Child Poverty

gillybob, house prices rise, or fall until the number able to buy and the number selling is roughly equal. If more people are actively seeking to buy than are selling, prices go up until those that can afford to buy equals those who want to sell. If there are lots of houses for sale and not enough people able to afford them then prices drop until they are in balance again.

If lenders went to only considering one wage (it would be for second and so on buyers as well as first timers), prices would fall because unless they did there would be many more people trying to sell their houses than buyers able to buy them.

The other thing is that in the past about a third of all housing was in the public sector, the misguided decision to sell hundreds of thousands of council houses at heavily discounted prices, has given people misguided hopes of buying their own home on smaller incomes relatively than in the past. Many people would be much better off with a secure tenancy of a decent public sector home than struggling under the burden of purchasing a home.

I cannot compare the situation with my parents, my father was in the army and for most of my childhood we lived in rented property. But I can remember what a struggle it was for us in an era of constantly rising interest rates and the very high proportion of our income that was spent just servicing our mortgage.

If lenders only took one wage into consideration these days I suspect very few young people would have a roof over their heads .

Also the percentage of earnings paid out in mortgages and rents is far higher than it was when my parents were young parents .

I think that the proportion of our monthly salary our generation paid for our housing was probably no less than that paid by first time buyers today. Mortgage lenders have a fixed view of the proportion of a household income that should be swallowed by housing costs and that has not varied much over the years.

The difference is that 50 years ago the lenders only took one income into account because most women had no option as to whether they stopped work when their first child arrived because of the absence of maternity leave, flexible working etc. Now they take household income, from all sources. And interest rates were much higher. I can certainly remember that at one point in the 1980s, mortgage payments accounted for nearly half our monthly income.

If interest rates now, shot up to the rates we paid and each household only had the income of one person taken into account for mortgage purposes, house prices would plummet, to figures we remember paying.

Yes, everyone, including pensioners is on average much better off than we were 20, 30, 50 years ago. But averages include both those in poverty and those in clover and there still remain a significant number of retired people who struggle to manage on very small incomes.

Davidhs what about the sky high interest rates we had to pay on mortgages, or us WASPI ladies who have had to wait 7 years 8 months longer for our State Pensions?

Surely poverty is relative to each generation you cannot compare 2018 with the the early 1918/30’s

Davidhs
one in six pensioners (around 1.9 million) now living in poverty, not including the many thousands more who are just above this threshold

This later report states 14% are living in poverty:
www.ageuk.org.uk/globalassets/age-uk/documents/reports-and-publications/reports-and-briefings/money-matters/rb_apr18_poverty_in_later_life
&^ However, the most commonly used definition is to say that someone living in the UK is in poverty if they live in a household with an income below 60 per cent of the current median (or typical) household income, taking into account the number of people living in the household and, for children, their age. This can be measured before and after housing costs. We generally use the after housing costs figures because this is what people are left to live on after meeting their essential accommodation costs.^

I think if you don't realise pensioner poverty exists, you must be living in a comfortable, affluent bubble.

One thing for sure and I really don't expect too much opposition, our generation 60 to 80 are comparatively much better off than younger age groups. Housing costs are much higher than we had to cope with plus they are starting work later and in many cases longer education is not improving wages.
I would be interested to see what Age Concerns definition of "poverty" is because my impression is pensioners are quite well looked after.

My daughter only found out by chance that she had been underpaid part of her benefit, even though the whole application was filled in, on the phone with a benefits agency advisor.

Yet someone else may have awarded her that allowance without further ado.
It all seems so arbitrary.

Oh, and I forgot the point I was coming to!
My mum forbade me to reapply for mobility allowance, so for a good few years more, she missed out on so much.

I remember when my mum was turned down for mobility allowance (she could only walk around her own house by dragging herself along the furniture by this stage)
She cried as she was so ashamed that they'd thought she was after something she wasn't entitled to.
She was so embarrassed.

It's very sad but you could be right GrannyGravy.

I do think that lack of awareness is a problem too.

Jalima I think a lot of Seniors are too proud to claim benefits.

Caroline Abrahams of Age UK said last year:

'With one in six pensioners (around 1.9 million) now living in poverty, not including the many thousands more who are just above this threshold and still struggling to make ends meet, the Government clearly needs to do far more

'It's hard to believe but despite such high number of pensioners living in and just above the poverty line, as much as £3.5 billion in money benefits remains unclaimed by older people every year.

I wonder if much of this lack of awareness of what is available in unclaimed benefits is simply because pensioners do not have the internet access that younger generations do have?

Day6 I've weighed up many on gransnet and don't get the feeling of poverty-stricken pensioners
Well, you could weigh up many on mumsnet and find that they are well off too.

There is pensioner poverty and pensioners who are in poverty are the least likely of all in society to have a smart phone, an ipad or any other access to the internet and are not likely to have ever used it, nor will they.

There are also posts on GN from retired people who are struggling and worrying about heating bills, paying the rent or even being forced to look for new accommodation because their landlord/lady is evicting them.

