Probably why a lot more people are starting to live in vans and similar, housing costs are out of control. I've never been on benefits, as I'd hate to be in the system like that, but I can certainly understand why some people don't bother working.
Poverty rate among working households in UK is highest ever
- Thread starter HACO
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I've been trying to look for 'any work' since 2016 but nowhere will take me.
Remploy got defunded and nowhere else / DWP / council / NHS have offered any help since.
Remploy got defunded and nowhere else / DWP / council / NHS have offered any help since.
You seriously don't have to look here, just sign up I have worked with afew disabled people but now a lot of Eastern Europeans, if your good your taken on, not. Mega money but 27k maybe 1st tier supervisor
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My personal experience of benefits is far from the lavish utopia described in this thread.
My wife and I had our first son, so she took maternity leave to look after him. As a teacher, her maternity leave was extremely poor and quickly diminished to the statutory levels.
No problem, as we'd planned for this and saved money to cover this period. I was a full time student, so had a small income based on loans and bursaries. However, I badly injured my back and needed spinal surgery, rendering me legitimately disabled, both physically and cognitively (the medicine I was taking obliterated my short term memory). As I stopped university mid year, I had to pay some student money back and was cut off half way through the year with no income.
Trapped in a limbo where I was entitled to neither student financial support nor any kind of disability allowance, we turned to universal credit.
After several face to face meetings and many telephone conversations we were entitled to the princely sum of £135 a month. What was particularly gaulling was the level of documentation we needed to supply. Bank accounts, pay slips, mortgage information, student letters proving that we had no money and legitimately needed assistance - only until my wife's maternity leave finished!!
It must have cost them more to administer the claim than the paltry amount of money they paid out - how the hell did they even calculate that the income made sense, when that our total income, including universal credit, was lower than our (small) mortgage!
So in summary, I'm not surprised that so many people are trapped in poverty. Unable to save meaningful amounts due to high living costs and low wages, falling through the cracks when disaster befalls them.
Of course, there are those who game the system but I suspect that they are in the minority. What is the solution? I'm not sure but there are a lot of hard working people who barely get by.
My wife and I had our first son, so she took maternity leave to look after him. As a teacher, her maternity leave was extremely poor and quickly diminished to the statutory levels.
No problem, as we'd planned for this and saved money to cover this period. I was a full time student, so had a small income based on loans and bursaries. However, I badly injured my back and needed spinal surgery, rendering me legitimately disabled, both physically and cognitively (the medicine I was taking obliterated my short term memory). As I stopped university mid year, I had to pay some student money back and was cut off half way through the year with no income.
Trapped in a limbo where I was entitled to neither student financial support nor any kind of disability allowance, we turned to universal credit.
After several face to face meetings and many telephone conversations we were entitled to the princely sum of £135 a month. What was particularly gaulling was the level of documentation we needed to supply. Bank accounts, pay slips, mortgage information, student letters proving that we had no money and legitimately needed assistance - only until my wife's maternity leave finished!!
It must have cost them more to administer the claim than the paltry amount of money they paid out - how the hell did they even calculate that the income made sense, when that our total income, including universal credit, was lower than our (small) mortgage!
So in summary, I'm not surprised that so many people are trapped in poverty. Unable to save meaningful amounts due to high living costs and low wages, falling through the cracks when disaster befalls them.
Of course, there are those who game the system but I suspect that they are in the minority. What is the solution? I'm not sure but there are a lot of hard working people who barely get by.
Funny cause its true, same as the bbc article on heating poverty some fat whale sitting on the couch claiming she has to chose between eating and heating her home.
Same here in NZ. Prices are noticeably higher in the shops. Wife and I are high income earners, frugal and minimalist as hell, and even then our expenses run higher than I would like. And that's just for the basics. House prices through the roof, through the clouds, past Pluto and somewhere in the Van Oord cloud.
Yep. That is shown to you on purpose.
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Remember that Channel 5 benefit show and they kept calling her 25 stone Blossom lol
One girl taking the tv crew to show them her local kebab shop and then she showed them her size 24 skinny jeans...I mean it wasn't fair on them but damn it was funny.
