Cameron Constituency Food Bank Faces Closure As Local Economy Stalls

ILW

Have to say I'm with Gen on this. Benefits pay enough to eat. That is unless you have run up debts, prefer to spend the money on fags and booze or blow it on something else, like trips to the betting shop.

Generali

DecentLivingWage wrote: »

Yes, that's the one. I think she only had a couple of pounds left for the meter - it was in the last storms we had. The food bank ladies were truly shocked. It was a newspaper article - I ll see if I can refind it.

Where had the money gone? If she was being paid in excess of £20,000 a year in benefits why was she broke? She was likely to be making more than the median household income.

Thrugelmir

Generali wrote: »

So why are people starving and needing to turn to charity for food? I don't get it.

The real world. As the rich get richer and the poorer poorer. Where some peoples entitlements from the welfare state are minimal. Following divorce. health issues, loss of job etc. More or often or not a combination of two. People struggle. Family units are now dysfunctional. There's not the support of years gone by.

No different in Oz either.

http://www.foodbank.com.au/

ILW

Thrugelmir wrote: »

The real world. As the rich get richer and the poorer poorer. Where some peoples entitlements from the welfare state are minimal. Following divorce. health issues, loss of job etc. More or often or not a combination of two. People struggle. Family units are now dysfunctional. There's not the support of years gone by.

No different in Oz either.

http://www.foodbank.com.au/

That doesn't answer the question of what happens to the money that is given. If it is not spent on food, what is it spent on?

GeorgeHowell

ILW wrote: »

That doesn't answer the question of what happens to the money that is given. If it is not spent on food, what is it spent on?

I think we all know the answer to that. Why else is Duncan Smith now starting to mumble about having some of welfare payment mechanism that cannot be spent on alcohol ?

Generali

Thrugelmir wrote: »

The real world. As the rich get richer and the poorer poorer. Where some peoples entitlements from the welfare state are minimal. Following divorce. health issues, loss of job etc. More or often or not a combination of two. People struggle. Family units are now dysfunctional. There's not the support of years gone by.

No different in Oz either.

http://www.foodbank.com.au/

To be fair, as a matter of policy in Australia 'the pension' (dole as it would be called in the UK not to be confused with the age pension) is deliberately set at a level that you can't really live off. You are expected to have savings and to get yourself a job.

In the UK it's rather different. If you can get the equivalent of £31-32,000 gross earnings a year on the dole then that really isn't starvation levels of payments, in fact it's not even close.

So where is the money going?

GeorgeHowell

Generali wrote: »

To be fair, as a matter of policy in Australia 'the pension' (dole as it would be called in the UK not to be confused with the age pension) is deliberately set at a level that you can't really live off. You are expected to have savings and to get yourself a job.

In the UK it's rather different. If you can get the equivalent of £31-32,000 gross earnings a year on the dole then that really isn't starvation levels of payments, in fact it's not even close.

So where is the money going?

The typical working person who holds down a job at £32,000 pa is likely to have sufficient acumen and self-responsibility to survive financially. The typical can't work/won't work layabout who picks up the equivalent amount on welfare is likely to blow much of it on whatever crap and indulgences they please, knowing that social services are likely to be a soft touch when they give them the next hard luck story.

sheffield_lad

headcone wrote: »

hard working left wing voters in this country

what you mean when they are not on strike? lol

I love that phrase, although if you were trying to be Ed you would have said 'hard working families'

Us right wingers don't work btw we just have our feet up and someone just puts money monthly into the banks for us.

Thrugelmir

Generali wrote: »

In the UK it's rather different. If you can get the equivalent of £31-32,000 gross earnings a year on the dole then that really isn't starvation levels of payments, in fact it's not even close.

So where is the money going?

Job seekers allowance for a single person is £50.95p a week.

Doesn't equate to £31k a year.

grizzly1911

Generali wrote: »

Where had the money gone? If she was being paid in excess of £20,000 a year in benefits why was she broke? She was likely to be making more than the median household income.

Generali wrote: »

.

If I could have got £26,000 net for a family of 4, what exactly is a reasonable amount of money to give people?

ILW wrote: »

Have to say I'm with Gen on this. Benefits pay enough to eat. That is unless you have run up debts, prefer to spend the money on fags and booze or blow it on something else, like trips to the betting shop.

I think the problem is that the figures you quote are high end headline examples quoted to get the blood pressure rising.

The vast majority get no where near this sort of amount. Many get somewhere around the 10/12k mark (radio commentary from a charity spokesperson)

Not all get buckets of housing benefit.

The person who walked 18miles in Cumbria probably didn't have access to an ASDA or a low price store. She would probably have to make do with a"convenience type" store where her money would only go half as far. Living in bleak northern spot it is quite likely that her prepayment meter cost a lot more to feed to give them limited warmth in less than efficient property.

Why do prepayment meters cost so much these days, when they are being paid up front on an electronic/chip set card system?

As I understand real "trailer trash" families account for only about 2% of the benefit claimants. Stand to be corrected on that, picked up from some charity statistics.