I don’t understand how ‘growth’ will help the 4.5m children in poverty

[Decisionsdecisions1]

I’m no economist and would welcome being educated, it’s a genuine question.

There is so much emphasis on ‘growth’, ‘growing the economy’ etc. I don’t understand how that translates into more affordable rents (as housing costs are a prime factor underlying poverty in the UK) or wages keeping up with the rising cost of food, utilities etc or more stable employment (rather than insecure zero hours contracts etc) or more affordable and available childcare (as again this is a key factor in poverty in the UK).

Statistically we know that wealth at the top end (multi millionaires) has increased while the number in poverty has also increased. This suggests only one end of the spectrum is benefiting from growth.

I’d like to hear more about how rents will be controlled, how employment rights can be improved etc. But no one seems to be interested in that. It’s all ‘the UK is open for business’. For what purpose? For whose benefit?

The thing with the shop floor workers and self checkouts my own store has 3 floor staff to 1 checkout worker (no self service) our hours are being cut to the bone due to the increase in employer costs (NIC, minimum wage) so our take home pay is reduced meaning less room in the budget for discretionary spending which means stores like mine take less money etc etc. For growth to happen that kind of scenario needs to be reversed, yes the minimum wage increase will boost our take because we are in an area where the majority of jobs are minimum wage (even ones quoting salaries are rarely more than a pence or 2 above). So every penny extra people can earn helps.

Lets see if we can work out who reads the Mail eh. What joy do people get in being such judgemental wankers I wonder

My daughter is one of those 96%. Ok we don't currently class as living in poverty but we did - my daughters phone is one she was given by someone who upgraded, I don't have a contract for it and top up £5 a month. That £5 means I can track her location, keep in touch, peace of mind etc since she walks to and from school just over 2 miles each way it works out cheaper than the bus fare.

She also needs it for homework as it's all set online. How many of those 96% have actually paid out for a phone specifically?

A smart phone is cheaper than a computer. DS2 is in primary and already does school work online at the age of 7. DS1 is older and has to have access to home device for lots of his stuff.

I think it's not nearly as expensive as you think i tis. I notice, for example, that many of DS' friends who come to our house instantly ask for the wifi password - because they don't HAVE data, or very little. Phones are often hand me downs or older versions. And frankly, even when there is a cost, it's still relatively low compared to the cost of many other things and at least ifyour child has a phone they've got the one thing that makes them feel like all the other kids.

DS likes to tell me that ALL his friends have the latest iphones. It's total bollocks. Most of them are androids and not the latest ones either.

According to Ofcom, 96% of children aged 11-18 own a smartphone - an expensive and unnecessary device for a child to have, and absolutely not something a family supposedly living in poverty and unable to afford food or heat should be buying and paying data contracts on for children.

How are they all supposed to do their homework then?
95% of homework is on via online platforms from primary school (age 6/7) to the end of secondary: mathletics, educake, seneca, sparx, etc, etc.

Smartphones have been made a necessity for all children by schools, not parents.

Wrap your head around that one.

Until Russia's aggression becomes more overt. Killing more people on British soil... Cutting our undersea cables..... Cyber attacks that interfere with the running of banking and NHS and other essential services. Interfering in our domestic politics... Spying...

We don't have that choice.

Ok.

i am not an economist but I studied economics.

why is growth helpful?

imagine a country, maybe like Anglo Saxon England. People grow their own food, there’s a barter system if you want to swop food and most people spin and make their own clothes.

in times when the crops fail people go hungry and some starve.

in a society like this there is absolute poverty (some people will starve to death) and also relative poverty (the kings and merchants have dyed clothes made by people who spend most of their time weaving, they have gold and chairs and horses that other people don’t have).

in any society there is usually relative poverty - that is some people have less than others. In modern societies in the west there is very little absolute poverty (very few people starve to death). We have less relative poverty than Anglo Saxon England but more now than say in the 1970s.

growth helps get rid of absolute poverty and can help get rid of relative poverty.

imagine someone in Anglo Saxon England finds out that if you add cow shit to the field where wheat is growing you get lots more wheat.

cow shit is basically free so everyone starts doing it. Suddenly there is a lot more wheat being produced.

this is growth.

more food means people are less likely to starve to death.

more food also can mean that relative poverty is improved but not necessarily.

imagine the king notices that more wheat is being produced. He decides that he wants more tax from his people as they are producing more. So he takes more wheat as his share.

the people are now no better off. The king has taken the additional amount that was produced (the growth).

Other posters have made most of the relevant points (required for school work, to keep in touch with parents etc) but I will just say this.
Proper poverty is soul crushingly cruel to children. As an adult it's bad enough but as a child you don't understand why 'all of the other kids' get days out, new school shoes, beautifully decorated bedrooms with the latest tech etc. You already feel less deserving of the lifestyle your peers are already living. Imagine being that child and not having a phone, the thing that the other kids all use to contact each other about meeting at the park, it's just another thing you get left out for.
I'm going to guess the 4% that don't have a phone are not living in poverty. I think it is more likely that Felix and Felicity are probably at private school and their parents have them in 12 different paid for activities a week where they see their friends without having to make their own arrangements.

