Most people classed as being in poverty 'have job'

Bromhead

Bromhead

Bromhead

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This is one of the articles I was reading today on the BBC news website. Looking at the article it states the requirements of being in poverty.

£128 a week for a single adult.
£172 for a single parent with one child.
£220 for a couple with no children.
£357 for a couple with two children.

Article can be read here - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25287068

I thought it was worth posting, it is sometimes easy to forget how some people continue to struggle.

The one surprising part for me was that these were people who had jobs, I'm not sure if people who use benefits are not included in this, as they wouldn't have the same responsibilities, such as rent/mortgage perhaps. The one thing the article didn't show is the percentage of people in poverty who do have and don't have jobs, but it does say 21% of the UK population are in poverty.
 
The working poor make up a large percentage of those on and under the poverty line. They're easily overlooked because they're employed.
 
Evangelion said:
The working poor make up a large percentage of those on and under the poverty line. They're easily overlooked because they're employed.
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And these are the people who take any job to try make ends meet who the welfare system should be supporting.

Not those ungrateful benefits leechers who don't even bother to go looking for jobs.
 
I've no evidence to back this up (as I haven't had time to look), but a recent BBC piece on TV intimated that once you were classed as a 'volunteer', you are then classed as being employed.

I somehow don't see how being part of Cameron's 'Big Society' is going to put food on the table or provide any spare income for minor luxuries.

Saying that though, how much of JSA money is spent on cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, night's out or squandered on gambling or other such pursuits? A few folk I know are struggling to keep 2 jobs a piece (a day time and a night time vocation) just so they can pay their rent and bills. Seems a bit off that others don't need to do that and potentially 'take home' more just by doing nothing except farm babies.
 
Von Smallhausen said:
The very people that the Tories couldn't care less about. Never have and never will.
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Much as you may say that, the Tories companies employ these people, they care for them greatly, to the point of ensuring they are caught in a loop, and unable to escape that loop, it keeps the companies working.

Anyway, as a side note, it is interesting just how much 'poorer' you become if you have children. 2/1 working adults, 2 kids nearly doubles what you require to bring in to not be classed as poor. The chav scum with loads of kids don't skew such stats as they are exempt, and don't have obligations (rent mortgages) and often can have more kids. It would be interesting to see how a generation would react if they knew, and were instilled with the knowledge they would have to pay for their own kids.

While we continue to devalue our labour force, and make up the different in hilarious schemes such as working families tax credit, while paying those on benefits more, we will never resolve the problem.

I am thinking more and more towards a 'working wage', accompanied with a reduction in corporate taxation levels, and removal over time of working families tax credits, and an overall rise in the base threshold for income tax for all.

Just skews things, but hides less, less admin overhead, less work for HMRC to mess up, and companies might eventually decide they might pay some taxes instead of sidestepping the lot. A working wage gets more money for the multinationals who shy away from taxes here.

I'd probably increase vat while I am at it, on various things, and increase duty on cigs and alcohol for the sake of it, getting back more of those benefits we are paying out in the first place.
 
Spook187 said:
People need a living wage not a minimum wage, pure joke the way workers getting shafted in this country :mad:
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Flip that around and look at the UK's manufacturing sector.
With silly daft health+safety at work, maternity pay, paternity pay, pension, sick pay, everyone claiming 'compo' for anything and everything, minimum wage, unions on strike, taxes on dirty factories, people off for months with stress etc.....
With all the costs of making stuff over here we simply cannot compete with the rest of the world.

I'm in no way arguing that people should live in poverty, merely outlining that there is more to industry than a fat cat at the top who underpays his staff just so he can buy an extra jet. PAY THEM MOAR would result in more business owners say '**** it' and move their manufacturing abroad. The company I work at is ever increasing the manufacturing output from India and China. One day they will say screw it to the UK I'm sure :(.
 
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chief barker said:
Not to mention zero hours contracts. My middle son (17) works for sports direct and is on £4 an hour and regularly gets sent home because the shop is 'slow'.
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That sounds pretty crap! I hope he is searching for a new job!
I personally don't think there is anything wrong with the minimum wage, but a zero hour contract is useless as you simply cannot budget anything at all as your weekly earnings are always a big question mark.
 
chief barker said:
Not to mention zero hours contracts. My middle son (17) works for sports direct and is on £4 an hour and regularly gets sent home because the shop is 'slow'.
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Aye, i was on a zero hour contract for five years and it stinks, now i am on a fulltime contract but i know this can end in redundancy as it has twice before:(
 
How can someone actually 'make ends meet' on a zero hours contract? You would have no idea how much money you would have coming in week to week, so how can these people survive? I assume they would be off the jobless figures (are the figures falling because of this sort of shenanigans?) but would be reliant on benefits. But how do they claim benefits if they don't know how much they will earn?
Its one thing the government claiming things are improving, but if you are on the bottom people won't see any improvement at all.
 
As housing costs (i.e. rent/mortgage) are the biggest cost for the vast majority of UK households, this should be the target for future governments and I don't mean the sticking plaster over a gushing arterial tear that is Gideon's Help2Buy scheme.

Unfortunately there are only two fundamental ways of addressing this issue - build more homes or reduce the population. Reducing the population isn't going happen full stop, it would be devastating for economic growth. Where do we build more homes then? On the greenbelt? I don't think so. IMO the only solution is to go high rise again, the question is can we learn the lessons of our last disastrous foray into high rise?
 
Well stop importing more and more people into this tiny little overcrowded island might be a start!
 
Uther said:
Well stop importing more and more people into this tiny little overcrowded island might be a start!
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I agree but it's not going to happen. The Labour party will support immigration at all costs in the name of celebrating multi-cultural diversity and the Conservatives will support immigration at all costs because it creates and maintains a huge army of reserve labour which help the rich get richer.
 
Bromhead said:
£128 a week for a single adult.
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Single adult here in a 1-bed flat:

Mortgage - £301
Insurance - £26
Council tax - £72
Leccy+gas - £56
Water - £20
Internet - £26
Phone - £38
Landline - £0, so just pay for mobile

Add these up and divide by 4.3333 to get it as a weekly figure - £124

That leaves me with £4/week for food! I'm only on £13k but gladly that means I take home £220/week. Still not a great amount as I pay for a gym, food ofc, then there's not a lot left for going out and impossible to save.
 
Spook187 said:
People need a living wage not a minimum wage, pure joke the way workers getting shafted in this country :mad:
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A "living wage" needs to be balanced against what value a person brings to business.

You can't expect an employer to pay ~£30k a year to someone who's practically illiterate and work ethic is highly questionable.

If they don't justify the wage, forcing employers to pay over the odds would simply result in underemployment and a loss to the wider economy.

You need to address the cause, not the symptom.

There are many in society I wouldn't pay minimum wage, or indeed any wage.
 
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Monserrat said:
Single adult here in a 1-bed flat:

Mortgage - £301
Insurance - £26
Council tax - £72
Leccy+gas - £56
Water - £20
Internet - £26
Phone - £38
Landline - £0, so just pay for mobile

Add these up and divide by 4.3333 to get it as a weekly figure - £124

That leaves me with £4/week for food! I'm only on £13k but gladly that means I take home £220/week. Still not a great amount as I pay for a gym, food ofc, then there's not a lot left for going out and impossible to save.
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How did you get a mortgage on £13k?
 
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