How the term 'poverty' has changed

It absolutely is essential as explained several times already.

I don't think capitalism "works" more or less than many other ways. The idea is to keep adjusting and trying new things. (That or revolution, which most of us want to avoid, even if the outcome is successful.)

Yeap…

so true. We can complain but realistically, nothing else worked.

Very true…

However, look at what is happening in USA where trumps is trying to get SEN support with no state finances if I got that right?

People have fought for what we have and we shouldn’t forget how it was. Yes the word’s meaning changed. That is good.

👌🏼

What alternative is there to capitalism? As far I’m aware nothing else has ever worked.

For instance, if you don't have a fixed address to access services, this has an exclusionary effect.

Modern poverty has two elements to it imo - actual physical, material want and exclusion from society. If you have insufficient resources available to you and your family to fully access those aspects of society which most of us would reasonably take for granted (so WiFi, computer access, being able to visit friends and family, adequate housing, space for kids to do homework, spare cash to participate in and celebrate special occasions), then you are poor. It's not just about meeting the most basic needs, it's also about the family (adults and children) having access to sufficient resources so they are not excluded from participating in our civic and social life in a meaningful way.

I think there is some misunderstanding over lodgers in the past. In the 19th century a lodger would be given a corner of a room with a sheet or blanket strung up to separate the space. There were no spare rooms to rent out. Just board and lodging and maybe you could pay extra for laundry. They basically were just another body in the living space that paid rent. The traditional boarding houses that my DF stayed in the mid 20th century were normal houses where the grown up family had mainly left leaving spare rooms to rent out. DF shared a small room with a friend but felt they had fallen on their feet because the landlady was a brilliant cook. Apparently she had a legendary temper though and often threatened her DH with an axe. She was always very friendly with her lodgers though.

OP, I think these days the term “poverty” is relative. Most of us have grandparents who lived quite hard lives…. My grandmother had to walk across Hackney Marsh every day to get to work, work was hard, poorly paid…. In many ways the norm. My other set of grandparents grew up in the Work house….. and that I think was the mark of real poverty. I feel great great sadness when I think of them….. I also think of the sadness, of my grandmother giving me a dressing gown she knitted for Christmas, and me hating it because it was itchy….. at the time I didn’t know her background, but now,now I know she grew up in the workhouse, I understand how precious a gift like that dressing gown must’ve been…. And I feel guilty and sad. I suppose One could consider, that council emergency accommodation is a kind of 21st century Work house….. it’s overcrowded, it’s dirty, there are probably vermin. The only difference is., that the workhouse was kept clean, and relatively vermin free, by the huge amount of people whose daily job to earn food and their bed was to do those duties. But there is no getting away from the fact that lots of people live in relative poverty. Many sofa surf, because they cannot afford accommodation, some working people are homeless, because they have no one to sofa surf with. This should not be happening….. but a successive government have no grip on a life lived in poverty, a life where you fall through the nets for one reason or another. Politicians rarely understand domestic abuse, they really understand a child who runs away from home because she is abused there. Politicians might like to think they understand….. but they don’t. And this is why so many people live on benefits which keep them below the poverty line, including pensioners. This does not happen in countries like Switzerland, who citizens are cared for, treated with respect. Sadly, I think Britain is truly broken….. and I don’t know what the answer is. Even if I did, would it matter?

What planet does someone have to be on to think mobile internet access is not a necessity?

I can only imagine anyone who thinks this is elderly, already has analogue systems set up for all their services, and rarely has a need to apply for or set up anything new. It just doesn’t make sense any other way.

During Covid you couldn’t even get into a cafe without scanning a bleeding QR code! And that was almost five years ago.

I was born in south London and shared a single bed with two siblings in a tiny flat in the 90s, u would be surprised what people are going through even now

Yes. There’s a (small!) two-bedroom HMO flat in my building that has two unrelated families, both with children, renting it. That’s poverty. I don’t know whether they have smartphones or not, but what does it matter when they’re living like that?

For those who think the modern-day British poor have things too easy, there is NO-ONE who would meet their standards for “true” poverty.

They’ll always find someone worse off - conveniently either abroad or in history so it’s not something they have to worry about - and say that’s the only kind of poverty that counts.

I’ve just had a new boiler fitted which has an app. I can now see how much my heating costs on a daily basis and how much my daily shower or bath costs.
Decent deep relaxing bath 67p and a shower 10mins 18p.
It’s easy to forget just how much it costs every time we switch something on.