We need growth to fund public services. We currently spend more money than we get in in taxation. Unless we increase the size of the economy we can’t afford to pay for what we have now, never mind increase it.

Growth = more revenue for companies, more jobs, more tax income for the government, more available to spend/deficit shrinks and government have room to make tax cuts or increase benefits etc to win votes.

stagnation or recession = companies have declining revenue so increased business failures and job losses to maintain profits or reduce losses, lower tax income for the government, tax rises/spending cuts, deficit increases.

this is basic economics.

i also do not know what is meant by poverty - families on benefits seem to be able to afford the latest tech, excess at Christmas (far more than I would spend on dc), occasional holidays and have relatively normal lives all at the expense of the tax payer. A large number of those who seem to live in what I would call poverty are drug users.

While I wouldn’t put it quite like that, I don’t think giving money to parents is enough. Often poor parenting and budgeting can be the issue.

Bow out of defending ourselves?

Genuinely one of the most blinkered comments I've ever read 😮

I think you just seem to have absorbed some Jeremy corbyn esq myths. Generally when we see economies grow we see higher employment, lower prices, etc. Businesses produce goods to make a profit but have to compete with other businesses. House builders will build what sells (and of course the social housing they are forced to sell). The reason housing is so expensive is that we haven’t built enough for decades. If we increase supply, the cost will go down. Putting controls on rents etc has never reduced costs - in fact it often increases them by reducing supply.

same with increasing costs of labour (eg via minimum wage). That’s one reason (together with increasing costs of food) that self checkouts are being introduced. Supermarkets want to keep their prices competitive to keep attracting customers so don’t want to spend a disproportionate amount on staff.

Growth produces money. Money produces taxes. Tax income allows the Govt. to do things.

Yes I hate to say it and I realise it makes me sound like a Daily Mail outrage headline. But UC is actually very generous to people with children, with frugal spending these kids should not be living in poverty. We have a handful of families popping up time and time again here on Facebook who are quite open about the fact they’re unemployed and on UC, but they’re always spending - asking where they can get X or Y on finance or with a poor credit rating, or where they can get some kind of salon beauty treatment. Their kids all wear North Face and other branded items. There is a LOT which is considered essential now which frankly isn’t essential.

Some really interesting posts on this thread.

Just popped back to say the £4.5m is from DWP figures, as referenced in. Guardian article (that I'm struggling to add a link to sorry).
Another interesting stat was that 44% of that 4.5m were children living in a household with a parent with a disability (which I guess is why it's prompted the article now).

The willingness of employers to offer jobs to those who might require reasonable adjustments is another interesting factor I guess in how growth impacts poverty.

I saw some data last year - I think from the Resolution foundation - that I recall suggested that Universal Credit has been least helpful to families on benefits due to disabilities.

The reality is that there are deep issues in how money is spent and how growth is encouraged and as a country, ew haven't done a particularly good job on the housing front.

But it's complex. I live in Surrey. It's not the posh part of Surrey and is on the border with London. But we do, inevitably, have some really beautiful green belt lands. There have been arguments and debates for YEARS, because the council wants to take a SMALL amount of this land for housing. Protests. Outrage etc. If you read the rhetoric, you'd honestly think that they were planning to put up 50,000 houses and we'd be stuck in a completely green-free neighbourhood. I have looked at the plans. Within the radius of my house that I regularly travel in by foot or by car - ie my broader community of let's say 2-3 square miles, they want to take what amounts to one tract of land. I walked over that tract with my dog the other day - it's one of three equally sized tracts of land that just sort of sit in th emiddle of nowhere backing onto each other and, in my opinion, is a great place to build some more houses. It's also clsoe to other siilar housing projects that have proven to be really fantastic additions to the area. The much much bigger nature reserve that I ALSO often walk my dog in, has ZERO plans for more housing - not even the random weird bits at various intervals that are just screaming out for a bit of development to my mind!

How are we going to get any building done if from when new housing is first suggested to when they start building is 10-15 years!?

Which is why I'm banging on about growth not being enough, we need the WILL to make sure that growth translates.

Growth will help parents earn to feed and clothe the children they brought into this world.

People need to make choices they can realistically afford not choices they think welfare will pay for.

There should be a safety net of course there should but an income stream just because you breed, how does that help anyone especially the children born to those families?

Housing is going to be an issue for a generation at least, so if you have or want children you need to be able to answer the question if you can afford to bring them up.

@noblegiraffe Why on earth do you tho k we don’t?

I don’t understand how ‘growth’ will help the 4.5m children in poverty

From your posts, OP, you seem more clued up about economics than Rachel Reeves is.

How much choice do you think Ukraine had?

Sadly @noblegiraffe , I think Ukraine will lose. I wish they would not. But I don’t think levying the British people will help one bit, even if you do.

We do live in a lovely world compared to what it would look like if we weren’t tooled up to defend ourselves. Please put down the pan pipes and the dream catchers and flippin’ well educate yourself about what happens when good men stand by and do nothing. 🙄