Tory welfare cuts will impoverish 200,000 children next year and more than 600,00 in 2020

well shame on your BiL Anya. You should report him to HMRC, I would. I do get tired of the assumption, by some, that self employed people fiddle their taxes. i most certainly do not and I will not be able to pay myself the living wage, but will pay it to my staff. I do not work in cash, and get rather irked when customers ask for 'discount for cash'. My usual reply is that I will give them the same discount that my staff can get on their rent, their council tax. their heating bills and their groceries. i.e. nothing. I fail to see why i should commit a crime and avoid tax/vat just so that a client can pay less. It is surprising just how dishonest the so called law abiding public can be. Now, back to the OP; I think it is shameful that children should be raised in poverty in a first world country, and I truly believe that we are heading for a period of civil unrest as people wake up to just what is going on. This is going to be the Poll Tax of this generation.

I havent got time by a long way today or for several days to come to get into all of this properly.

But I want to say, perhaps wrongly, does it matter if the base line is £16,000 if everyone then gets benefits on top which suit the particular household?

Yes it could be said that if the base line was £26,000 with benefits on top, then yes it matters in that way.

But if the benefits are deemed good enough to live on quite well, the baseline figure becomes rather irrelevant doesnt it?

Fair enough Annie I know that feeling myself.

Gill if I was to start reporting all the people I know who are on the fiddle I'd be run off my feet. No one is accusing you of tax dodging, and I have no liking or respect for this particular BiL, but it's not in my nature to go out of
my way to get people into trouble.

soon I think it would be a bit simplistic to see £16,000 as a baseline figure as, fairly obviously, households with a lower income will be getting benefits. I don't think a single person would be getting any WTC on an income of £16,000. The point is, I think, to bring a household with children up to and above £16,000. A household with one working parent on minimum wage would only be earning about £12,000/£13,000. Many such households will not be able to work fulltime because of the cost of child care.

Many "self-employed" people have been pushed into this status in recent years by those trying to reduce the numbers signing on. I have heard about some who are being exploited. This is not just by unscrupulous businesses. e.g. a relative with 2 degrees working in Arts sector was given low-paid work by a museum (owned by a huge university) on a 'self employed' basis.
You can see who wins - politicians and employers:
Employment figures go down
"Number of new businesses created" goes up (double counting used in a recent election campaign...)
Employers are absolved of all responsibility for employment law, holiday pay, agency fees, payment of NI etc.
Worker has to pay own NI out of their earnings, send in invoices, complete their own tax returns etc. They have no paid holidays, no paid sick leave, not entitled to claim certain benefits if they quit, no security of any kind.

You're right about the self-employed Jess. I do not even think some of the self-employment is legal. As I understood it if you work only or mainly for one person who dictates your hours and your pay you are not self-employed. Do we see this government following up on this -no. They loudly proclaim how clever they are that we now have such a high level of self-employment as you say.

Apparently, on average, a self-employed worker earns two-thirds of the wages of someone employed in the same job. Then, as you point out, they are loosing work related benefits. It really is quite wicked. I so hope the Labour Party can start to highlight this and, perhaps, unions and the LP can start to fight the worst cases. The Thatcher government massaged the figures by encouraging people to go "sick" and now the Camborne government is blaming them for being there. There will be a backlash against self-employment at some point and it will not be against the employers. I have no doubt it will be the self-employed who are demonised - not that I am cynical about conservative governments or anything.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/oct/09/labour-tax-credit-cuts-welfare-bill-amendment-budget

Hurray. Just waitng for Cameron or Osborne to water the bill down, then say it was their intention all along.

As I have tried to say before, poverty is a relative thing. During the 1930s we had children in bare feet or with no coats in the winter etc, no one wants to see this happen again but that is poverty. Today we have relative poverty, where some think that poverty is not having a holiday/not being able to afford a huge tv set etc. If everyone learned to live within their means and kept their breeding to within their means we would all manage better. Why should those who work pay not just to feed children (no one would mind that so much) but to keep the feckless parents who sit at home all day. How can some families manage to find work for both parents and arrange child care yet some sit at home watching tv, then complain that they are having their benefits cut and ar living in poverty bless their little hearts. Many parents like mine had no benefits and you just had to take whatever came along to make do and as long as you showed your child love that went a long way.

fullfact.org/factchecks/economy/child_poverty_relative_absolute-48033

More children living in absolute poverty, fewer in relative poverty.
Work that out, ethel.

