How the term 'poverty' has changed

Clean water is important, but if all vaccines suddenly stopped working, child deaths would sky-rocket. This idea that vaccines aren't instrumental in preventing child deaths is a lie spread by anti - vaxxers.

How many children die now because they don’t have a vaccine?

The drop in child deaths is vastly down to improvement in healthcare and innovation and better living conditions

It’s exactly the same issue as “100 years ago people died from bugs that we’d now spend maybe a day in bed for”.

That fact from the past that you cite as irrelevant and doesn’t have any bearing on what we do now is the primary rationale for vaccines. If I look at vaccines and ignore the time that everyone died of those diseases, I absolutely would not be getting vaccinated.

That’s an entirely different issue - anti-vaxxers shouldn’t be treated like reasonable or grateful humans.

These are interesting and important questions.

The point you make is extremely relevant to today though. There are plenty of anti vaxxers nowadays, but when I walk round my local cemetery end see how many headstones refer to “their children who died in infancy”, or how many headstones there are for children under 5 - I’d bet my bottom dollar that those parents would have sacrificed an actual limb for a vaccine.

Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it. We should absolutely be making comparisons to appreciate the progress we have made if we want to retain that progress.

I remember in Wales seeing hollowed out spaces in the hillside where families used to live while the father worked in the tin mines. That was poverty like we do not currently have. And I do not want to exist either.

Yes, they clearly would like poverty here to be like poverty in India. The poors deserve it for not having a spare room to let out and being too lazy to bake their own bread.

Of course, the Indian poor of today have it pretty sweet compared to the Indian poor of 200 years ago.

They don’t know they’re born, the pampered wasters.

This is so ridiculous. This was the time when you could die from a preventable disease even when super wealthy, and when people thought nothing of using child labour, abuse single mothers, or someone who had a child out of wedlock. the times were brutal. We live in a civilised country, with a high standard of life in general, we are wealthy enough to support people who have less than - and yet, you seem to think this is "too much". Everything is relative. Poor in the UK is different to poor in India - would you like it to be the same? Shame on you.

We're going to round in circles now.

I don't understand why this bothers you at all, do you want people to suffer more so they fit your definition of poverty?

Is kids having to rely on school to be fed and clothed enough?

I've just had a look at the application process for the FE college I went to as a sixteen year old back in the 1980s. Granted, it's not quite the same place, because it merged with a couple of other institutions and built a new facility in town, but it caters to roughly the same cohort as it did back in the day, plus a 14-16 intake with EHCPs who've got the support of their LEA. And yes, the form's online. And the mobile number is a required field - I don't think I've come across that before and I've filled in more forms online than I like to remember.

I agree with this. I also grew up really poor amongst really poor neighbours. People would "borrow" some slices of bread from a neighbour so they could give their kids dry toast for breakfast. That is because they had NO food in the house at all.

It’s not relevant in how we discuss the poverty of today

I think you are conflating two things: people not understanding how bad it is for you and people pointing out that poverty in general has declined over time. It is perfectly possible for them to be able to do both.

I’m sorry you’re having such a terrible time: I fully believe that poverty is degrading, discouraging and terrifying. It is also something that can happen to anyone - it’s not usually driven by an individual’s freely made choices. I hope things improve for you and you get some luck soon.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. I was born in the late 60s, my mum was one of ten living in a very poor household. She left my dad in the 70s, we shared a bed with coats on top to keep warm for a few years. She worked 70 hour weeks throughout my teens and turned down a council flat, preferring to private rent as the local estate was a dive. I was lucky enough to get into a fantastic grammar school and thanks to social mobility got a degree and out of the poverty trap. I’m not sure how easy that would be now. I live in Oz now in a five bedroom house with a pool, it’s a bloody long way in every sense of the word to where I came from. But I don’t think that social mobility is there any more. Wage stagnation in the UK is a real problem, I was earning 30k in the 90s as a newly qualified accountant, I’m horrified to see some of the wages on here seem to have remained the same while house prices have multiplied enormously. Welfare dependency in the UK is a massive issue because wages just haven’t kept up with inflation, it’s a real problem.

Yes, absolutely it should be recognised and I'd love something to change. But what I mean in, when I'm sat on my sofa with a hot drink in my hand, watching TV knowing I can have a hot bath later it doesn't feel like poverty.

Give it a few years and huge numbers of jobs are going to be replaced by AI anyway.... governments are going to have to think outside the box as to how people will manage

I don’t claim poverty but I still mend clothes and bake to save money. Maybe that’s why I don’t claim poverty? Managing your finances and prioritising spending seems to be less important than instant gratification nowadays.

