How poor is poor?

Yes, all lies except anything uttered by Corbyn and his acolytes.

I am actually one of those billionaires who own these rightwing newspapers, don't know what I am doing on here when I could be sunning myself at my 3rd, 4th or 5th home in Barbados, just having a bit of fun on here and stirring people up.

No, rose, I don't think it's how your posting came across. You had to mention those who were smoking. The image of mothers with pushchairs and a fag in their mouth is straight out of the Daily Mail.

People are referred to a food bank as a last resort. They can't pick up food on a regular basis and the food they get isn't well-balanced. There's no fresh stuff and it's full of carbohydrates. I wouldn't even have most of it in my cupboards!

As I said, most of the people have some kind of learning difficulty or mental health problem and most aren't very intelligent (to put it kindly). As an intelligent and educated person, I could see solutions which they couldn't, but I didn't have to live their lives or have their experiences. I didn't judge them. I felt incredibly frustrated that they had got into the situations they were in - through no fault of their own.

Most were there because benefits hadn't been paid, for one reason or other, and they had NO money - and I mean NO money.

In any case, the majority of people in poverty - four million of them - don't go to food banks.

The image of mothers with pushchairs and a fag in their mouth is straight out of the Daily Mail. of course it is, I own it.

That is very rude and presumptuous, it is not from the Daily Mail, is it from a dear, caring and lovely relative who has worked in a food bank for a long time and cares about those she helps - but is not so blinkered that she can't see the occasional one who needs a good shake.

Some people are so blinkered they can only see a very righteous path with no deviation from poor = worthy and anyone who dares to question a thing about it is a nasty rightwing bigot.

Well, I'm not, so don't you try to make out that I am and that my relative is.
I am glad you think you are intelligent, self-awareness is always good.

I know that lifestyle 70 Years ago was completely different to that of today but are people happier? We were poor but we were happy and content and we had family life and love and weren't stressed like people today. I dread to think of what things will be like when my great grandchildren grow up.

You are right Bijou when you say that life is so much more stressful now, it may have been poorer back then but simpler too, in a way that people envy.If only we could have the better standard of living and a simpler way of life! Perfection.Just trying to contact a firm this week brought my DH to the brink of insanity.
We all know that the food banks help sections of society, and we all know there are certain people who milk the benefits system and are good at it.
We had a thread about this last year, and it descended into rude and personal remarks, so how about not going down that road again.
daphnedill the accusation of being a Daily Mail reader has also been done to death on here, since you are new to the forum ( or a lurker) you may not know that.

I did not say you were quoting the Daily Mail, your post of mothers with pushchairs queueing in a food bank and smoking was so the attitude of the Daily Mail bashing those on benefits. I am sure everyone is quite aware that some people in poverty smoke , some drink, some take drugs , some are benefits cheat, rather like declaring some married women have affairs ,

There are so manny different points here. Nicotine is as addictive as heroin or I'm told by people who have helped addicts more so. So I sympathise with those mums who need to smoke when they have a rubbish life and I also sympathise with those who want to give them a good shake when they haven't got food but have got ciggies. I lved with a smoker and hated the money spent on it and when he gave up I hated the cold turkey which he says never leaves. And we could afford it. I also remember the things Bijou says along with many others and although she has 20 years life experience more than I ,I share her fear of what life holds for people who can't manage. It all boils down to education. We learnt to sew cook and basic metal and woodwork at our local grammar and sec mod schools. The last generation did CDT which meant they looked at how things might be made but never how to do it ie design a dress but not make one or look at an apple but not bake one. This last one wasa quote from a domestic science teacher. I don't volunteer in a food bank but have friends who do and have heard sad stories of volunteers trying to explain what you did with a bag of pasta and a jar of purée .

Don't believe you are a billionaire or own newspapers or own a house in Barbados Rosequartz

I think the government and press definition of poor is the one mentioned as being poor compared to your peer group, so you might have a car, big screen tv, i pad etc and your children might be malnourished, if not due to lack of money, then due to lack of knowledge/time/ or the the will to cook nutritional meals. I am sure many of us here new a different sort of poverty as children, and I look back on photos of my children when they were little and before I went back to work, and cringe to see their mismatched second hand clothes, but I think our quality of life was richer in those days. A pensioner living alone may be able to live reasonably on £150 week but if they own their home and something goes wrong, they could be in trouble. Otherwise, the real poor are the ones that Mama Caz describes, and those who live in other countries with no social security or free health service, and very few job opportunities, and the ones made homeless by war, like the refugees in Lebanon where instead of school, children as young as six do manual labour for a few pennies and prebuscent girls sell their bodies for a meal. That is poverty.

I learned to cook and sew in school, we didn't have to be concerned with computers did we, time marches on

I think we need to stop personal sniping and niggling and concentrate on the point of this thread which is surely that it is a disgrace that there are around 4 million in dire poverty. Daphnedill your figures are useful to have as figure that we can all recognise, and whichever way we discuss it, it is a shameful that there is this situation in what is the fifth wealthiest nation. We all appreciate that things have moved on, and that some on here had very impoversihed upbringings but surely we should be moving on? We dont honestly want the same sort of poverty for our children and grandchildren? Another issue, as a slight aside, is that the food given out by foodbanks is, I believe, store cupboard type items, high carbohydrate stuff, a lot of pasta. Growing children need good quality protein and fresh veg. We can all think that we would manage on a strict budget, make do and mend etc., and for a short time it could be an interesting challeneg, but to have it stretching out ahead of you for the foreseaable future with little prediction of things getting better must be the most desperately depressing situation to be in. Yes, I know there are undoubtedly some people who milk the system, who are dishonest, but this is no reason to make it even more difficult for genuine families, people in need of short term or long term help.