Day6 I've weighed up many on gransnet and don't get the feeling of poverty-stricken pensioners. I'd have been bombarded with posts had that been the case so I reckon that I haven't " offended " anyone ?

There is no doubt at all that there are families in particular that fall through the net, problems with universal credit is a big contributor to that, the other major difficulty is mental and emotional problems that lead to so many being isolated.
In theory the benefit system does provide the housing and living essentials for everybody, and a single parent with a child who is able to work a few hours will live quite reasonably, wether that is below the arbitrary poverty line is academic. Those that cannot manage have some kind of other problem, addiction, domestic violence, unreasonable behavior are among the causes, child neglect should not be commonplace in the way it is and I have sympathy for and teacher that sees it every day and is powerless to do anything. But in reality those families are already being visited by Social Services who also can do nothing, until it gets so bad that children are taken into care.

What is needed is some kind of intervention that when warning signs are noted some kind of action is taken at a much earlier stage. There are several reasons why that won't happen, cash is one, attitude of parents is another, parental rights should not extend to allowing a child to be neglected.

I was a single parent of three who never had a penny off my ex We were poor BUT my kids never went without anything they had all their toys, clothes, shoes from charity (thrift) shops I made lots of things for them and I made lots of sacrifices (that’s not said for an ahh) I leant to cook really cheap mince dishes giblet curries spending ages breaking the meat of the neck bones etc
Poverty today has a very different meaning

Don’t get me started on prepaid meters Tartlet they make my blood boil ! No money to feed the meter means no hot/cooked food, no heating, hot water etc. But the prices are inflated so the very poorest in society get ripped off !

I agree totally with those posters who’ve touched on the mental impact of relentless, grinding poverty with no hope of it changing. I know that child and adult poverty exists because I’ve spent many years since I retired being involved in voluntary benefit and housing advice and support.

I’ve frequently challenged people to produce a long term weekly budget managing to live as a single adult on the miserly JSA amounts and no one has yet managed it.

I’ve just read some ‘same old’ derogatory posts on another forum about foodbank users and how ‘no one needs foodbanks in this day and age’. It gets me so annoyed that people seem to prefer to adopt that kind of attitude when the evidence of need is there for anyone bothered to look fir it.

Fuel poverty is another thing. Many socially rented properties and the cheaper end of the private rental market have prepaid meters for gas and electricity so no cash means no gas or electricity and no way of cooking or heating even foodbank provided stuff.

My blood often boils. My own stance is that there will always be some who take advantage of the system but they are in the minority and I think that any supposedly civilised country should make sure that all its citizens have an adequate standard of living regardless of the fact that some less deserving might also benefit.

Jalima1108, we did exactly the same as your friend, raided the lost property box and dressed a child in warm clothing or went out and bought clothes.
I'm finding this thread has wakened a lot of unhappy memories. Unless you have experienced real poverty, it's hard to understand what it does to a person. As children get older, they begin experience the shame and embarrassment of being poor and different from their peers.

Does that constitute neglect?
I think that, if help is offered for the child without it being made obvious, eg via the teacher, and is then turned down, then yes, it is neglect, or worse, abuse.

School jumble sales used to be a good source of children's clothes before charity shops, which can now be expensive, became more prevalent. I know my friend used to gather together some decent clothes which she either paid for herself, or which hadn't been sold and quietly passed them on to some of 'her mums' for their young children.

Our pupils had free fruit three days a week, but many children refused it. We were supposed to BIN what was left, but I used to discretely fill the schoolbags of certain pupils with the leftover fruit each night. At least they would have some food when they went home.

Some children had nothing to eat from their free school dinner the day before until we made them tea and toast when they came to school the next morning.
I read a report a long while ago which highlighted the fact that some children dread the school holidays because they don't really get fed when there are no longer school dinners to rely on.

Day6, When a child is sent out in deep snow in ankle socks and worn ballet pumps surely you have to question the nature of parenting?

My HT made it his practice to turn up at the homes of children like the one I mentioned and see what could be done to support them..
In this family's case, abject poverty, not neglect.
My school had the highest uptake of free school meals and clothing grants in the whole of the local authority.
Some children had nothing to eat from their free school dinner the day before until we made them tea and toast when they came to school the next morning.
Not everyone couldn't even be bothered to get off the sofa away from daytime tv to look in the charity shops, or even see to it there was food in the cupboard
One widow got up at 6am to clean schools before they opened, worked in the school kitchen and then went back in the afternoon to clean again. Despite this she was struggling to provide for her sons.
In some cases parents are so overwhelmed by their circumstances that they can no longer look after their children properly. Does that constitute neglect?

I was brought up in dreadful poverty, perhaps that has had an effect on my opinion.

Well, they have computers in the job centre, so you can use those, but yes, it is expected that you'll be fairly tech savvy.
I was instructed to build my cv (which I had never done before).
I told them I didn't think it would do me any favours, because I'm more literate when writing than I am using tech.
"You'll be fine". They said.