What is child poverty in the UK?

Itsmeagain_3

My first post - I too was surprised by the 5% who didn't think "lack of food, shelter and clothing" related to child poverty. I also included "a child without a bed" and I agree that some sort of heating is required in 2012 although I too was brought up in a house without heat (as most of us ancients were) I don't think all progress is a bad thing.

tescobabe69

paracelsus wrote: »

Shocking that 28% of participants feel that househould income of less than £5000 a year is not poverty.
Who are these people so wrapped up in their own selfish wants,that they consider nothing of those less fortunate?
Having a poll at all just encourages nonsensical views being expressed.

There are no UK households with chldren that have an income below £5k not by a country mile.

mkzebra

happyinflorida wrote: »

I'm really shocked at the low number of people who haven't included no internet access - are people not aware that nowadays at school everything is done on the internet? My son's secondary school uses the internet for him to do his homework online. His teacher's send him emails regarding course work and to help with other things, they've also sent homework online. So what does a child do that hasn't got internet access?! Are that many people unaware of what goes on in schools nowadays?! That's shocking.

You have to apply online for most jobs now, as well. Children who do not have internet access are genuinely disadvantaged because they lose out on access to so many school and other kinds of resources.

squibbitus

That's why things like free school meals are a good idea, because they go directly to the child.


I totally agree here, if we want "any" money to go to the child and not be squandered by "others" we should give the money in "milk tokens", "food vouchers" "childrens clothes shops" and similar, then it could not be as easily abused.

MagsiP

psdie wrote: »

Poor - yes. "In poverty" - no, unless parents mismanage finances.

Agree. Any child whose parent has a mobile phone, a computer, tattoos, wears makeup, dyes their hair, is obese, smokes cigarettes, drinks alcohol, takes drugs, goes clubbing, wears anything with a designer tag, goes to sports matches etc., is merely a victim of today's "Me, me, me!" society. Years ago, most parents spent money on (or even fed) their children rather than themselves. Now it would appear that most people's idea of child poverty is when the children are not able to afford to have the items in the list above!

DonnaKebab

"A child sharing a room with someone of different gender"

Interesting.... with the new welfare reforms for social housing, under 10s of different gender may not be allowed to have a separate room and will have to share. Otherwise family will have to pay for the extra bedroom under the extra room tax within the welfare reforms.

Philip_L

Much of the debate here is confused about absolute and relative poverty. I used to think it was absolute poverty that should be the key focus of public policy; e.g. we need to ensure everyone has basic needs – food, warmth, shelter. No longer!

I urge you to read the Spirit Level by Wilkinson and Picket which changed my mind. If you’re not closed to academic evidence it should at least make you think. Across Western or developed economies, i.e. where we have got beyond basic needs issues and subsistence and survival which confronts many less developed countries is not the problem, it is the degree of income inequality which correlates very well with a wide range of indicators of social and health problems.

The UK has high income disparity compared to EU neighbours, and thus has a higher prevalence of social ills, from teenage pregnancy, mental health, illiteracy levels, violence and drugs/alcoholism which are higher than EU average.

Of course many will say there is no excuse for violence, depression etc. On one level we can all agree with this. We all know of people, or ourselves, who do not fall into a problem bracket despite being on a low household income. But this is like the evidence of the regular smoker who lived into his 90s. Indicators are probabilistic – more income inequality, the more probable it is we have social ills. Any appeal to the notion that people should just be happy with their lot, put up, pull yourself together, not be bad etc is normative and not helpful. As policy it just fails.

The reason, argue Wilkinson and Picket is that we are social animals and our group status affects us significantly. By creating large cohorts of low status people in deprived areas, we are creating many of the social ills we all worry about. It’s a long haul – greater equality does not deliver immediately, but would make our society better for everyone.

Poverty indicators should remain at 60% of median income. We should have indicators which also show excessive wealth accumulation. Individually, as research shows, we do not like to identify ourselves as being in poverty. This is like admitting low status. The indicator however is useful for evidence based public policy, an aid better targeting of actions such as recommended by the recent Hills report on tackling fuel poverty.

kingdavid2012

As the econamic crisis is piering,people in poverty suffer a lot.The government is making its moves to tackle the problem.
I take it that there is more else we can do for them.

gayleygoo

When my daughter was born, DH had just lost his job and spent several months out of work, then got another job. I was on maternity leave. Whatever way it worked, we were classed as being "in poverty", but with the amount of tax credits, child benefit, milk vouchers, housing benefit etc that we got (all entitled to, we weren't cheating), including DH's part-time pay, we felt like we were rolling in money. We must have had around £700 a week, which we could hardy spend! Yet the goverment considered our child in poverty :rotfl: Five years on we are struggling much more with DH on a full-time job and less than half the income.

Real poverty would be not being able to being able to shelter, clothe, or feed your family. If someone can afford to smoke, drink alcohol often, subscribe to SkyTV or have a fancy mobile phone, then IMO they're not doing enough to get out of poverty, and shouldn't consider themsleves in such a position.