You had to mention those who were smoking. The image of mothers with pushchairs and a fag in their mouth is straight out of the Daily Mail.

It was this little gem from Daffydill anniebach
which tends to make me sound like a liar along with the person who told me.

I promise not to publish any bigoted rightwing rubbish any more and to pay all my taxes in full.

I am a little bemused by the figures, though. £452 a week after tax and NI - the amount quoted for a family with two children - equates to one earner with an annual salary of £30k. And this is the sum needed after housing costs and before any added benefits to be classed as being above the poverty line? I'm sure £30k will be a low wage in many areas of the UK, but here in my Northern town, it is a middle management salary. Jobs are typically advertised at half that.

I'm not disputing that many families are living in poverty, and that it is a national disgrace, but this bar would put most families round here into the category, and that's just not the case.

Being someone nearer Bijou's generation in age, I've never been worried if my income has suddenly reduced (which it has many times for various reasons) - we make do with what we've got.
eg now I don't go to the food banks, but I do watch avidly the "overdate" section in the supermarket and buy their bargains.
From what I've read about the UK, those who are genuinely poor are the families with a few children and one wage-earner, on a low wage.

TriciaF,

If you have enough to 'make do' you're NOT poor (although it might feel like it) - that's the whole point of what I've been trying to say.

There are four million people who do not have enough money to 'make do' - even the government admits that!

Maggie,

It would actually equate to a lower salary, because automatic Child Benefit (£33pw) would be factored in. Until recently, there would also have been an amount for Child Tax Credit.

I agree with you that it seems quite a lot, especially if the children are young. However, when the children are older, they cost a fortune and the figure just highlights that. These days parents end up being financially responsible for their children than in the past.

I don't know how the calculations have been worked out. Children have to stay in education until they're 18, but the Educational Maintenance Allowance for Sixth Formers has been scrapped. Sixth Formers don't automatically get school transport paid and they often have to pay for their own books. Since student grants have been abolished, it's almost impossible to pay for university without parental support. If the child doesn't go to university, but can't find a job, he/she gets so little in benefit that he/she will almost certainly have to continue living at home and be supported by parents. Maybe all this has been taken into account - I'll check it out.

For younger children, maybe it's assumed that both parents will be working and the children will need childcare. Average fees are about £600pm for day nurseries round here (and can be over £1000 in London). Again, I'll check out how it's been worked out.

In any case, the government doesn't use those figures. They use 60% of the median income, which is about £11,500 and it's that figure they use when they say that 4 million people are living in poverty. Four million households have incomes below that figure, but the government doesn't differentiate, so a single person who's paid off a mortgage could probably cope, but I think a household with children and rent/mortgage would really struggle.

But the government is now thinking of removing any mention of money in the definition of poverty.

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2015/06/24/child-poverty-stats-are-not-collected-for-their-own-sake-david-cameron/

dj, I know. It's one way of eradicating child poverty ~lol~

Glad to meet another reader of Richard Murphy's blog.

So don't mention money and poverty vanishes

Have just got his latest book, the Joy of Tax, daphne.
You will notice I quite often put links to taxresearch, and get told off by those who do not care.

It doesn't vanish, Annie. They just use different indicators, like worklessness in the family.

fullfact.org/factcheck/economy/poverty_measure_changes_income-50463

They will still tell us about income, but make it more difficult for us to find the figures, particularly if they change the FoI rules.

"The income-based targets the government uses at the moment were set by the 2010 Child Poverty Act. They’re based on income and material measures of poverty:

For less than 10% of children to live in households with less than 60% of median income. These households are considered to have ‘relative low income’ (they’re often referred to as being in ‘relative poverty’);
For less than 5% of children to live in households with less than 70% of median income and that experience material deprivation—the inability to afford goods and activities that most people can afford;
For less than 5% of children to live in households below 60% of median income in 2010/11, adjusted for inflation since then. These households are considered to have ‘absolute low income’ (often referred to as being in ‘absolute poverty’);
For less than 7% of children to live in households which had income below 60% of median income for at least three out of the last four years.

These targets were due to be met by 2020/21 and the measures they describe have been used as the government’s main measures of poverty. The Child Poverty and Social Mobility Commission has said it has “long been obvious” that the targets will be missed, and the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) agrees.

The new act removes the government’s legal duty to meet these targets and removes “most” duties and provisions set out in the act. Instead, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions must report annually on the workless households and educational attainment measures. The bill doesn’t give targets for these measures.

Experts have criticised the removal of low-income working families from the measures. Two-thirds of children in poverty by the current relative poverty measure live in working households. The government says that the new measures reflect its view that the best route out of poverty is work. We’ve got more on work and poverty in our factcheck."

This is why they want to change the law, and bring in a new act.
I wonder if they will allow it to be debated fully in parliament.

The change is part of the Welfare Reform and Work Bill 2015 and has already passed through its stages in the Commons. I believes it's due to be discussed in the Lords soon.

Doesn't it go back to the commons after the Lords?
Hope the Lords are sensible and get rid of that bit, or at least bring it to the public's attention.

Yes, it does go back to the Commons, but if the Lords haven't changed anything, it's just a rubber-stamping exercise. I would be surprised if the Lords change the child poverty target part of the Bill. Maybe time for Change or 38 degrees!