One girl taking the tv crew to show them her local kebab shop and then she showed them her size 24 skinny jeans...I mean it wasn't fair on them but damn it was funny.
Caporegime
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Define poverty.
Go to Africa , thats poverty what we have here is not even close.
Kids with ps4s or mobile phones, running water, heating, housing, free education, free meals, free healthcare etc to me is not 'poverty'.
Go to Africa , thats poverty what we have here is not even close.
Kids with ps4s or mobile phones, running water, heating, housing, free education, free meals, free healthcare etc to me is not 'poverty'.
Deleted User 298457
Deleted User 298457
Poverty is relative. Or do you expect us to keep the baseline of what is good to be the absolute worse version of what exists?
There are also kids without half of what you've said.
Caporegime
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Poverty is relative. Or do you expect us to keep the baseline of what is good to be the absolute worse version of what exists?
There are also kids without half of what you've said.
Thats right relative. Not absolute.
Kids without half of what I said, which half? Because they all get the free education, free healthcare etc , school meals etc if they are eligible
When I was young I didnt have a game console a TV in my room or a phone. I had to work and buy my own things. I dont count that as poverty. Its just part of not being wealthy.
Riff raff right here... Release the hounds.
Well many African countries these days have a thriving middle and upper class.
Globalisation has created a global elite, and a global middle class. Plenty of rich Africans and rich Indians (etc).
The poor in this country are not running around with £1000 iPhones as the cliche goes. Poor kids in this country are not eating properly. They're going to school hungry.
People shouldn't downplay poverty in this country because they live in a posh area and don't care to see it.
Caporegime
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At my workplace we struggle to get employment and have agency workers in to do a job which is becoming increasingly difficult since Brexit. If a couple were to come and work they would easily take home £600+ a week between them which is more than enough for a pretty normal lifestyle. It is not even difficult work but is manual labour.
I have interviewed several dozen people over the past months for jobs and most English last a couple of weeks before giving it in. If people cannot be bothered to do a bit of hard graft for money then I have no sympathy for this "supposed" poverty line. I would argue the vast majority are in it through choice.
I am all up for improved childcare which is seriously lacking to help single parents and couples with a small family base.
I have interviewed several dozen people over the past months for jobs and most English last a couple of weeks before giving it in. If people cannot be bothered to do a bit of hard graft for money then I have no sympathy for this "supposed" poverty line. I would argue the vast majority are in it through choice.
I am all up for improved childcare which is seriously lacking to help single parents and couples with a small family base.
Actually £600 for a couple for a week is not a lot of money. It is £15k each and on that there would be naff all taxation, a few hundred pounds.
I'm sure a couple could live on that quite comfortably in Lincolnshire. A 3 bedroom house in Boston can be rented for around £600 a month. But some of them will prefer not to work.
I agree totally but it is a bit retrograde to quote 'couples income' for a manual labour job. I suppose manual labour is fruit picking rather than hod carrying or ditch digging but even so.
Yes, but it is 'a job' and a way out of poverty if people wanted to.
£600 for a couple, in other words £300 a week per person. That's only marginally above nat. min. wage, which has a take-home of about ~£270 per week.
That's a pathetic wage. An average weekly food shop is well over £100, then bills, rent, yadda. That's living hand-to-mouth.
Now, he says, "filling those vacancies is becoming increasingly difficult.." Seems like increasing the wages the job pays might fix that, eh? But no, instead of making the job pay better and thus be more attractive, let's blame the workers for being lazy and entitled instead.
This country in a nutshell. People should be grateful to work for Lord Pontington Smythe's business registered in the Bahamas who won't pay tax or a living wage.
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I live in Oldham
I fundamentally disagree with the assertion that there is absolute poverty even in oldham despite what the article says.
I'm not saying that everyone here is rich but certainly no child has to walk 12 miles to drink dirty water or lacks sanitation etc therefore I believe that all this 'poverty ' talk is simply hyperbole.