How the term 'poverty' has changed

Oh yes, and they didn't have a phone either. They lived there because my ex's mum co owned it as it was left to her and her four brothers when her mother died. My ex's dad had left his job through ill health. Then her brothers wanted to sell the house so they got a council house. She was thrilled to have central heating and hot water.

This 100% affordable luxury means you can only ever really sacrifice on essentials to see a big difference - people go without heating because you'll save hundreds even missing a few days per week over winter but all the advice is "give up coffee/avocado" as if we're living in the old time zone

My grandparents brought up ten children in a tumbledown three bedroomed cottage. They only got an inside toilet in the early 80s. My gran went on one holiday in her life, paid for by her daughters. They had no central heating, just an old range that smoked like hell, and had no phone, never mind a mobile.

They had over forty grandchildren. We all live in nice houses with all mod cons, most have several cars, phones, computers etc. Its quite a leap in two generations. I really hope things don't go backwards again in the following generations.

You can't really compare then to now. Not with the increase of technology and the cheap products and food available to buy. E.g. A cheap loaf of bread costs 42p. Lots of families can't even afford the equipment to bake. By the time they've bought the ingredients, a big bowl to mix it in, a loaf tin, and heated the oven up... They could have bought several loaves of bread. And that's before factoring in the cost of inspections needed to sell food, and insurance etc. Baking isn't an easy money maker these days.
It's the same with making clothes. In order pay yourself a liveable wage you're looking at £20+ for a pair of leggings. Most people will just buy some from the high street for a fraction of the price

I also don't think these people are factoring the cost of running the oven. If I threw bread in the oven every week I'd definitely see a rise in bills (I live of grid and buy bottled gas for the oven so I notice quickly if my usage changes). It is also time and labour intensive. It needs kneeding for ages, sitting for hours. Lots of clean up and dirty bowls. If you don't have heating you may only be having the hot water on for very small bursts and creating excessive gluey washing up bowls isn't ideal either.

I'm all for people baking bread if they want to but there's phrases like 'the best thing since sliced bread' and entire industries, local bakery's to Warburton's, making bread because people have rarely had time to do it at home. ... Also if you go at like 6pm to the supermarket bakery they have stacks and stacks for 10p each that you can buy and freeze lol 😂 waste not!

My ex husband's two younger brothers had to share a bed until he left home to go to university and one of them got his room. That was in the late 70s. Their house had a coal fire in the living room and the kitchen - no other heating. They didn't have a fridge - just a cold slab in the pantry.

It's better quality, but unless you buy flour in bulk ( and actually use it ), you are really only saving very small amounts. Amounts that mean nothing when compared to the cost of housing.

My partner shared a bed as a child with their sibling. That was in the sixties.

Not sure I'd say Botox is an improvement.

In fact I'm not sure if all the tat of modern life is an improvement. A few things are real, objective improvements, but most don't actually make people happier than they were in the past.

not just poverty, the definition of what is a 'good life' has changed dramatically too.
you see it all the time here and in the media, rose-glasses about the times when the average family could survive on one wage. But it was just that, surviving, with occasional treats. There were very few households in the, what 1920s, 1950s, even 1970s that lived an equivalent lifestyle to that of your average middle class family today, with frequent meals out and takeaways, monthly haircuts, nails and botox, new kitchen every 10 years, dishwasher and tumble dryer, holidays abroad every year, multiple activities for kids, then supporting them through uni, each child with a bedroom of their own and at least 2 cars per household, gym memberships, multiple TVs, phones, etc. They might have been able to afford a house on that one wage, but otherwise you are not comparing lifestyles like for like.

The other thing is people making generalisations about '100 years ago' but it's not necessarily that long ago.

My gran/mum didn't have an indoor toilet until the late 1960s, for example, and they wouldn't have considered themselves in poverty, just normal working class.
I was born in 1990 and was the first person in my family to stay in school after 16, let alone go to uni. My grandparents had their first holiday abroad when they were 50, my parents were in their early 20s, (and those were package deals to spain) whereas me and my siblings grew up going abroad, including long haul like disneyland, every year. My gran didn't have a bed of her own until she got married, whereas I didn't even have to share a bedroom.

In many ways both my grandparents and parents were better off financially than me by the time they were in their 50s to now - grandparents were retired age 50, parents aged 60, mortgages paid off, guaranteed state and workplace pensions, etc. But they didn't have anywhere near the luxuries I had growing up/as a young adult.

I'm never sure, when people look back and say 'things were better then' (let alone 'life was easier') what 'things' they are referring to, and whom exactly they were better for?

