For all the benefit frothers out there

ILW

lemonjelly wrote: »

Are you not capable of reading past that?

Or would you deny they exist?

Unless the problem eg poverty can be defined, any attempts to address it will be pure opinion and waffle.

Really2

jamespir wrote: »

whats a frother ?

It's a bit like a widgit.:)


It is someone who get OTT on a subject EG "Frothing at the mouth"

SingleSue

Unfortunately, a fair few only have to read 'on benefits' and the assumptions begin. From being !!!!less in your love life, to being idle.

Individuals can find themselves on benefits for a range of reasons and unfortunately, until this is realised by the so called Daily Mail readers (my mum is one of them, you should hear what she says!), there will always be threads and articles showing the worse case scenarios of benefit claimants - the £5k a week LHA, the 10 kids, the left school and never worked and won't work because it would make them worse off people.

Being on benefits is demeaning for a lot of people, it is soul destroying for a lot of people, yes there are career claimants out there but the benefit life is not as nice and comfy as some make out.

You feel guilt about having to rely on others, shame even that you have to rely on the state...to me, that is much worse than anything else (again, there will be some who feel no guilt or shame)

As for poverty, to me that is more akin to not having a roof over your head and having to scrabble about for scraps out of bins...I don't feel I live in poverty - we have a roof, we have food, we have clothes.

*N.B Apart from the last comment about poverty, this is not about my circumstances but is from what I have been discovering from talking to others at courses etc.

Kohoutek

lemonjelly wrote: »

Are you not capable of reading past that?

Or would you deny they exist?

Well since they have attached so much importance to these statistics by putting them in the summary it's disappointing that they are not defined - otherwise how can people understand them?

The statistic that there is a "39 percentage point gap in gaining 5+ A*-C GCSEs between those living in the most and in the least deprived areas" depends totally on what the meaning of 'most and least deprived areas'. It could be much more or much less, depending on how they have delineated between 'most deprived' and 'least deprived'.

I can't find a definition in the actual document itself.

drc

Most of these stories are not just reported in the Daily Mail though. Sure, the DM is sensationalist and the voice of righteous middle England anger, but that shouldn't detract from the fact that some of these stories are shocking. Yesterday there was an article (in the DM) saying that almost 700,000 families are getting over £15k in benefits alone. That's pretty shocking and I don't think its right on so many levels. If that makes me a 'frother' then so be it. I also think there are so many subjective angles to the report, such as what is classed as "poverty" and how does the classification of "poverty" in the UK compare to poverty in other countries? It is a relative term. Does poverty in the UK mean having absolutely no money for food and living on the streets or does it mean not being able to afford the latest gadgets for your kids? Also, what is classed as a "disadvantage" etc.

Sure, there are a lot of vunerable people out there who genuinely need benefits and I'd hope that any changes to the system enable those in genuine need (disabled, health problems, other exceptions etc) to have better access to benefits and those who just don't want to work being penalised. I doubt this will be easy to do though.

Kohoutek

This is what they mean by poverty:

Severe poverty – defined as a household income lower than 40% of the median household income – has increased in recent years. In addition, relative poverty – defined as a household income lower than 60% of the median household income – has also increased since 1998/99 among single adults and couples without children.

But I assume the reasons that so many people have a household income significantly below average must be inextricably linked with these statistics:

More than one in four working-age adults – 10.6 million people – in the UK do not work.

The UK has one of the highest rates of workless households in the EU, with 4.8 million working-age people living in a household in which no one of working-age is in work.

silvercar

there remains a large gap in educational achievement between children from rich and poor backgrounds, with a 39 percentage point gap in gaining 5+ A*-C GCSEs between those living in the most and in the least deprived areas

Some of that gap can be explained by the children inheriting their non-academic brains from their parents, who also didn't achieve decent GCSEs and so don't achieve in the jobs market and don't have high income and so their kids are classified as coming from "poor backgrounds".

ILW

Kohoutek wrote: »

This is what they mean by poverty:



But I assume the reasons that so many people have a household income significantly below average must be inextricably linked with these statistics:

Any definition that defines poverty in terms of a percentage of averages is totally flawed and by it's nature creates a situation where poverty cannot be ended. Until a true definition is used the whole thing is an exercise in envy.

moggylover

SingleSue wrote: »

Unfortunately, a fair few only have to read 'on benefits' and the assumptions begin. From being !!!!less in your love life, to being idle.