Currently the heating costs just under £3 a day but it is cold here at the moment. We have the heating set at 19deg during the day and 10deg at night. Not all the radiators are on. The house is warm and well insulated.
I’m becoming a little obsessed with monitoring the cost, the novelty will wear off but it is interesting how much more it costs as the temp goes down.

We are lucky that we can afford to heat the house but it has given me an insight into just how much it costs from day to day. If we were on a limited budget then I can imagine that we would be rationing the heating a lot more.

It really really is. If not a smart phone then a laptop or other way to get online. A smartphone is the most convenient of all the options.

Have to say I'm a bit irritated by people upthread going on about people unprepared to forgo luxuries.

I live in a humble two bedder, part of a pub that's been split into flats. The front door goes straight into the living room, which is also where I sleep and work. There is damp bubbling through the walls, nasty peeling laminate floor, right on the main road: it's shabby. I'm not saying poor me (I love living here) but most Mnetters wouldn't dream of it.

Dd2 has a lot of friends who are poor, a number of them are in care. When they come in here they always go 'ooh' and often say how posh it is. They think we're really rich. I ask them if they've eaten and they say not since yesterday, so I feed them. If they're all going out I'll give my daughter enough cash to get everyone a snack and they all tell me how kind I am.

But my dd1's friends, who are all very middle class and nice girls, say thanks but they're not awed by my 'generosity' because it is NORMAL for them to have adults feed them and give them treats (as it should be!). There is a HUGE difference - but you wouldn't know it out on the street, where they all look the same.

Well I work in a job in east London that requires me going into peoples houses and I can assure you that there are many many families of 5 or more living in HMO in a single room the size of my bathroom, mattresses on the floor for the kids to sleep on, mould on the walls. Nowhere for the kids to play, sharing bathrooms with multiple strangers. Life is still unbelievably hard for many many families in the U.K.

I remember our elderly neighbour (over 40 years ago) telling me that when I had an apple! Seems bizarre now, doesn’t it? Makes me so cross to see kids apparently living in poverty and being so wasteful, throwing food and rubbish as they walk along to school 😢

Precisely! Priorities are completely wrong these days. A smartphone is not an "essential item"

I think poverty today is less visible than 100 years ago. But it's still there: malnourishment, unheated homes, thin clothes, overcrowding, mould and damp, cultural deprivation, chronic stress.

I did laugh, though, at the suggested solutions of lodgers, home baking and sewing. I'm not poor and I don't have my own bedroom, let alone have spare for a lodger. And baking bread and sewing are bourgeois hobbies these days, not routes out of poverty. We're getting a bit 'let them eat cake' here.

I was raised poor, I know what it is. And I've had hard times, my kids had FSM. But I also know the difference between my own occasional troubles and the grinding intergenerational poverty that results in people in poorer boroughs dying on average several years younger than people in richer boroughs in London. The welfare state provides a safety net and that's a great thing, but capitalism has been really savage to those on the bottom. Lucky you if you don't see it.

Either way baking and selling bread is unlikely to stop someone being broke. You'd have to actually know enough people who'd be willing to pay decent money for a loaf (which is about 70p in a supermarket) I don't know anyone who would buy bread from me if I started baking tomorrow haha. Even my friend with hens has to give her excess eggs away for free because no one is willing to pay for them.
Plus the idea about renting out a spare room was equally hilarious how many broke people do you know with a spare room? I know whole families that live in one room what are they supposed to rent out a corner of their one room? What kind of responsible parents would want a random stranger living in the same house as their children anyway.

The ops money saving ideas are just as terrible as telling someone to start an onlyfans selling feet pics. The feet pic market is saturated and no one really wants to see your feet that much anyway

Tbh I googled it and found a bunch of people on moneysavingexpert discussing it. But I found similar prices quoted on several sites and it doesn’t seem far off.

There is a vast difference between true poverty and "not having every creature comfort one wants."

I keep forgetting that it costs money to turn the cooker on. Does it really cost that much? How do you know how much it costs?

I don't think JandamiHash is getting the main point people are making, that past and present are connected.
She keeps getting distracted by the individual examples.

In the UK, very very few I'd imagine, virtually nil perhaps....that's because vast majority are vaccinated and therefore there is herd immunity. Those who don't vaccinate are benefitting from the fact that most people do.