Child Poverty

My point, that I think only one poster brought up, was that there is much more child neglect involved than there is absolute poverty.

Feed the figures based on 16 hours a week £10 per hour into any benefit checker, and you’ll see I haven’t made them up.

I came across the figures when a young dad where I worked was saying how broke his little family was. I tried to help and gave him the relevant figures of what they could get ... turns out he knew, they already got the money, that was “the wife’s” money. His disposable income was much the same as his supervisor.

The man who crowdfunded to buy his children Christmas presents certaintly didn’t do favours for those living in poverty

I think that sometimes it is the families who have been 'comfortably off' who suffer most when misfortune suddenly forces them onto benefits. As an example the man who lost his driving licence, and thereby his job and his company car as a result of an RTA that he caused. The wife was a stay at home mum with 2 toddlers and one on the way. They had a big mortgage, and maxed out on the credit card, with no savings to speak of. Pride ensured that they kept up a show of being fine and they had no previous experience of cooking from scratch or beans on toast with an egg on top for tea, had never been in a Thrift Shop, were used to a bottle of wine in the evenings, dining with friends and monthly visits to the hair salon - you get the picture.

I know another couple who, in a similar situation, made the best of it, pulled together, sold stuff on e.bay, etc. etc but the first couple collapsed under a mountain of debt, guilt, mental health problems, drinking - a whole family split apart.

I’m with MaryDoll. Imagine counting the pennies to get through the week and then something crops up like a washing machine or the cooker breaking down? Where would the money come from to replace or repair them? Or is it off the Brighthouse to pay 1000% interest ?

No Gillybob it is back to hand washing and line drying everything and surviving on cold food and pot noodles like we did 50 years ago. At least then we had a coal fire where you could make toast or boil a kettle and a clothes horse in front of the fire to dry the clothes. Mind you we didn't have clean clothes or towels every day and only changed the beds once a fortnight. A fish supper was only 1/3d and big enough to feed 2.

There is a large Brighthouse close to where I work ( a very poor NE town) . I have always said to DH that if I could win the lottery I would stand outside and stop everyone from signing their lives away for a new washing machine or TV costing £200 in a normal shop but £2000 in there. Evil isn’t it ?

Children stealing food from bird tables for example?
That was a case of deliberate neglect and child abuse oldbatty and has nothing to do with the discussion.

Evil isn’t it ?
Yes, gillybob that makes me very angry.
I thought steps were being taken to shut down some of these firms or at least regulate them better.

When I was delivering financial education lessons, I showed comparisons between borrowing from loan companies, high interest stores, banks and from credit unions.
We deliberately didn't mention the name of certain stores, in case children went home and criticised their parents.
A fair number of children naively told us their parents had bought goods from a "great shop" called Brighthouse.
We made conscious decision to deliver financial educations programmes, due to the high levels of deprivation in our schools.
As for the OP. I don't quite understand the figures he/she quotes. Maybe I'm just dense!
Most of he parents I worked with were on the minimum wage, which as far as I'm aware in Scotland is not £10 an hour. That is if they worked at all.
Furthermore, they certainly weren't getting £500 a month from ex partners. They were lucky if ex partners had any contact at all with their children. Some of them had never seen their father.

Jalima, it has everything to do with it. It is about poverty, poverty of education, attitude, family support, outside support, schooling
and so on.

How on earth people can come on here and claim things aren't as bad as they were in the past is deluded.

They are indeed Old Batty.
However, if you haven't experienced real poverty nor haven't witnessed it , how can you possibly know?
As has been said previously, there are many living in their comfortable, affluent bubble.
I don't often get fired up on GN, but I'm upset at some of the perceptions on here.

No, it's not deluded. Things aren't as bad as in the past in general. Of course there will be cases where things are as bad but, in general, people are better off now.

Quantify " better off " please

More than 14 million people, including 4.5 million children, are living below the breadline, with more than half trapped in poverty for years, according to a new measure aimed at providing the most sophisticated analysis yet of material disadvantage in the UK.

They were happier times in the past Baggs. No pressures whatsoever because there was nothing to get pressured up about. Nobody kept pace with anyone and we were happy with what little we had. Food was at a premium just after the war as we had ration books which were used wisely. We were fortunate to have an uncle who was a steward on the Cunard Line and when his ship docked at Liverpool we knew we were in for a treat.

It's tough that's what I said, but if there was more money available who should we give it to, single parents, jobseekers,working families, the disabled, the mentally ill, pensioners, students, the list of we are a special case goes on. I don't think there ever was a time when single parents had "enough", maybe when Corbyn get elected it will change but I'm not holding my breath.

People here obviously think my figures are way too high or made up, but no-one has come up with alternative figures.

If anyone is interested in actual numbers feed a sample scenario of a poor parent into the benefit checker “entitledto”. Or look up benefits in gov.uk. You’ll probably be very surprised.

Quantifiers for you then, batty. You don't see kids without shoes nowadays. e.g. (1) Where I live now people used to walk to church barefoot so that their only pair of footwear was clean to wear inside the church. In some cases they were walking over moorland.
e.g. (2) When my dad started school in a Yorkshire mining village in the early 1930s there were kids in his class who had no shoes.

The very fact that people are (apparently) getting into debt buying such things as new cookers and washing-machines says it all. One of my grans did the washing in a copper cauldron with a fire underneath it, the other washed everything by hand in her kitchen sink, including all the local Catholic priest's washing and altar cloths.

Oh great kids have got shoes now. Little plastic dolly style sandals in the snow. Great. What a ridiculous statement. People are better off because they have shoes. Do you have food banks near you? Go along and spend a day and tell me people are better off.

That's an interesting take on the 'good' side of poverty, EV. No pressure? Tell that to kids making a bare living on rubbish heaps in India.

There has always been keeping up with the Joneses.

Actually bring back the walk in barefeet and the copper wash tub. Yes let's do that.

I'm not denying the existence of food banks, nor the need for them, batty. But when it comes to absolute poverty, people simply are better off now and not just here. Poverty is decreasing all over the world.

India, a fine example. Make shoes out of tyres, prostitute yourself or be sold. Yes why not?

Now you're just being silly. Toodle pip.

So when do you do your shift at the food bank? Toodle pip. Be sure to pm your chums won't you.