The point is poverty is a relative term, compared to what the 'average' person/family can expect at any particular point in time. For example having a smart phone does not make you not 'in poverty', as to exist and engage in today's society, to have a smart phone is a basic part of that, whether you agree with it or not. My parents can't get their head around that, as they view the so-called poor people of today, having the amenities and opportunities they didn't have - and I'm talking toilet paper, indoor loos, big TVs, further education - as not being poor. My Mum, who is relatively liberal, can't get her head around "this so called period poverty" when her and her sister had to stuff newspaper in their pants in the 1950s and 60s. Quite rightly, as society evolves, our expectations of our life and comfort does also, but that does mean what people view as poverty, in a subjective way, inevitably changes between generations.

I spent part of my childhood in a tenement building with my sibling and parents. We lived in two rooms, only the kitchen sink, and a toilet shared with three other families. I knew families living in the same kind of situation with 4 or 5 kids.

But families these days are living in one room in homeless accommodation and a shared bathroom.

I would almost describe myself as 'in poverty' now. I work three jobs, one full time, one night shifts and one cleaning job in the early mornings- I still can't afford to provide myself with three (home cooked, from scratch) meals a day- I go without so my family don't have to.

I rent, so therefore can't sublet a room, my rent is over a grand a month, my council tax is £200pm. That's without bills, basic necessities such as a phone bill and transport (transport of which I have cut down to the bare minimum, I take two trains and a 20 minute walk to work- there are no jobs closer to home that wouldn't mean taking a pay cut).

My partner works for the emergency services and earns less than I do. He saves lives and puts his life at risk each day, to earn pennies.

This past month, I couldn't afford to purchase sanitary products for myself- doing so would mean taking money out of the food pot.

I wouldn't blatantly describe myself as in poverty, as there are many thousands of people worse off than me, and although I go without, I manage just fine; however I find your comments outdated, and frankly blind to the current financial climate.

To be honest sounds fairly standard for the era OP. Everyone had coal fires including the wealthy, lots of people were very lucky to have an outside toilet to themselves, vs a shared block ones situated behind terraces. My Gran could recall tap dancing up and down the ones out the back of hers to scare her neighbour 😁. She also grew up very 'poor', but she built her way up from being a young shop girl, to becoming a boutique manager. She also learned to drive.

My house which was built around 80yrs ago also still has an outdoor toilet by the way (obviously an indoor bathroom too), plus a coal shed. My mum attended grammar school and still left at 15 to get a job. Also extremely common for the time. You can't contrast between now and then, it's a completely different kettle of fish, and everyone was in the same boat in regards to no central heating, double glazing, and no TV.

I think people find meaning in comparing the poverty their parents grew up with to the poverty they see around them today. My mother grew up in the depression in the American South. Her mum had four children and was widowed when my mum was 3 months old. They ate squirrels which her brothers managed to shoot, and one summer my mother had no clothes, so her mother made her a dress out of an old flour sack, cutting holes for head and arms. It was ok for a couple of months because she wasn't in school.

My mother was very compassionate, and understood poverty and the struggles of immigrants in particular, but she did often notice ways in which her family had been resourceful, and that they had often been contented with much less than what modern society makes people expect and need.

Hm not really. Archaeological digs have found grave goods that denote social hierarchies from the Neolithic on up. You are romanticising it too. It’s not about pull your weight or get kicked out, these were not egalitarian societies.

Obviously, as we go through time, the standard of living goes up for everyone. That’s why you don’t compare poverty from years ago to poverty of today, you define poverty by comparing the lives of the poor to the lives of the elites in the same time and place.

I’m not sure that Stone Age man had a particularly polarised society hierarchy. I suspect one stone house was pretty much the same as another. They were probably a far better society to live amongst. If you didn’t pull your weight you were probably kicked out of the community.
I think you have to advance a little further in history to the Egyptians and romans to look at elitism in action.

It’s almost a 180 deg turn around. The “rich” ( those of us who earn enough money to pay tax but cannot claim benefits) tax payers supporting the unemployable or low paid poor. Whereas in the past the hardworking poor created the wealth of the rich.

The hardworking poor still create the wealth of the rich! That’s not changed. Look at income inequality and wealth inequality. Do you think Bezos would have got rich without exploiting Amazon workers?

It was no coincidence that the speciality of gynaecology was born post NHS.
😆 gynaecology started a century before the NHS and midwives have been stitching up birth injuries centuries before that in the west.

The East had it even earlier…they could do c-sections where mum and baby survived by the 17th century.

