MSE News: Government considers tougher benefit sanctions

sniggings

zagfles wrote: »

So the real problem of "poverty trap" is in part caused by badly thought out poverty targets.

or badly defining the word poverty.

Give people more in their pockets at the lower end and they wouldn't care if the gap was increased or decreased.

zagfles

sniggings wrote: »

or badly defining the word poverty.

Give people more in their pockets at the lower end and they wouldn't care if the gap was increased or decreased.

Exactly. Whereas there are reports that "poverty" (as defined by the govt) will reduce because of the recession. Not because the poor are getting any better off, they aren't, but because the median income is dropping!!

Yes, a great depression would certainly help the govt meet it's 2020 child poverty targets. If over half the population is out of work then child poverty will be eliminated as the median would be the same as the bottom - hence no gap, hence no "poverty"!!

MissMoneypenny

MissMoneypenny wrote: »

"some missing out on regular hot meals or new shoes."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19478083

clemmatis wrote: »

That isn't what the news item says, is it? (No, it isn't.) It says

"More than half the parents in poverty surveyed (61%) said they had cut back on what they ate and more than a quarter (26%) had skipped meals in the past year."

What they, the parents, ate. They, the parents, had skipped meals.

Read the 2nd paragraph of that article: the one my quote came from. It's the children who are "missing out on regular hot meals or new shoes."

If healthy adults can't manage their own benefits/don't work enough hours to feed themelves, then they need to address that problem.

We have a welfare system to protect the children from the poor families, but that money isn't getting spent on these children if some aren't even getting basic things like a regular hot meal or new shoes.:mad:

clemmatis

MissMoneypenny wrote: »

Read the 2nd paragraph of that article: the one my quote came from. It's the children who are "missing out on regular hot meals or new shoes."

If healthy adults can't manage their own benefits/don't work enough hours to feed themelves, then they need to address that problem.

We have a welfare system to protect the children from the poor families, but that money isn't getting spent on these children if some aren't even getting basic things like a regular hot meal or new shoes.:mad:

In my post, the post from which you quote, I said

clemmatis wrote:

"Just under a fifth (19%) of the parents said their children sometimes had to go without new shoes when they needed them."

"Some 19% of children in poverty said they had missed out on school trips and 14% said they did not have a warm coat to wear in the winter."

I quoted from the article you say I hadn't read.

I agree the article also says "The charity says the UK's poorest children are bearing the brunt of the recession, with some missing out on regular hot meals or new shoes."

But with all due respect, my question to you was

Now, Miss Moneypenny, you tell me where/how this story says parents are not spending welfare payments on their children.


I see I had better spell that out... I invite you to tell me where the story says that those of the poorest children who missed out on regular hot meals or new shoes were the children of welfare claimants.

And I invite you to read zagfiles' account of the report on which the story is based.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=55639565&postcount=115

MissMoneypenny

clemmatis wrote: »

Now, Miss Moneypenny, you tell me where/how this story says parents are not spending welfare payments on their children.

1. Children of the poor familes receive generous welfare payments for each child.

2. Despite parents being given this money from the state for their children, Save the Children say that some children aren't getting regular hot meals or new shoes.

Where do you think the childrens welfare payments go, if the children don't even get basic things like a regular hot meal and new shoes?

princessdon

I think some people forget that welfare includes workers - it's not just none working claimants.

How anyone who gets £60 a week + per child can say they can't afford shoes is beyond me. surely those on NONE welfare who get £13 a child have more "justifications" to not spend on their children.

Yet in the surveys/studies they all seem too - is this a coincidence?

clemmatis

princessdon wrote: »

I think some people forget that welfare includes workers - it's not just none working claimants.

How anyone who gets £60 a week + per child can say they can't afford shoes is beyond me. surely those on NONE welfare who get £13 a child have more "justifications" to not spend on their children.

Yet in the surveys/studies they all seem too - is this a coincidence?

I hadn't forgotten that welfare includes workers, and that's partly why I objected to the sniping here.

And -- I now find -- the study that forms the basis of the story, and that zagfiles summarised, begins

“My husband’s wage has not gone up in two years
and food, clothes and bills increase all the time. Our
food bill goes up as the children get older.”

Affording new shoes -- the story says some children sometimes didn't get new shoes, and 19% of the children said it.

The study doesn't recommends raising benefits, in fact, its recommendations are more about making it worthwhile to work.


http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/sites/default/files/documents/child_poverty_2012.pdf

Unfortunately it doesn't say in detail what's going on.

Dunroamin

~Chameleon~ wrote: »

And why would being disabled bar someone from doing any of the above?

Doesn't that rather imply that they were capable of work?

~Chameleon~

Dunroamin wrote: »

Doesn't that rather imply that they were capable of work?

How on earth do you extrapolate that?

Dunroamin

~Chameleon~ wrote: »

How on earth do you extrapolate that?

Prostitution and thievery strike me as rather tougher than sitting on a check out in Tesco, even if rather better paid!