to think that it is disgusting that in 2011...

[StuckinTheMiddlewithYou]

So many people cannot raise a family without state support. The economy is so skewed towards the needs of the rich that it is almost impossible for many to support themselves entirely.

Wages are too low. Housing costs are too high.

Attacking those who have no choice but to rely on the state, is missing the point.

I have noticed that living at any particular standard is getting harder as years go by. For example, I have cousins in their sixties who bought property at very low prices and due to the economic booms they have lived in are very comfortably off as they approach retirement. They have good pensions on top of this.

We struggled to get onto the property ladder when younger but got on there eventually and have benefitted greatly. Both DH and I are professionals, him FT and me PT, he will get a company pension and I have bits from different schemes frozen at different times.

Friends 10 years younger than us have found it even harder as the property prices were way higher and they have less chance of good pensions.

DCs are on their 20s, both in rented property and likely to find things even harder again.

So, yes, something has to change but what? The problem we now have is that a lot of people, ourselves included, will rely on capital from our property to fund us in our retirement. If property prices plummet it will benefit the younger in society at the expense of those who have struggled for years to invest in it and create a generation of impoverished pensioners.

There doesn't seem to be any easy answer

I think this must all be dependent on where you live. My relatives in Scotland including my 21 yr old nephew are all in social housing and seem to have no bother going in and out of it when they fancy it.

That's not to say I don't have sympathy, I totally agree that housing costs are too high, but equally I think we have much higher expectations of living standards these days. As someone whose parents grew up as one of 7 children in a 2 bed house (the parents slept in the living room), I think on a relative basis the vast majority of people are much better off these days despite the trials and tribulations of current life. No-one had a car, they walked several miles and travelled on buses for hours every day to work (1 bus every 7 days). They ate the scrag ends of meat from the butcher (stovies anyone), didn't have central heating (coal fire carefully used) and never had new clothes, jumble sales, hand-me downs etc. This was not a particularly poor existence in terms of relativity - my mother frequently tells me proudly they were one of the better off families in the village!

Even I growing up as the daughter of a teacher and a bank worker only ever got meat once a week and boy did my mum make it last. I pretty much never had new clothes and until I was 15 I shared a room with my brother (he then had to move in to a room with my other 2 brothers as I wouldn't share with him any more). I also had never been abroad until I was about 17 (I am 36).

I know things are harder now than they have been for the last 20 years and I do sympathise, but seriously 2x mobile phones, a littlewoods account, internet, sky - these are luxuries on a historic level. Relatively poor yes, absolutely poor - no!

I genuinely think anyone who thinks our children are worse off than our parents were at their age needs to seriously look at living conditions back then. The problem is that in between our parents generation and our childrens, we have had golden years - those were unsustainable and we need to recognise that a lot of it has been self-inflicted (though personally I blame the baby boomers!).

I disagree that the current economic inequality in our society is self inflicted.

Bob Diamond at Barclays has averaged £16million a year over the past 4 yrs. Just imagine how many famillies could be lifted out of poverty with that. I'm surprised he can sleep at night because no one can be worth that sort of pay.

Whilst those at the top are still being paid such silly sums of money house prices will never fall into line with the wages of ordinary working people.

It seems like things are slipping backwards though puzzled. Especially with housing. A lot of people down here(westcounty) can't get social housing and have to put up with sometimes unhealthy(damp+asthma) and insecure private rentals.

interesting info on social housing

theresnosuchthingassociety- have a

children are essential to society, if only the rich had them, we'd die out. Who the hell is it you think is going to pay for your pension and healthcare when you're old?

The word "poor" has been thrown around a lot, would someone care to define the word "poor" in the context that you're using it?

Poor-someone who cannot feed themselves or family, has NO income, does not have a roof over their head, doesn't have transport or a job etc etc, this it what it is to me.

I wasn't aware so many parents with computers and broadband were dreadfully "poor".

darleneconnor - are you suggesting that only the rich had children before the welfare state? Because that's simply not true. People will have children anyway.

The difference is, in the past the amount of children they had was determined by their economic output whereas now it's not limited by that and we have an expanding underclass who have never worked, and don't have the very most basic of skills to become employable and whose children aren't being taught how to be productive members of society since they have nothing to refer to. A friend of mine works in Primary 1 of the most deprived areas in the country and she says 90% of the kids she receives are so far behind where they should be developmentally that they will never ever catch up. They're simply born to extend their parents benefits.

And, bearing in mind that their parents are not economically responsible enough to provide for themselves or their children, what makes you think that these children will be productive members of society and be able to provide tomorrow's healthcare/pensions etc?

We need to break the cycle somehow - and removing the incentives to have lots of kids you can't afford would be one way of doing that.

i don't believe in rich or poor

financially comfortable or financially challenged perhaps.....

point well made about "poor" people with laptop/broadband etc though

I wonder if people really do have this fuck the poor attitude in RL or if they are just trolling?

