Poverty rate among working households in UK is highest ever

[Freakbro]

The same old tired trope, it used to be "but they've got a flat screen TV" now I see it's changed to 65" Not sure how the size of a TV defines it's luxury status nowadays, it's £300, a 65" 1080p TV is going to be anything but luxury!

Of course, the general prevailing attitude has always been if you're on any type of benefits and have anything more than gruel and water on a daily basis then you're a scrounging chav living a life of luxury

 

[Deleted User 234324]

The biggest issue I see with the whole benefit system itself, is the benefits trap, once you work more than 16 hours a week, which is the minimum required for a single person to claim universal credit, the incentives for working past that just don't exist.

Someone on minimum wage, £8.91/hour on a 16 hour week, gives them £142.56 a week income, for a single person they get around £400 a month basic allowance and the LHA rate for their area towards rent, around £455/month for a 1 bed flat.

Their income is subtracted from the benefits at a rate of 63p in the £1, so from that £855 maximum in benefits they would actually be receiving around £465 a month in benefits on top of their £612 a month income. The issue is that working beyond that 16 hours/week means they would lose 63p in every £1 they earned from benefits, effectively making that £8.91/hour only £3.34/hour, and no one wants to do a minimum wage job when your effectively only being paid £3.34 a hour. It's no wonder that employers are struggling to get staff for minimum wage jobs, no one is going to want to do them when they get barely anything beyond what they need to get state benefits.

You would need to be work 5 days a week 7 hours a day on minimum wage (~£1360/month) just to get out of the benefits system. So you can work 16 hours a week and have plenty of spare time to do whatever you want and get £1100/month, or you can work 35 hours a week, have no/little spare time and take home an extra £60 a week (roughly equivalent to £3.15/hour extra).

The only possible solution I see to this currently is a universal basic income for everyone, and then encourage people to work beyond UBI for extra income (tax free below a certain point) and start to tax business more. Bit of a socialist thing to do but I don't see the current system working in the long run.

 

[Dis86]

The same old tired trope, it used to be "but they've got a flat screen TV" now I see it's changed to 65" Not sure how the size of a TV defines it's luxury status nowadays, it's £300, a 65" 1080p TV is going to be anything but luxury!

Of course, the general prevailing attitude has always been if you're on any type of benefits and have anything more than gruel and water on a daily basis then you're a scrounging chav living a life of luxury

A TV is not essential. If you can comfortably afford things that are not essential then they're luxuries.

 

[Freakbro]

A TV is not essential. If you can comfortably afford things that are not essential then they're luxuries.

Well, the argument wasn't about having a TV at all, but a 65" one as the defining point that someone can't be in relative poverty.

And like I said, just because you are in 'relative poverty' doesn't mean you can't have anything but bread and water.

 

[Dis86]

Well, the argument wasn't about having a TV at all, but a 65" one as the defining point that someone can't be in relative poverty.

And like I said, just because you are in 'relative poverty' doesn't mean you can't have anything but bread and water.

But that's my whole point in this thread, relative poverty is a meaningless term if the median standard of living is high.

 

[Freakbro]

But that's my whole point in this thread, relative poverty is a meaningless term if the median standard of living is high.

I guess it's meaningless when you focus on the word poverty in the description and equate it to absolute poverty, but it's not talking about that.

But I agree, since it's based on what, less than 60% of median income, then it's never something you can eradicate and it doesn't mean you are 'poor' like absolute poverty, but that doesn't mean it's a meaningless metric. Hasn't research shown that the most cohesive and happiest societies are those with the least income disparities (ie: lower relative poverty levels) because it's natural to compare what you have relative to your local peers and this has large effects on your self esteem and self worth within your society.