Child Poverty

Hear Hear I totally agree with you.

Who were you agreeing with Jennytree4 - your own post 3 minutes earlier?

Agree Jennytree also we send billions of aid overseas why not help our own first if they need help. I only donate to my local hospice. Most of these so called big charities are run like a business making the top dogs running them rich.

Hear Hear I totally agree with you.

All the big Charities are corruot including Comic Relief and Children in Need. Why are their still children in this country and overseas still in dire need? Over the years bilions and billions have been ploughed into these charities. Where has all the money gone? British Red Cross hounded my son for money after he regularly donated and supported them; running marathons etc. It git to the stage when he was 24 years old and they were asking him to leave all his money to them in his will!!! After numerous begging letters and phone calls he saw reason and no longer gives to these big corporate organisations. I once tried to get help fir a British citizen in dire circumstances abroad; none of this Charities could help. It's a huge con. Also beware if NGO (Non Governmental Organisations) Totally Governmental and corrupt. I stick to small charities; donate blood and help in my local hospice. Don't part with any money. Most of it goes to Celebrities especially those who work with Children in Need and Comic Relief.

Old Batty I have The Wonderful Man who, when it all gets a bit much, lets me have a little weep on him, usually when I'm angry/upset about a client or a situation and I am not working in isolation, I'm part of a wonderful team of skilled and compassionate people; without them sharing the load it would be an impossible task. The woman who runs the local cafe and sees that the clients are fed has no training in working with our client group, but she and her staff are all superstars who deliver a lot of our practical help.

I should say too that I work with some very compassionate people who represent statutory bodies such as Housing, Social Work, Police, Outreach Teams etc. and they are all equally frustrated at being the gatekeepers of ever shrinking resources.

My greatest fear is that a client will die of an un-diagnosed illness, from hypothermia or from self harm. Because of that I sometimes have to give myself a bit of a talking to when people who have good health, warmth, food and beds to sleep in complain about minor things. I know that people are quite justified in having a little moan now and then, I do it myself, but I have to bite my tongue sometimes because I want to remind people to count their blessings.

Bum! Posted too soon.
Anyway, the amount they pay is capped, depending on the size of the property.
I have been a working single parent, and a non working single parent of late, and I can assure you that its hard both ways round.
Actually better off working, which is as it should be, surely?

They pay a percentage of the rent.
Most private tenants have to pay a 'top up' amount, which can be 2 hundred a month. (Or more!)
The flat above me is

Yes they do pay rent council/private landlord, but do not pay towards a mortgage. So you can have benefits of £600 plus rent ,but if you have a mortgage you have to pay it from the £600.

There are two other issues that have not been mentioned here. I think many young families manage only because grandparents help out. I buy most of my DGC clothes as well as paying for other things.
Whilst there are also some pensioners struggling, single people who are unemployed or have health problems have the lowest incomes and are offered the least help and often struggle a lot.

Trisher. Teaching assistant to teacher still requires a degree. The only difference is you are working and studying and it takes YEARS.

Rent and Council tax used to be paid in toto until a few years ago, when the rules were changed and now most people must pay part of it www.citizensadvice.org.uk/benefits/help-if-on-a-low-income/help-with-your-council-tax-council-tax-reduction/council-tax-reduction-what-you-need-to-know/. gives all the details.

Some furniture is sometimes provided, if a family has no furniture at all, or very little. It will be sourced through a charity and will almost certainly be second hand and will be sufficient to meet basic needs for a bed and chair per person and a table, plus a few armchairs.

Why are so many posters determined to prove, one way or another that all those on low incomes are really not as poor as they claim and are just milking the system and have got a cushy number?

I don't believe it does vary depending on the council, sweetie, but I may be wrong.

Sweetie - you may well look up 'entitled to' on the Gov site - but I can assure you that what it says and what you get are vastly different!

That isn't actually a lot - when rent can and does cost around £900 per month! My newly single daughter earns about £700, gets £230 from her ex plus universal credit - which is always wrong - ofen stopped and then she has to pay it back through no fault of her own as she gives them absolutely every bit of information they ask for. Her rent is £890 p/m, plus council tax, plus heating, plus childcare, plus transport to work and parking when she gets there. She frequently has an empty cupboard and worries about affording petrol for work.

It obviously depends on which area you live and the council who also oversees it MissAdventure.

And those on benefits do have to pay towards rent and council tax.
The interest on mortgages is paid, but only after 3 months.

No items of furniture are provided, as far as I'm aware, and loans need to be paid back, albeit at a small amount.
A small amount of an already small budget..

