The U.K. in 2019 -

Whitewavemark2 Very much appreciate the perspective you added to mine, extremely appropriate! The better offs are better educated to rip off the tax system big time! The better offs write the tax laws at the expense of the less educated and the vulnerable.

For me work ethic is just as crucial as a living wage.

Using zero hour contracts to massage unemployment figures is absolutely disgraceful.

One of the most precious things I learnt in my life has been to not expect everyone to be as able, healthy and as fortunate as myself to cope with life and its challenges. I learnt to judge the society I live in by the way it treats its less fortunate in all things be it health, housing, education, employment, social security, charitable organisations ... and their social and work ethics.

I've learnt by improving the lot of the weaker section of our society, the society as a whole will improve and becomes more secure for all. By investing in preventative measures to improve health, housing, education, ... we'll save moneys spent in law and order.

Regarding education, taking ill prepared 4 year olds and expecting them to cope with a white middle class ideal of education is downright cruel.

Go on, slate me for " middle class".

There is a plethora of evidence supporting early intervention and support for families. We have a government setting a standard that experts/research evidence is simply left wing propaganda. It isn’t. Look at the outcomes in other countries who actively seek to support their children.

On a very basic level, I'm sure I would not be one of life's copers if I was dehydrated and hungry.

There is evidence of what works. Look at the levels of social mobiliy of the children born in the fifties and sixties when the welfare state operated a better system of support. Many of you will say that parenting was better then, some of it was, but there were still inadequate and failing parents and families. But the children from those families stood more chance of building better lives because they were adequately fed and housed when they were young.

I think mother, son and grandson constitutes three generations or am I missing something?

Three generations where no one has worked Joelsnan? That is what we are being constantly fed. Obviously this is a case where, in each of three generations, someone didn't work. I have yet to see that headline.

Also, somebody suggested that parents who have difficulty coping with the needs of their children should perhaps have them taken away and put into foster care.

At the moment there is a huge shortage of foster parents, and particularly long term, experienced foster parents, which is why some children are moved around so frequently. Given the outcome for children in foster care and children's homes is not good - poor educational attainment, higher representation in the prison population, etc, etc, I don't think putting children in care - apart from in the most serious cases of neglect and abuse - is desirable or practical.

I think everyone agrees there are some inadequate or neglectful parents - the disagreement lies in what should be done about them- should they be offered help and support to try to break the cycle and prevent them making poor choices or should they be punished? Putting people in the workhouse and taking their children away has been tried hasn’t it? Trouble is, offering help and support is seen by some as “rewarding” bad parenting, which obviously is not the intention. There is no one size fits all easy answer, unfortunately.

The link below is from the living wage foundation.

www.livingwage.org.uk/what-real-living-wage

naheed thank you for the link showing the level of benefits obtained through fraud every year.

The estimated level is £1.7bn

I thought it would be interesting to compare it to the level of tax not collected each year through evasion or avoidance.

The estimated level is £34bn.

Clearly the well off are much better at ripping off the state than the poor.

And of course feckless parents can be found across the salary/wealth spectrum. It isn’t because someone is poor. For the children though who are unlucky to be born to a someone whose parent skills are inadequate, being poor compounds the problem.

Joelsnan I can't see the overall financial advantage in working fewer hours - or temporarily stopping work - in order to pay less tax, unless the people involved are able to command a very large salary. No tax is paid on the first £11,850 earned (and that is soon going up to over £12,000) Only 20% is paid between 11,850 and 46,350, 40% between 46,350 asnd 150,000 and 45% on £150,000+. People may decide, because of certain domestic commitments, to work fewer hours but I can't see what is wrong with that. I assumed that describing three generations as following a tradition of worklessness meant several family members across the generations, rather than just three individuals.

In 2013, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation published a piece of research it had carried out. It reported that, despite the impression being conveyed in many of our tabloid newspapers, under 1% of workless households crossed two generations. They could find no evidence at all of worklessness over three generations, and could only conclude that the numbers were miniscule. The research also found no evidence of "a culture of worklessness" passed down through the generations. Instead they invariably found that long-term worklessness of families was a result of complex problems (particularly related to ill-health) associated with living in long-term and deep poverty.

