...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

For me someone cannot put UK and poverty in the sentance. No one is going to agree with me on that and i am at a point where i am past wanting to argue about it or even caring. There are people in the UK who have it really shit and who are very poor, i wouldn't call it poverty - relative or otherwise. But my opinion is not that of others clearly. Last night on the news there was a boy abroad who claimed to be 14 (which he wasn't), working as the breadwinner for his family, starting work at 3am to work all day cutting (cannot remember what) using a mashetti (sp?) and i think that is what sparked my feelings on this thread. I am done now.

Jeusu Christ. I am working poor. I cannot afford to pay into a pension. I am stuck in a rent trap. My salary is not rising in line with the cost of living. Universal credit is looming. I am shitting myself as to what to do.

And yet I'm not in the worst situation many others will find themselves. It's frankly terrifying for them. I cannot believe the hardship people are going to find themselves in I am fretting for friends of mine who are going to be in proper dire straits and I wont be able to help them out

OP. Come and spend a week living my life. And then spend a month living many of my friend's lives. Bring your children btw, and make them live it to just so you can appreciate the full effect of it.

We have a reasonably supportive benefits system in the UK I am glad to say but poverty is about so much more than finance. It's about education, hope, self esteem, self belief and confidence in being able to change your lot.....all much easier if you have some money behind you

There are some great posts on this thread but JakeBullet I'd say that's the best one I've ever seen on MN.

Chocolate - I haven't read the whole thread so I haven't read all the nuances of your argument. But I think you are saying that absolute poverty - the $2 a day thing - is real poverty and relative poverty is not.

Well my take on this is that the $2 a day thing measure is equally meaningless. It totally depends on the cost of living in the country concerned. Here people cannot afford to feed their families and that is poverty. Full stop.

MrsDevere You have just described my life and i never considered myself poor. I do get a bit cross and go a bit green when I see "the poor on benefits" out shopping for labels and buying only branded groceries, pushing the latest and greatest in pushchair, wine bottles a clanging all the way home, cigarette hanging out of their mouth.

But then I have to be gratefull that I have something that they don't and no one will ever be able to give them, that is ambition. Also I have enough of an education to feel a little smug that I haven't been suckered into buying brand names believing they are better than unbranded or homemade, that said I know make homemade.

phew feeling less cross and less green now. Also feeling less poor

Chocolate dozens of scientists and social scientists and other professionals have spent years and years analysing what it means to be 'poor' and to live in poverty, and have come up with the definition of poverty (less that $2 a day to live on) and the definition of relative poverty and they are wrong because you think some people have it worse? I'm a bit baffled by that. In the past year we have had 3 new feed banks open up in the area I work. People are legitimately unable to afford to buy food for themselves and their families. If that isn't poverty, what is it?

*food banks, even.

Audina mine is silver with black leather interior.....Do change your name, do!

"The UK is somewhere people come to escape poverty."

And Dick Whittington went to London because he believed the streets were paved with gold. He became Lord Mayor so not a great example, but you get my point hopefully. People might come to escape poverty, but you hear quite enough about what happens to the lorry loads of illegal immigrants to know it usually doesn't work out that way.

EasilyBored.

There is real poverty in this country, but the government are conning the rich into believing it doesn't exist. Society in general are falling for their crap and its going to get worse. I am seriously worried about the propaganda governments spin and the effect it is having in making people show little or no compassion to those who are experiencing hardship.
It is scary to think we have been here before and the consequences were dire.
I have started an AIBU thread about lack of compassion and what it used to be like for those in poverty.

Doubletroublemummy2Thu 28-Feb-13 23:32:57

MrsDevere You have just described my life and i never considered myself poor. I do get a bit cross and go a bit green when I see "the poor on benefits" out shopping for labels and buying only branded groceries, pushing the latest and greatest in pushchair, wine bottles a clanging all the way home, cigarette hanging out of their mouth.

This has to be one of the most classist posts ive ever seen on MN. How do you know what money or benefit they are on? Do they come up to you in the supermarket and tell you.

Great post Morethan. I TOTALLY agree.
And yes we have been here before. There was a thread on here about it a little while back saying that the mood was the same in 1933 Germany.

Jardin it sounds lovely! The one I drive is a 2-year old slow-moving beige poo of an asexual mum-mobile. The technical explanation is that it is automatic with an engine which is under-powered for size of it.