Plenty of links have been provided to explain what poverty means today. I really don't think it's useful to talk about the 1930's when many families lived in tenements, perhaps sharing one toilet and with no bathing facilities, at considerable risk from TB and other communicable diseases. Do we really want to base our current expectations on those sorts of standards?

Lots of people can refer back to when they were younger - when there was no central heating and indeed very little heating at all, when a holiday was perhaps a rare occurrence and often consisted of a week in the rain in a caravan. But my feeling is that the basics - housing, energy, water and transport - take up a greater percentage of a family's income now than they did then and it invariably takes two salaries to bring up a family rather than one. Most of the older people I know are now living quite comfortably but they are concerned for their children and grandchildren whose futures - particularly with regard to housing, employment and healthcare - are looking increasingly insecure. Some of us can help in providing house deposits, etc., but not everybody can - and none of us can do anything about the increasing decline of middle and low income wages.

There are many individuals and organisations - GPs, nurses, hospital doctors, teachers, social workers, church representatives, charities, etc. etc. - who, based on their own experience and observations, have voiced their considerable concerns about the impoverishment of an increasing number of lower income families. The focus is on children because children are not yet physically and mentally developed and poverty will affect their long term prospects but of course if a child is living in poverty then so are its parents.

I have read the above links and come to the conclusion that they must have some strange ways of working this out (remember I work in social research), until I see people, not just children, running about barefoot in ragged clothes and begging on the streets I will not believe these findings. Of course I don't want to see anyone in this position but all th e older people I talk to nowadays say they are so much better off than when they were children.
As for parents living in poverty, well I see unemployed people on every street every day and they are all talking into posh phones, wearing fashion clothes, this is not an indication of absolute poverty, so can anyone tell me how, when children play on I pads and the parents wear expensive jeans, ugg boots and push the latest buggies around the streets while eating expensive take away food and almost all are obese, how can they be in poverty.

To add to what ive said I think that expectations are a lot to blame, people see adverts where the latest gadget/clothing/cars etc are on display and they feel they are deprived if they cannot get one. Can they not see that unless they work hard to save then they must do without. No one does without these days as they all get into debt. I do without unless I can save for what I| want. Poverty is not about not getting the latest car or having a holiday.

My elderly mother struggled on alone to bring me up and now she has her state pension, she says she has never been so well off, she is careful with her heating, only putting it on when its really cold, wears sensible clothes, never has holidays and goes out with friends maybe once a month for a meal out. She can save and can afford to help out me and DD if we are short, she lives thriftily. She would never describe herself as poverty stricken though but many older people who cant afford a holiday/new clothes would think they were really poor. So poverty is relative.

ethelbags This country's economy depends on people spending. If you recall, every year leading up to Christmas there is great media concern about whether people will spend more than they did the previous year. I don't understand how people buying stuff they don't need (and much of which is imported), quite often on credit that they can't really afford, benefits this country, but with the crazy economic system we have it apparently does. There was even a strong suggestion a couple of years ago that it was "patriotic" to spend money. The rationale is that if some people cut down their spending then other people will be thrown out of jobs - much as they say we must continue manufacturing arms because otherwise many people would be made redundant.

I agree with you that advertising has a lot to answer for in inducing people to keep buying the "latest". Also, sometimes companies make it difficult for people to do otherwise. With phones for instance it is often difficult to stick with old products because they become incompatible with new programmes. I don't know much about computers but my husband informs me that in Microsoft there was a programme called XP, which was very popular but when Microsoft produced a new Windows programme they stopped supporting XP. You may say, well people don't need to have up-to-date computers/mobile phones but if they don't they will find themselves quite out of step with the rest of society and in some cases excluded.