Individuals can find themselves on benefits for a range of reasons and unfortunately, until this is realised by the so called Daily Mail readers (my mum is one of them, you should hear what she says!), there will always be threads and articles showing the worse case scenarios of benefit claimants - the £5k a week LHA, the 10 kids, the left school and never worked and won't work because it would make them worse off people.

Being on benefits is demeaning for a lot of people, it is soul destroying for a lot of people, yes there are career claimants out there but the benefit life is not as nice and comfy as some make out.

You feel guilt about having to rely on others, shame even that you have to rely on the state...to me, that is much worse than anything else (again, there will be some who feel no guilt or shame)

As for poverty, to me that is more akin to not having a roof over your head and having to scrabble about for scraps out of bins...I don't feel I live in poverty - we have a roof, we have food, we have clothes.

*N.B Apart from the last comment about poverty, this is not about my circumstances but is from what I have been discovering from talking to others at courses etc.

Only parts I would disagree with is that I felt no guilt or shame in claiming benefits because I had paid into the pot (heftily) before needing help, and was seeking work for along period and unable to secure it. With my qualifications and experience that meant that the job market was stacked against me because of health and family commitment situation and thus I wasn't ashamed of myself, but of a system that allows that kind of "prejudice".

Secondly, poverty, imo, is something rather intangible that actual money (in hand) doesn't cure. For me it means living in an area with poor work prospects, sink estate habitation, poor schooling with often the worst (and worst motivated) teaching staff and an atmosphere of no hope.

We have plenty of people who are out of work in this area, and very few jobs that are not seasonal and poorly paid, however we don't have massive sink estates, we have very good schools that have children from all socio-economic levels (i.e. business owners, farmers, doctors, solicitors, agri workers, cleaners and the unemployed) and the majority of those with money and good jobs do not see a need for their children to be privately educated. The affect of this is that the "ghetto" mentality does not pervade, the children of the poorest rub shoulders with (and even become friends with) children from better circumstances and see and hear about a better life AND (more importantly) how to get a chance of that better life. Considerably fewer kids from unemployed backgrounds fall into the despair that appears prevalent in truly impoverished areas. They are encouraged (often by the parents of their better off friends as well as their peers and the schools) to look for a better future, and because we have more "community" here I believe that for the most part those kids have a much better chance of achieving their potential.

I don't think we will ever solve any of the problems the Mail wails about until everyone is willing to step back and be painfully honest about where the problems START. We need to accept that just because there is plenty of work in OUR area, that doesn't mean there is across the UK. We need to look at what some of that "work" actually is, i.e. the ubiquitous 0 - X hour contracts (basically casual labour) the difficulties of companies who want 25 part-timers (on very short but unreasonably fluid shifts) instead of 5 full timers or even 10 part-timers on fixed hours. We need to address the fact that some wages have (in every kind of terms) actually dropped in the last 25/30 years (i.e. agri, where my ex could earn £4 and hour for as many hours as he could keep going 30 years ago at 18, but that he would today only get minimum wage of £5.80 an hour for the same work).

We need to address the REAL cost of living, i.e. rent costs, council tax, food and basic clothing and transport (whether public or car) and look at how wages actually shape up in comparison to that.

We also need to look at the fact that many of the huge profits that companies show are increased each year by paying increasingly poor wages (below senior management level or IT that is) that the Government has to top up in order for people to survive.

I'm quite willing to admit there are scroungers out there. There were even 50 years ago when I was a child growing up in Slough (where there really wasn't any reason to be out of work at all in those days) when the benefits system was far less generous than it is now. I don't believe that screaming and ranting about it will solve it and nor will failing to address the basic problems that those at the bottom face in merely surviving, let alone having a life that gives them hope and purpose.

SingleSue

An excellent post moggylover.....wish my brain was as awake as yours!

We have a similar thing with our local schools, there are children from all backgrounds and all are given an equal chance, as are the parents to get involved in school life (they even run courses for the parents who may have left school with little or no qualifications).

I also agree re wages, at age 15, I was earning £3 an hour for a part time job...that is 25 years ago now. At ful time employment, the average starting salary now being offered for an import clerk, is only a few thousand more than it was in the early 90's (average back then was around 11-12k, now it is around £13-14k) yet house prices have increased dramatically since then, and as a result, rents too.

My income for 1991/92 would still be seen as a very decent amount now in our town...yet it is now 2010.