...to feel slightly annoyed when people claim to be "living in poverty"

[ihateconflict]

...and have huge TVs/smoke/drink/have a holiday abroad each year/wear designer clothes and shoes and handbags, and have all the latest electronic gadgets. In contrast, as a "middle class" (hate this label) professional living in an expensive area, i cant afford any of the above (dont smoke or drink, so dont include those). We havent had any holiday for 5 years, let alone one abroad. AND, when DCs were at school, their friends with EMA allowance were the ones who had driving lessons for their 17th birthday, and cars for their 18th birthday. My DCs had to pay for own driving lessons, and didnt get cars until they finished uni and were earning. I am full of sympathy for those in "genuine" poverty, but somewhere priorities and definitions seem a bit wrong

if you lived in acheaper area you would have more spending money for treats, its your choice

Yes but even when income is less than 60% of the median income, someone can still walk into a doctors and be treated, still get an education, still be sheltered, still have a safety net. That is the point. Relative poverty is bollocks because it still implies poverty which it isn't. It is people in very poor situations with poor living standards but it's still not poverty by any means.

ChocolateCake, there are poverty stricken areas in the UK where the average life expectancy is lower than in Ghana, Bangladesh, Sudan and Cambodia. In the poorest part of Glasgow, average life expectancy is 54. Are you really saying it is offensive for people in those areas who will probably not even live long enough to become pensioners to claim that they are living in poverty?

Next year there will be romanians and bulgarians coming to the UK because to them it looks like Disneyland. Try telling them that free healthcare, schooling and housing means poverty.

Many immigrants in the UK are living in absolute poverty as measured by the UN - they live on less than 77p per day.

It is relative poverty because that's the definition of relative poverty! Dont you understand?

FULL HOUSE!

Sorry, I was playing Daily Mail bingo

Bulgarians and Romanians are already entitled to enter the UK freely. The restrictions on employment will be lifted in 2014.

No i don't understand because it's bollocks. Just because someone somewhere (who has no doubt never lived in poverty) has "defined" it that way doesn't make it ok or true.

Yes Bulgarians and Romanians can come to the UK now and you missed that point entirely.

It must be really hard for you to communicate with people if you insist on defining words in a way that is entirely at odds with everyone else's definition. Presumably poverty, both relative and absolute, have been defined in particular ways because they are useful for devising health, education, housing and work strategies. They are understood by pretty much everyone over the age of 11 because they are taught in the KS3 Geography curriculum.

If you worked in some area to do with say, infant mortality in the UK, and you wanted to change definitions because it would save lives through a change in strategies, I could see your point. But there seems to be no practical purpose to your desire to redefine poverty as meaning a life without basic indicators of development, thereby excluding many people who live in either absolute or relative poverty.

The thing that struck me reading this thread is the glaring difference in understanding between those who have been genuinely poor and those who haven't

It's not just about going without and having a dull, boring, grind of a life. It's the state of mind it carries with it - the guilt that you can't make your kids' faces light up on their birthdays (and we live in a society where we don't control what our kids' expectations are), the constant strain which makes you feel tired and on edge all the time. There is also a strong element of FEAR in being genuinely poor. Having £1.26 in the bank and £33 quid arriving next Friday, and every penny of that spoken for. What if something goes wrong? What if you suddenly need money for something? Perhaps it is just me, but that is quite a large part of the horror of being poor IME (and we have been in the past). I never quite slept properly. DH gets very impatient with my food hoarding. I like to feel that I've got several kilograms of rice, lentils etc in the house.

Anyone who thinks there aren't families living in poverty in the UK needs to take responsibility for their own disgraceful lack of general knowledge about the society they are a part of. There really is no excuse for it.

Oh, and poverty is just a synonym for "being poor" bt the way - they are from the same linguistic root . So you will have to find another word to serve your purpose (whatever that is)

The definitions of poverty are agreed internationally chocolate .Or do you know better than all these epidemiologists?

Fact is you have less chance of doing well IN ALL AREAS OF LIFE if you are born into social class 5 than if you are born in social class 1. Even if you have a roof over your head, can go to a doctor if ill, have food and heating. All studies confirm this.....what is always up gor discussion is how to improve things. ....and it isnt slways by increasing benefits.

Dunno why im bothering to repost this again Chocolate because its obvious that you are ignoring it because it doesnt suit you but here it is again anyway.

For your perusal Chocolate.

A large crowd in the Hope Centre are from Romania, and say they are waiting for food because collecting scrap metal and washing cars isn't enough to make ends meet. A bigger number is there because of benefit delays and cuts, or simply because they are no longer able to make their low wages stretch.

A local supermarket has delivered a load of stock just about to reach its sell-by date (it doesn't want to be named, to avoid getting caught up in discussion of the merits of giving food that is about to go off to the hungry) and today it is offloading industrial quantities of iced buns, which several families take home by the dozen.

The boom in Britain's food banks reflects a number of worrying and complicated trends. As well as rising unemployment, more people are seeing their hours cut at work. For the past couple of years, charities have been warning that a shift to a less generous way of uprating benefits in line with inflation, combined with rising food and fuel prices, would make life more difficult for people claiming benefits. Then there is the start of a new, harsher benefits regime, as a result of which it seems that more claimants are having their payments sanctioned ? cut or stopped entirely ? if they miss appointments. At the same time, the state system of a social fund and crisis loans is being wound down, so emergency cash payments from the welfare system for those deemed to be in extreme need are now exceptionally difficult to procure. Around 43% of visitors to Trussell Trust distribution centres nationwide come because of changes to their benefits or a crisis loan being refused.

A large crowd in the Hope Centre are from Romania, and say they are waiting for food because collecting scrap metal and washing cars isn't enough to make ends meet. A bigger number is there because of benefit delays and cuts, or simply because they are no longer able to make their low wages stretch

Elderly people freeze to death every winter in the UK by the way. Just thought I'd throw that in. Often they aren't found for a while, because they can't afford to go out, see people and maintain a support network. Or perhaps they are just too lazy to get up and switch the heating on

Of course there are some cunts who think old people have it easy, squirrel away loads of money and are screwing the rest of us with their unfair free bus permits. But I've never met a real one.

Thing is that financially I am currently deemed "in poverty", except I am not. I have a degree, I have a job I can go back to and I can make life changes as needed. There are others in the same financial situation as me who dont have my education or work experience. ....and they are in real (relative) poverty.

Whats with the race to the bottom anyway Chocolate Why are we so willing to bring ourselves DOWN to the level of the countries previously mentioned when the answer should be to bring them UP to our level.
Why is it that the public are so easily duped by rags like the Daily Mail.
I have yet to see any publication talk about the fact that Frances welfare system is better than ours. And look UP to them rather than DOWN at other countries who are worse off.

Its like saying "well my dh is verbally and financially abusive to me but its not abuse because his best mate hits his wife"

Where on earth did you get the idea you? get "accomodation/shelter? in Glasgow, if you find yourself homeless and you phone the "street team"

Darkesteyes - what point are you trying to make? Are these people being forced to die in the street? Yes we should be bringing them up to our level which is why it's a shame so many people in this country moan like hell when we send money abroad so help people in dire need.

They have clean water, though, Mrs.

MrsDeVere you and i have established by now that we have different views on poor and poverty. To get into the same circle with you again is pointless because niether of us is going to agree with the other.

I see you have piped up again expat after accusing me of being some sort of benefit basher earlier then went very quiet.

Mrs De Vere thats awful. And its just one example of whats happening in a first world country.