I expect there are gransnetters who have been social workers, doctors, teachers, etc, who have seen examples of people who do not have the intellectual capability or emotional stability to conduct their lives - and the lives of their children - with any degree of consistency. Someone who can't manage to keep a house clean and their children properly clothed and fed is unlikely to be able to hold down a job. That is not the children's fault and punishing the parents only hurts the children more. I believe the majority of families who are having problems coping are just ground down by poverty.

The report also found that there is a lot of movement in and out of work, so many Job Seekers Allowance claims are very short - " more than 80% of claimants never go near the work programme because they aren't on the benefit for long enough. A lot are off it in under six months." For disability benefits, there are a lot more long-term claimants.

I hate the term "gig" economy. The word gig, used previously in regard to the entertainment business, makes insecure and low paid work sound far more acceptable - almost desirable - than "zero hours contracts".

GGMK3
I think mother, son and grandson constitutes three generations or am I missing something?

Joelsnan The mother married had two children, divorced never worked, one of her children works and so do the grandchildren,

So this is not a case of three generations that had not worked but three generations where someone didn't work. Very different to the message being put out.

GracesGranMK3
You seem to use a broad brush to generalise. If you read all of the posts everyone acknowledges that there are loving caring parents that fall on hard times and everyone has agreed they should receive all possible assistance to help them until they can help themselves.
What concerns many appear to be parents who do not deserve that title. It may be a small number but it appears to be a growing problem where self gratification is more important than the hard work of successfully caring for and raising their children. When schools are reporting increases in hungry and dirty children, children not toilet trained and of low vocabulary and social skills is this not a cause for concern?

I've read all the comments and have learnt a lot but there's so much more I need to learn before I contribute more so I'll gratefully continue reading your comments. I googled state benefit frauds and found a BBC article interesting and concise enough to share it with you. It puts the figures in perspective, I believe. Here's the title and the link:-

Reality Check: How much benefit money is lost to fraud?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2017-39980793

"I imagine most of us have some sympathy with people who are not life's 'copers' for whatever reason"

What an incredibly arrogant remark. You have no idea how you would respond if your life suddenly fell apart, you had been moved several times in a year and were now sharing a room and possibly a bed with your children. There is no where for you to cook and you can't afford a microwave. You have a feeling there are lice in the building but if you turn it down you may be offered worse. The youngest child - you have two - has started wetting the bed again and there is no nursery provision you can get them in to. The older child is withdrawn and you know they will find it tough to go to their third new school in a year tomorrow. The damp from the last place you were in has caused the asthma they suffer from to get worse. You are wondering if you should keep them home tomorrow just to let them settle down a bit but you are afraid they may be taken from you if you do. You feel there is nothing that is private in your life and nothing you can do to improve it but just keep going and hoping it gets better.

You have no idea when this will change and you cannot change it yourself as you cannot get a job with no nursery care and all the moves. It started when you complained to the landlord in the first house about some repairs. He filed a no fault eviction but the local authority has not been able to rehouse you; temporary placement is all you can get.

Now you dare say that people in these positions are not life's 'copers'! You have no idea how you would manage, not just under those circumstances but any circumstances where your life turned upside down and went out of control. You cannot guess which circumstance you could cope with and which not and you have absolutely no right to look down on others who do what they can in insecure positions where poverty is not just about the money but about their whole lives.

At the risk of banging my usual drum. remove support services for children and families, for those with mental health or substance problems, those with physical health problems or disabilities and you remove the foundations

I am completely with you on that Iam64 and I imagine most of us have some sympathy with people who are not life's 'copers' for whatever reason.

I know there cannot be a scale for those who fall short, who indulge themselves, take drugs, which in turn means they are no use to anyone else unless they clean up their act. I know doing that isn't easy - and then we have to look at their background and sympathise because, well, something caused them to go off the rails.

There comes a point though when if the true victims of such reckless, self-indulgence, selfishness are children, the sympathy wavers. Like I said, there can be no scale, but we really ought to do more in the way of shaming, of publicising the affects of neglect to teenagers, to do our utmost to prevent children being born into the world of people who selfishly, and ultimately harm them and wreck their poor young lives.

Again, a simplistic and knee jerk reaction, but "Just say No!" isn't enough, is it? If there was a programme which could lunge out and grab neglectful parents by the throat and tell them to get their act together, or else, I'd sponsor it. Wishful thinking, eh?