But it is one of those free ones which scroungers are given when they have disabled children

There are people in this country living in what I would call 'real' poverty. My mum works for a charity - a lady came into their office for help. She had been made redundant and there was a delay in her receiving benefits. She had used up what little savings she had. She had no money for gas or electricity at all, and hadn't eaten for over 24 hours. And she was trying to cope with having cancer and going through chemo. It is shocking.

Ellies

morethan I am well aware of that. The local council have recently announced changes to their hardship fund which basically mean that they will no longer be giving people money and will be giving them some items they might need (IE if they need a new cooker or a piece of furniture), sending them to a food bank or topping up gas and electric for them. They've tried to make it sound like they are 'helping' and there is lots of rhetoric about getting to the root of why people need to access emergency funds and helping them fix the deeper issues, but it's all so bloody patronising and they're basically doing it because a load of DailyFail idiots think that people are only poor because they spend their money on crap. Well, that is probably the case for some people, but the huge majority of people in dire circumstances like this are not spending all their food money on designer shoes, they just don't have any fucking money.

This is an interesting thread r.e Universal Credit.

I also wonder what the housing associations / council are going to do with the interest on all that money.

And there is no point trying to prove to people like you chocolate that there ARE people living in poverty in the UK!

I dare to put it into a sentence because it is true!

I'm sorry but I'm past caring about the opinions of ignorant people who say otherwise. Go read some factual material! It's easy to come by.

Here chocolate, definitions of poverty in the UK. YOU cannot decide there is no poverty in the UK when eminent minds have crunched the data and noted otherwise with long term studies.

It might not fit YOUR idea of "absolute poverty" but in a way that doesn't matter because greater minds than yours have come up with these terms.

.....and there are families in the UK waking up this morning with no food in the house.

I am out of here now.

chocolate phrases like to me my opinion I think are pretty irreverent when it comes to definitions of poverty. The definitions are there, poverty has been defined. Your opinion counts for Jack.

There are people in poverty in this country and it's going to get much, much worse...

But when the riots start because people are losing their homes and unable to eat, the Op will probably be saying 'but they can afford to make molotov cocktails so they can't really be poor!'

Not gone through all the pages on this thread so apologies if a similar scope as mine on this has been already said -
I have had my heating on throughout winter for approx 2 hours per evening, I can't afford to pay the bill if its on longer, not if I desire my children and I to be able to use hot water and shower each day. At 6pm - we all flock about the radiators and sigh a contented sigh... WARMTH....
Shopping is a joke, its too hard to get food that we love and enjoy so we simply just get - well, food. Filling food. So we are not starving all the time.
I have three children - each have a laptop.
They are in college and without a laptop each they would never get their work done on time. They have to take this in with them, they work on it. Everything is done via a computer and dongle and even student absence is now done via the college website, you can't simply ring in anymore. The walk to the college is 7 miles by the way so not going to bloody walk there to tell them if one of the kids is sick.
I work by the way. I try my hardest to ensure we do not get into debt. Its not easy.... Poverty is not just a person sitting with a cardboard sign up on a street corner asking for change please.
Poverty is also those that work and try their best but the choice here, for my family at least was simple - heat and food or the children's continuing education - laptops for them and yes, one each. They are all on different courses, they all have homework and coursework and all work on them each day and evening. It would be impossible to expect them to share just one.
I have got precisely 55.67 to last me until 11 March OP - I have met my bills this month and got change in a jar for the kids bus fares - Could you feed 4 people on 55.67 for 11 days? Would you like to give it a go? I challenge you.

Chocolate - "its white"
Everyone else - "well actually you will find that its not so cut and dry, so several shades between white and black"
Chocolate - "its white" ad nauseum

Chocolate

You have a vile attitude and a total lack of comprehension as to the impact of a combination of financially restrictive suituations as opposed to just the restrictions you personally believe in.

Every single justification you are posting makes it worse, are you really so uninformed about what real life is to some people today in the uk that you cannot get your head round it?

Im sorry if I have offended anyone, I wasn't on these benefits long, thankfully, and no, my washer/oven/fridge did not go kapoot at the time luckily. If it had, then I would have been truly stuffed.

I may have been a touch judgemental about a certain portion of society (Who seem to spend all their money on booze and fags, they DO exist) and did not mean to upset anyone who is in need or genuinely poor.