I went to my local Primary School, passed the 11+ and went to a girls' Grammar School. My Dad was a bus driver and my Mum worked part-time in the corner shop. I have 5 children who are parents themselves now who according to Luckygirl3 are whirling around in a cycle of deprivation. Not from where I'm standing.

I am a retired social worker and saw the families who did not have the sort of supportive parents that you had and that your children had. The sort of support that means they can rise above any potential material deficits.

These children were switched off school very young, both by parental indifference and by the education system that lacked flexibility - and that inflexibility is worse now.

We can't ignore these children and leave them to feel discarded just because we managed to make our way. Believe me, they are out there.

Very well said, and very well done to those teachers.

As an erstwhile teacher I can assure you there are kids in this country who have no access to three meals a day, some making do with the meal they have at school and when they are not at school am not sure how they survive. In schools throughout the UK there are teachers who will provide some kids with a round of toast when they arrive and the chance to shower and change their clothes. These kids are often dull eyed and dirty, some are carers for a disabled parent, others are simply neglected or their parent/parents can’t make ends meet.
They have no agency and are robbed of the chance of a half decent education due to missing school or being too malnourished/tired to take part.
It breaks my heart.

Nanny27 I think the fact that there are food banks would point to the fact there are children in this country who don’t have access to decent food.

And as has often been pointed out before, poverty is relative. Children in some, often war torn countries with no shelter or any food or medical care versus children in our country with somewhere to live (may not be very nice) a free education and health care. Do we have children in uk who do not have access to decent food?

Some sweeping generalisations from Luckygirl3. I never felt alienated being educated in the 50's/60's. I went to my local Primary School, passed the 11+ and went to a girls' Grammar School. My Dad was a bus driver and my Mum worked part-time in the corner shop. I have 5 children who are parents themselves now who according to Luckygirl3 are whirling around in a cycle of deprivation. Not from where I'm standing.

The causes of child poverty in Britain run deep - there is no quick fix.

People who become parents who have felt alienated by the rigid school system and treated like cast-offs - they then become drop-outs with no stake in our society so drift into parenthood whilst unable to support a family.

This has been happening over generations - today's parents are the children of alienated parents and so the cycle of deprivation whirls on and on.

We need real solid properly funded support services for young families to help their children become good parents in their turn. Come on Kier - get behind this.

As to international child poverty caused by wars ....... I see no solution at all. There are leaders around the world who treat people, including children, as expendable - as pawns in their game. How to bring this to an end? I truly have no idea whatsoever. It is too huge and too fundamental. I despair....

Magenta8

The latest worldwide figures show that 400 million children live below the poverty line and 52 million children live in a war zone.

In the UK 4.5 million children live in poverty. Seven out of ten households in poverty have one or more parent who is in work.

We have all this advanced technology. We send people to the moon. But we can't stop fighting wars or do anything about mass poverty.

Never fear, Rachel Reeves to the rescue. According to her, the removal of the two-cap benefit system will lift 350.000 children out of poverty immediately with an extra 100,000 by the end of the decade. Throwing money at the problem and assuming that increase will go directly to reducing child poverty is her solution but remains to be seen.

A Lotsof charities are creaming off the funds in “expenses” or extortionate rents to the king !
I only give my money to charities that are fairly local that I know the money goes where ots meant to go.
Mary,s Meals
Social Bite
Our local children’s hospice and a Glasgow soup kitchen
I used to give to Save the children etc until I saw what the expenses were for luxury cars and expensive hotels not forgetting large salaries.
I don’t believe that people who truly care about a cause,any cause do ot for a big fat pay packet.
I will note that child poverty in Scotland is the lowest in the UK. Mainly due to our governments policies.

Wyllow3

The very rich don't care and many don't try to help. What is wrong with them 😡

Never understood.

I don't like him, but Simon Cowell?
Shooting Star Children's Hospices
Together for Short Lives
The Katie Piper Foundation
Linda Blair Sacred Heart Foundation
Great Ormond Street Hospital
Battersea Dogs Home
RSPCA
Save The Children

As well as paying for random people's surgery etc because he can.

Big bucks I believe.