I still say there is a place for tough love but I suppose like everything else that is the job of the welfare state.

No one is making excuses for it Day6 we are simply saying that children who are not properly cared for need extra help and that the state should provide it. What do you suggest would help solve the problem?

In fairness some know from life experience there are families who want to stay on benefits and single people .

Whilst it’s wrong to say all on benefits are benefit cheats it is wrong to squash anyone who states there are benefit cheats

Day 6, neglect or as you call it care less parenting is indeed a crime. Many parents are prosecuted and a large number of them do lose their children into foster or state care. As GG13 says, that has to be the last option
The first option used to be family centre support, outreach workers who'd go in at 7 or thereabouts to help parents get the children up, washed, dressed and given breakfast before school. the same support worker would go back to the family and help establish tea and bedtime routines. Some parents respond to this type of help, others don't. Substance misuse is a huge problem in this country. At the risk of banging my usual drum. remove support services for children and families, for those with mental health or substance problems, those with physical health problems or disabilities and you remove the foundations.
Those who say it isn't the responsibility of the state or of tax payers to help those in need will find fault with my opinions. It's a relief to see so many posters here who show compassion which is informed by life and work experience.

IT WASN'T THEIR FAULT!!! They suffered because of their parents' inadequacies.

This is why I feel we have to stop making excuses for adults NEGLECTING the children they bring into the world. Children are innocents who need adults to guide, teach and love them. Inadequate, care-less parenting ought to be a crime imo. It is tantamount to child abuse. The taxpayer has to compensate/cater for the victims, who are the children. Some useless parents have valid reasons for not meeting the needs of their children, but not many.

I also know that many young children who are dragged up rather than raised are proper little rough diamonds. They are givers, with hearts of gold, mainly because they know what it is to care for siblings in the absence of a decent parent. Their innate goodness and innocence tends to be knocked out of them by hardship/neglect before they reach their teenage years though, and so the problem goes on.

Having children and not caring about their welfare makes me seethe. We tend to allow it and make excuses for it. We really shouldn't.

trisher I totally agree that it’s not the children’s fault.

I do wonder though if giving the parents more money (benefits) would solve the problem in all cases? Some parents are just not good at parenting.

I have no idea what the solution is, maybe going to good foster homes in some cases extreme but necessary.

The problem is GG54 they do have children and the children need to be cared for.
You may have seen such children I used to teach them. I have seen children arrive at school in varied bits of clothing because the first to get up got the choice and the best. I know some children slept in their clothes with coats on their beds. But IT WASN'T THEIR FAULT!!! They suffered because of their parents' inadequacies. And actually some of those children when given a good meal and offered support and guidance became kinder, more helpful and more understanding than many of their more affluent peers.

do, whwhre un-)ironed
so, where, un-ironed

I don't think the state, any state, should shoulder the responsibility that should sit squarely on tbe shoulders of their parent(s).
Breakfast clubs...?
Parents get enough handouts to feed their children. Food banks, breakfast clubs, free dinners, after school clubs (which provide snacks)
At what time of day does the parent look after and feed the child(ren)? No dishes to wash, no cooking to be done except at weekends (and prob not even then) saving on food and and enegy bills do whwre does their money go?
The government decides what is the minimum anyone can live on (including retirees) and that should be sufficient but not when you find a 55" tv, Xbox, mobiles, tablets, Netflix and Sky, besides crisps and sugary cereals which are probably the weekend fare that children can get for themselves.
Their home is likely to be upside down with little or no routine.
I myself have seen children going to school wearing un-)ironed scruffy clothes with unkempt dirty looking hairand dirty dusty shoes which haven't been cleaned since day one.
As my then husband worked offshore for weeks at a time, it was I who organised everything from cleaning shoes each night to laying out clean pressed clothes each morning.
Making sure a good breakfast was eaten before taking them to different schools.
No after school clubs.
They were met and brought home, changed clothes and ate a well prepared nutritious cooked meal.
You don't have to be rich or even well off to care for your family properly.
It's not my responsibility as a taxpayer, to make up the shortfall in care caused by adults who have obviously abdicated their position as parents.
I behave no time for the feckless as they never learn.
If you cannot properly provide a reasonable home and sustenance for children then don't have any.
Simple.