Aside from that, some people's wages are so low that they are having to use credit to buy essentials. These are the people - often doing essential jobs - that are paying the price for the greed of the finance system. If such people come to the point where they can't even pay back the interest and the bubble bursts - and some economists fear that will happen - then presumably the banks will be bailed out yet again.

Do you really think that your elderly mum should have to leave her heating off until it is really cold or that she should never have a holiday? I don't know what her financial situation is but perhaps she or you could investigate whether she is entitled to pension credit.

There are of course cases, rare I'm sure, where the parents in receipt of 'family credit' actually don't spend the money on the children it's intended for, this used to happen with family allowance years ago, to the extent that it was dubbed as 'fag money!!" Great for the parents not so good for the children!! In these cases, how you make sure this allowance goes in the right direction?!

Ethelbags poverty leads to illness. I once went to a lecture in which we were told that the only "disease of affluence" - that is one that affects the rich more than the poor is melanoma skin cancer (because they sunbathe more). (this was by lead author of the government's Black report in 1980).

Since the 1930s we have become more affluent as a nation and more babies survive, fewer children get ill and our life expectancy has increased a huge amount. Back then working men were lucky to survive beyond 65.
It is still the case that poorer people suffer far worse health and die sooner than rich people.
To take just one factor - if more people are living in cold houses then more people will end up in hospital.
Many experts agree that one of the factors that is causing increase in demand for NHS services is increases in poverty - do you want that to get worse?

ethelbags, how do you know the people you see in ugg boots, expensive jeans, pushing latest buggies, with children on iPads, eating expensive take away food and obese are all unemployed or are living in poverty?

Why do people say such things as - when I was young we use to live in cold houses, share shoes, didn't have holidays, ate bread and dripping etc. I find this - it was good enough for me it's good enough for every generation attitude very difficult to understand

Reforms are needed, living thriftily is not living in poverty. We are so much better off than many countries. There are so many demands by the many to be paid from somewhere. We want a National Health Service, that is in trouble, but more and more people are making demands on it who have never contributed. Where are cuts to be made that makes everyone happy? You cannot make more and more demands without something giving, look at Greece. If anyone can think of another answer I would like to know where the money will come from

The NHS is in trouble because so much money is being paid to agency staff , millions every year

I totally agree with you luckylegs9, and I seriously wonder if all these people constantly complaining about this country realise for one moment how, compared to a lot of countries, extremely fortunate we all are. Nothing is perfect, it never can be, but as you say all these things you mention (and aren't we fortunate to have them?) have to be paid for, and the State is not a bottomless purse and simply cannot continue to racket up endless debt. With a bit of careful planning being thrifty and living within your means is possible, (I've been doing it for years!) it's not demeaning, and it's not poverty as some countries and our forebears would understand it.

Living within your means is right, if everyone could have the means to live within

Money is not handed out from a pot that is replenished by magic, think as the Americans do .... tax dollars. We need a lot of working people paying tax to fund those who receive benefits.
I would like to see some of the younger generation be more modest in their purchase of phones and computers, there is not a God given right to an iphone whatever at £600 a pop.

Particularly not courtesy of the State!!!!

If living in this country is so terrible, and our government virtually corrupt, why is it there are so many people worldwide who are desperate to live here by any means available?! A free health service, free education among other things? I wonder!!

oh for heavens sake ethelbags your sweeping assumptions are tiresome. Perhaps these women that you disapprove of, with their 'posh' phones and Ugg boots are working, do you have access to their finances? so what should they do if they lose their job, sell one of the children? Statements are being made with no knowledge of individuals situation. One of my friends can be seen out and about all day, with a couple of children in the pushchair, and then after 3pm, with 3 or 4 other children. You would likely assume that she is a benefit scrounger, not working, got a gaggle of kids that she cant afford; the truth is she is a highly regarded, well respected and very busy childminder who enables several other Mothers to work. She also wears Uggs and has a 'posh' phone.