I was thinking about progress through education and the real limits that are placed on this by poor nutrition in early childhood. My niece who lives in the states had 2 babies with problems who were provided with food supplements until they were quite old. They were routinely weighed and measured beause the medics feared that undernourishment would affect their brain development. I wonder how many children in poverty would prove under nourished and if providing supplements should be introduced here?

It is those who are in work who are the poorest and who have to survive adhering to a budget. Those on benefits have full housing allowance so don't have the worry of rent or council tax just their heating and water as bills go. While workers have to pay housing costs be it a mortgage or rent so it's tough out there for those who have families to upkeep.
Also can't those on benefits get loans ? I know also that certain items of furniture are provided-----beds/cupboard/wardrobe ? Even televisions in some cases.
Ironically it's indirectly the workers who contribute toward this through taxes.

But there are plenty of people who don't agree and think we are all doing very nicely thank you and "they" are scroungers.

Grannyactivist, can I ask please how do you prevent yourself from becoming overwhelmed?

One of our extended family members is dodging eviction because of arrears built up as he couldn't afford the bedroom tax. He's lived in his flat for almost 30 years, still has his now adult children to stay regularly. He moved from the £73.10 a week to slightly less income because the pressure to apply for work, he'd no chance of being offered, was making him ill. He's now self employed, as are so many other people who help 'reduce' the unemployment figures.
It is as others have said, a national disgrace.

I have read all seven pages of posts and am heartened by the understanding and compassion shown by most posters.

I have been a social worker, a teacher, a chaplain and am currently leading a homelessness project, so my experience of the subject is extensive both personally and professionally. I liaise closely with our local food bank and with other charitable organisations and I often attend multi-agency meetings; we share a collective view, evidenced by our own experience, that for many people there is extensive, under-reported, grinding poverty. I visited our local food bank on Friday and it is currently supporting 53 people - every one of whom has to be referred by someone in a position of authority (council/GP/jobcentre) and who has knowledge of the client's financial circumstances. I know, to the penny, how much each of my own clients receive in either wages or benefits and can state categorically that most of them cannot afford to live on their income without additional help.

Could you honestly live on £73.10 a week? Many of my clients have to. So no TV (or licence), no washing machine, no cooker (just two electric rings). Water rates, gas, electricity, council tax top-up, clothing, phone, bus fares (monthly to the jobcentre and the GP surgery) and food all has to be covered by that £73.10. If furniture needs to be replaced it comes from a charity, but still needs to be paid for. A phone is a necessity as text message is the medium used by the jobcentre and DWP to contact clients.

I could talk about the bedroom tax, 'sanctions' for not meeting targets or missing appointments, the pressures of having a zero hours contract, the debt accrued in moving from ESA to UC, the difficulties of being computer illiterate when the only way of accessing UC is through the use of technology, but there are also many other reasons why people struggle to put food on the table and survive. Many people find it hard to believe or understand, but it is the 'working poor' who are often those most in need of foodbank help. And that is a national disgrace.

Almost always (except in certain tragic circumstances ) the parents are living in poverty too ethelbags . Most decent parents would give anything to their child before themselves. It upsets me that people think we have all had the same chances in life and that somehow it is “someone’s” fault that they haven’t risen, like a phoenix from the ashes.

What is the term child poverty actually mean. Surely the parents must be living innooverty too . If parents, single or otherwise are living ok with plenty to eat etc and their children are starving or poorly dressed then it would be called child neglect. I'm puzzled. I do know though that when people get benefits the do spend it on lots of food as they get their money in their hand, it gives people the impression that they have loads to spend but the huge full shopping trolley might have to last a month or so. I used to think that they did well. My work has taught me otherwise.

I agree with those who say that circumstances have gotten in their way and prevented them from climbing “the ladder of success”.

I was s high school girl, passed my 11+ (hard to believe I know) . At school I was like a fish out of water coming from rough council estate as I did . I left school with 6 decent o levels and took the first job offered to me ( there would have been no question of college unlike my sister years later who got to do what she wanted) which was in a large office of s supermarket chain. Pregnant at 18, a single parent, working full time, robbing Peter to pay Paul and very, very lonely pretty much summed things up for me for many years to follow . There would have been no question of me getting back into education as “ I had made my bed and had better lie in it” . I would have dearly loved to go into a caring profession, nursing or maybe social work but sadly it wasn’t to be . In later years I became a young widow with 2 small children . It was as though every step on the ladder was heavily greased to prevent me from moving up, even by one rung .