My parents were comfortably off and my mum made all our clothes, cooked and baked everything from scratch. The only difference between us is that I was able to further my education, qualify as a professional so didn’t have the time to do what she did. However, had she been born later she too would have qualified as a professional ( probably a doctor). But her family didn’t have the money to support the girls through education, it was reserved for her two younger brothers neither of whom went into further or higher education.

Not really a poverty issue but poverty does seem to discourage ambition nowadays. I would imagine that many of us are wealthy nowadays as a direct result of our ancestors ambition to elevate themselves out of the poverty trap. When there was no welfare state to support you, hard work was the only solution. Being a professional with a high income is still hard work but the benefits are rewarding. And this takes us back to the wage conundrum. If we paid sufficient salaries there would be no need for supplements. However this would not end poverty because there will always be a sub group that cannot or will not work and we have to support them from a humanitarian point of view.

Raising minimum wage but reducing employers NI contributions would have been a more sensible way to address the current problem. It would lessen the benefits bill but reduce NI income. Money would have been saved ultimately on reducing the cost of administration. But it is politically more of benefit to a government to be seen to give out money than for employers to just pay a living wage. Instead, employers facing the huge cost of NI and they cut jobs and hours pushing those on minimum wage further into poverty requiring more and more top ups.

I think I’ve posted before about this but I have a relative who has never worked. In their 40s. Their spouse is disabled so they get benefits for this.

I’m quoting their mother and sister in saying that the reason they don’t work now is through choice. They were needed at home when their children were small but now that they’re grown there’s no reason for them not having a job.

So these kind of people do exist. Now I’m not saying I begrudge them the money, but I can’t think it’s good for anyone to never work a day in their life.

homework (I don't know anything about this as I don't have children, but apparently homework is sent via email or on school intranet sites

Yes it is...I'm not sure you can even apply for your child to go to school without doing it online? When my teenage ds started school, I actually filled in a paper form...I don't even know if that's an option now.

Thank you for posting OP It’s educational reading all the different perspectives and opinions but I am really interested in learning:

1. what made life generally improve so much in uk post war after all the suffering and destruction.
2. what do we need to do now to make life better across board but especially for next generation. Not lose precious things that have brought better health etc.

1. I come from on one side v poor Irish immigrants (farming) who worked hard at jobs allotment and raising six children. Grandad lost tied cottage when job changed by new landowner and evicted. They were given council house with huge garden but only three bedrooms so tight but so appreciative of government help.

One thing that marks modern poverty out from its counterpart in previous generations is the ubiquity of technology. Thanks to societal changes and the decisions made by institutions to become reliant on apps, websites and smartphones, individual women, men and increasingly, children, are pushed into having tech themselves whether they can afford it or even want it. It may not be an individual's choice for themselves or their children - well tough. Get on board or there are some services you just won't access, including UC, jobs, banking in many areas, cheap train tickets, homework (I don't know anything about this as I don't have children, but apparently homework is sent via email or on school intranet sites.) A lot of service providers don't like sending bills through the post and will go out of their way to get you online.

My phone is used for calls, texts, bus and train tickets, my senior railcard, email, shopping, banking, news, music and notifications of all kinds etc as it's become easier to load as much of my life as possible onto one device and harder to organise things in any other way. My bank account has to be managed online - I can only use the branch if I have a cheque for more than £2k to pay in. My GP surgery will not accept repeat prescription requests over the phone. You have to use the app or an online form. We no longer live in the 1980s and 90s and I'm fine with that. But the extent to which we've become dependent on our phones isn't a result of individual choices, it's societal and systemic and blaming individuals for the expensive outcome is obtuse. At the same time, the cost is placed at the door of the end user, who may find that they have to get a smartphone, regardless of any other financial pressures they have.

I think it can both be true that once you're in "the system" it can be fairly easy for some people to live a life of complete dependence on the state - developing skills to navigate the benefits system, knowing exactly what to say etc

And that for the kind of person who is generally doing okay but one pay packet away from trouble, it's really difficult to work out how to get quick money to tide you over for a few months while you find another job

Just look at things like PIP, you constantly have people with genuine and obvious disabilities being turned down because they tried to sound positive and cheerful in the interview, while others follow online instructions to say exactly the right things despite being pretty much fine

The thing that annoys me is when people judge having a mobile as a marker of poverty. Try claiming a benefit, looking for a job, banking without the internet these days.

Don’t forget nowadays people can work and still be eligible for benefits, and good banks exist. Poverty just looks very different in 2025.