Poverty today has some of the same problems but is not comparable.

Of course it’s comparable! Poverty is always defined in relation to how the elite of a society in that time and place live.

Otherwise we are going to end up saying only prehistoric Stone Age people wearing skins, eating berries and shitting under a tree knew poverty.

Like not having a proper coat to wear in bitterly cold weather,and having to make do with a knitted shawl.

I have done Jacobite re-enactment in Scottish winters and I can tell you that a knitted shawl over the layers of wool dress, shifts, petticoats, and stays is much warmer than jeans and a puffer jacket. You can even wear it popped on your head if extra chilly.

The clothes back then were warmer than they are now- it was the Little Ice Age from 1350 to 1850

They didn’t have a spare room to rent out back then. You only have to have a look at the census to see how many people were rammed into tiny dwellings, you can’t even call them houses.
Many inner cities had tenements in some form, basically several stories of rooms rented out individually. A family of 10+ would be crammed into no more than one or two rooms. There is a column for number of rooms in some census records. Washing was done in the wash house shared by the whole tenement along with a couple of lavatories.

If you were lucky you went into service, with a room and meals thrown in. But you were expected to work, it was certainly not like Downton Abbey.

No health service, any money spare was for the men in the family, if they couldn’t work there was no money. But there was the workhouse if you fell on hard times. Hard labour for both men and women in exchange for a bed and a meal.

It was no coincidence that the speciality of gynaecology was born post NHS. Women lived with horrendous birth injuries, but with no money or specialist surgeons to carry out complex repairs they just managed.
I always used to wonder why some women in historical novels or commentaries spent their lives in bed or unable to leave home, they probably had birth injuries that meant they were unable to leave their house.

Poverty today has some of the same problems but is not comparable. My family moved every other generation to take advantage of work opportunities, they were skilled and intelligent finally moving up the social ladder with my parents generation having benefited from the grammar schools. My generation are all university educated, as are our children.

It saddens me that the door was slammed shut in the 70s with the demise of grammar schools. Although the last few years have opened up opportunities again, it is rapidly failing as a route out of poverty for many capable young people. Technology is rapidly replacing job opportunities, with a result of an increasingly shrinking workforce. Manufacturing and industry has almost become extinct, the jobs that supported the working classes have gone, replaced by the benefits system. It’s almost a 180 deg turn around. The “rich” ( those of us who earn enough money to pay tax but cannot claim benefits) tax payers supporting the unemployable or low paid poor. Whereas in the past the hardworking poor created the wealth of the rich. For some this may be an acceptable outcome but it’s not sustainable, although it is the basis of socialism. We have moved from one extreme to another.

One thing I’m certain of is that living in poverty now is different to poverty before the advent of the welfare state.

What surprises me is how many people no longer DIY, garden, clean their homes, themselves, nor do they make do and mend, or save up for stuff as it can go on a card now for instant gratification.

I was staggered that when I was in the bike shop recently (buying a new helmet), two kids came in with bikes and paid them money (I think £10 each) to pump up the tyres and tighten the chain! Such simple stuff that is now on videos on You Tube (we had Richard's Bicycle Book back in the day!)

I think there are some interesting comparisons. I think it's pretty clear that poverty in the past could be absolutely horrific. The specter of the workhouse is one of the reasons people worked so damn hard, including the kids - they were highly motivated to survive because the possibility of going into the workhouse was so terrible.

One of the things that is very different that the OPs post highlights for me is that there were ways people could take action themselves. Letting out rooms, which my great grandparents did, cooking in their own kitchen, in my great grandparents generation there were still women and children making matchboxes at home, and some of my great grandparents were weavers working out of their home.

It's really different now. There are working poor of course, but usually they are in outside employment, and are in no position to do much on the side - the kinds of things earlier generations did to make ends meet, due to regulations of one kind or another. And then there are those who have learned to accept generational welfare, which is a learned behaviour - as much as no one likes to think social support for those in need would disincentivise work, there clearly seem to be people for whom this is the case and it is devastating. Both of these things to me suggest a kind of disempowerment where people may be materially or physically somewhat better off than many poor people in the past, but feel less able to affect their own situation.

Without getting into the poor Olympics, having a spare room to rent out doesn't sound like poverty. The woman I worked with a few years ago who was living in a one bed flat with six children sounds like poverty. Or my upstairs neighbours who've been on a sofa bed for at least 15 years so their kid has the one bedroom.
They aren't in the poor house and everyone has indoor toilets but poverty sounds about right.