There's an example. (sorry for butting in)

Who the hell is it you think is going to pay for your pension and healthcare when you're old?

well yes who indeed, not the third generation, spotty faced, obese unemployed/unemployable for sure, something has to be done to break the cycle asap otherwise the children who work will have to support the elderly and their peers.

there wasnt the pill before the welfare state

if we didnt have the 'poor' people having kids then the fertility rate would fall below the replacement rate, and we would die out

Lady, so are you saying that only someone who has no income, no food and no roof over their head should be considered poor ?

You have been reading too much Dickens

There is such a thing a relative poverty, so although children living in poverty probably do eat, they will almost certainly not have the benefit of good quality healthy food that their richer counter parts enjoy.

Sadly, and this gives me absolutley no pleasure in saying it, the majority of peple in the UK will continue to see their living standards fall for the next 20 years at least.

Most people of working age today will retire far less well off than their parents. The UK and most of the western world has entered a period of long slow economic decline.

Until mnimum wages fall to China/India levels then low tech UK industry will be uncompetitive and hence unemployment will remain high for a long time. Many people will never work again after this recession. Many will never see a pay rise even if they do work.

Why do I think this? Look at what is happening in the USA in places like Detroit where manufacturing died. Many US public sector workers are also in severe danger of losing not only their job but also their pension and their health insurance.

A lucky few will be wealthier. The UK simply cannot borrow anymore and will be forced to live within its means on a declining national income.

We will not die out at all, we might be replaced by other more productive races but that's how it works, survival of the fittest.

Yes ambarth, things are slipping backwards, but that's because we have actually been living beyond our means for a number of years and now the price has to be paid. Houses were damp 20 years ago too and every social housing I have ever lived in was rubbish, poorly maintained and unhealthy. The fact of the matter is that if wages are insufficient to maintain our current standard of living then as an economy our standard of living needs to fall or wages need to adjust upwards. Unfortunately, there is no room in the economy for wages to adjust upwards so what happens from here?

and reducing the wages of rich people doesn't achieve anything except make our economy less able to support the poor

BeenBeta is right and said what I meant to say - only much more clearly!

no actually there is evidence that the world fertility rate will get below replacement level sometime in the next century.

I'm wondering whether our government, the banks and big businesses are looking to china and India and thinking that this is the way to go.

It seems that those at the top would be happy to see higher employment rates and lower wages overall.

Tory MPs are putting forward a Bill to ammend the national minimum wage. I think that businesses and wealthy people who have shares in these businesses must be thinking that the only way to compete with china and India is to exploit cheaper labour here.

It seems that those at the top would be happy to see higher employment rates and lower wages overall.

I think you are right .... and if we aren't replaced but the planet survives that surely is a good thing we can't carry on ripping down rain forests, using up fossil fuel and expecting there not to be massive implications.

Queenbathsheba

"It seems that those at the top would be happy to see higher employment rates and lower wages overall."

Isn't that just simple economics? If the supply of labour is more than the demand for labour then the cost of that labour will fall until such a point as the demand equals the supply?

The minimum wage is an artificial construct and distorts the labour market.

Incidentally, retailers can't afford to pay more than the minimum wage - can't remember who said the minimum wage needed to go up, but there are loads of retailers who would go out of business if it did.

The ammendments to the Bill are being put forward by Chope who in the 90's tried to defend his right to pay 87p and hour.

Apparently the idea is to scrap the minimum wage because this would create an insentive for businesses to employ more people. Why more people? More people, lower wages, greater productivity and proffit for the top 10%

THe Tories selling off all the council houses in the 80's really fucked a lot of things up. Now, we have high demand for social housing - and no houses. All new builds are tiny flats. There are loads of developments where we are, part buy part rent, going empty, because their target market are already in small flats, and don't see the point of paying over double for the same property. Houses prices have risen far beyond salary increases.

And the Big Society agenda is so obviously a cover up for "we're taking away essential services and telling communities that we are responding to their demand for more say and control over these services by letting them actually run them, except of course the communities that most need them are ill-equipped to do so" that I can't understand how it can be given any credence at all. Why is it even treated as a legitimate political agenda? AND (and this is my own personal bugbear) when it comes to volunteering, can someone remind David Cameron that charities exist for many reasons but to provide endless meaningful volunteering opportunities for people deemed no longer eligible for benefits is not one of them. Yes, volunteers do an amazing job and many charities would not exist without them; but volunteering is not "free" and when it comes to a person who has been compelled into it under threat of losing their benefits, how valuable is it, actually?

How depressing.

Puzzled, simple! I agree that many small busineses struggle to pay the minimum wage but the evil tesco! surely they could afford a little more (every little helps their share holders and top management) yep very simple but not very humane.

I don't believe that capitalism is the only economic model, there are other options but these will never be tabled because politicians do not get to make policy, they just provide the window dressing to "democracy"

what is a good alternative economic model then?

Do you know what margin Tesco makes in the UK and what it would make if the minimum wage doubled as someone suggested? Tesco is an international organisation and only makes so much profit because it is paying lots of people in China and South Korea a lot less than here