To think there is not really any chikdren in poverty in the uk

[Domjolly]

I think last nights comic relief has really brought home to me and my family that there is not really any children in the uk who live in REAL poverty

There is not one child that has to walk 3 hours to school
There is not one child that cant get some form of education
There is not one child who can get medical intervention
I think you would be hard pressed to find familys which children who are homeless or who dont have clean water and sanitation

And i actaully now thing people who say this is insulting to children who do live in real poverty

Save what? They have nothing to save. Save maybe £2 a week from benefits? So 15 weeks with no hot food. But then kid needs a coat. So £10 for a cheap coat. Then save another 5 weeks. Then kid needs shoes....

And so it goes on and on.

I think certain people here are just looking for an argument now.

£4 for school shoes? Well, they are going to last a long while arent they? False economy if you're shelling out every week. Apart from the fact teenage boys shoes are not£4

£30 for a microwave instead of a cooker? That isn't going to fulfil a family's needs is it? Again false economy.

If you are lacking in money that doesnt make you stupid enough to think that a £4 pair of shoes solves your problems. It doesnt, it puts it off for another week until that pair breaks

I despair. NMW per month gets eaten up in rent and outgoings without anything major breaking down - to fall into poverty is the easiest thing going and I sympathise with those who can't see that because unfortunately one day you just might.

child who doesn't have decent hot food, is living in poverty?

Depends on your definition of poverty. Anyway the original point I was responding to was regarding people who go to the foodbank because they've lost their jobs and have a balance of £0 in their account. I've not seen any persuasive arguments that they there is a good reason these sort of people couldn't have saved a small amount so they could at least pay for food and the basics of life until the benefits system kicks in.

How people budget when they are jobless and receiving benefits is another matter - I'm not going to pretend I know how much money these people have, because I've not been in that situation. All I would say is that it would again be a massive coincidence if their income matched their minimum outgoings to the penny.

Homeless children and hungry children do exist in the UK.

zwischenzug admits to ignorance now - we are getting somewhere

It isnt a massive coincidence that income matches outgoings. I shall enlighten you.

Income is less than outgoings - people juggle finances according to weekly priorities. Sooner or later it all catches up with them and poverty is a fact of life, reality

7p tesco noodles...

and who was being exploited in the creation of those, I wonder what sort of wages those workers took home.

A three bedroom house in Mid Sussex is over £1300 PCM to rent. How can anyone live on NMW and manage to save.

"again be a massive coincidence if their income matched their minimum outgoings to the penny"

You are of course absolutely right, for many people their outgoings on rent and basics actually exceeds what they now have coming in.

I didn't realise it was obligatory for NMW earners to rent 3 bed houses in mid sussex. Glad I don't earn NMW as I wouldn't want to live somewhere so expensive even on my above-NMW current wage

Anyway this chopping block is getting itchy, it's someone else turn.

But this is commuter land, this is your passport to work !

Some people have grown up here and now can not afford to live here despite having work. What would you have people do, give up work and go on benefits?

Back in my London days, the NMW quoted would have just about covered my rent and council tax with nothing left over for food and transport.

So where are you expecting all the cleaners and dinner ladies in Sussex to live?

People cannot expect the low waged in other parts of the country to subsidise extortianate private rentals in some parts of the UK. When the subsidies stop the rents will come down. if the subsidies don't stop the rents will be forced ever higher and the situation will worsen. I am very glad there is a cap coming in on housing benefit. I hope it works.

Yes and many of those low waged workers in the south will be plunged into poverty. What should they do? give up their work and live on benefit? because something like 60% of housing benefit is paid to people in employment.

Of course children are living in poverty here not to the same degree as they are in third world countries but are living in conditions that are just not acceptable in a wealthy country such as the uk

YouTheCat

Those who make use of their labour for peanuts will just have to empty their own bins, supervise their own kids and clean their own houses

The crap talked on this thread is so offensive it makes me feel sick.

Try to grasp the fact that not everyone is as lucky as you are. And its through no fault of their own. If you cannot do that then I despair.

It shouldn't be a cap on housing benefit it should be a cap on rent. Stop subsidising landlords. You understand that if someone on benefits has their rent put up they don't get any more money, the landlord does? Or these days they have to magic the money out of thin air themselves, or move and somehow find the money to do that.

We need more social housing, by which I mean council housing not the fake social housing we're having palmed off on us. And social housing units should be in all parts of the city, not just the least desirable areas (I'm thinking of London here)

People cannot expect the low waged in other parts of the country to subsidise extortianate private rentals in some parts of the UK. When the subsidies stop the rents will come down. if the subsidies don't stop the rents will be forced ever higher and the situation will worsen. I am very glad there is a cap coming in on housing benefit. I hope it works

Ok, where to start??????? one of the reasons that housing is so expensive in the south is because the UK now has a London centric economy where the vast majority of national income (GDP) is earned here. With increasing financification of capital, ie investments into markets where money makes money rather than capital investment into manufacturing, this has hyper inflated housing costs here.

Low waged workers need not feel upset about other low waged workers, what they need to direct the ire towards is the fact that global capital is increasingly focused on financial markets or taking flight to exploit cheap labour elsewhere.

What annoys me quite a lot is that the Labour government did not address this problem in the years they had. They only gave more and more subsidies to private landlords. I'm not against private rentals but they have to be affordable for ordinary people. And if they are not there is something wrong with the system.

Completely agree about private rentals. Its ridiculous that LLs are getting away with it.

The problem is land and property is where a huge chunk of the banks and investors, pension funds and speculators have been making money for some considerable time.

One of the problems is that when wealthy funds/wealthy investors have money they need to invest, the more they make the more they have to invest. Banks leverage money (create out of thin air) and property is a physical asset. The problem with this is that land prices sky rocket, banks lend to investors, buyers and developers, in the end the you get to a situation where the debt actually overhangs the real value of the physical asset.

The only way to prevent this is to : build more social housing, cap private rents, reform planning laws, nationalise the banks and prevent banks from packaging up mortgages into investments and for the government to take control of the money supply. Right now banks are not lending to businesses because all the money that was ploughed in via QS is being used to deleverage and wipe out the black holes on their balance sheets.

Expecting working people to up sticks and move to where there is no work is not the answer.

'I am very glad there is a cap coming in on housing benefit. I hope it works.'

It will not and isn't. Because now the lending restrictions are very much present. Fewer and fewer are able to buy. Anything. FTBs are all-time lows yet prices keep rising.

Have a look at the threads on here. Many, many working people, some with two incomes above NMW, unable to rent for having children. 'We want DINKs (dual income, no kids).' And they are getting them! Because the DINKs cannot buy anymore and free the ones in the flats to buy something else, and the ones in the flats sit in negative equity, and the private LL is seen to be doing service to society, despite the myriad of other threads, of private letters in full-time, good work forced to house their LL's junk and put up with his or her, 'My house, my rules' despite paying top whack for the hire of the space. Would you couch yourself in a hotel room so full of stuff of the proprietor's that you had hardly space to lie down and place your bags after you paid for hire of the place? You would not, but people do or then they will be homeless.

It is not shelter it is an investment vehicle. The LL is tied to it. 'It is my house.'

And these are those in good positions.

'No DSS, no children'. All well and good as it is legal. And you can see where LL is coming from, often, his mortgage lender or insurance will not permit of him letting to those in receipt of any DSS, though 80% of those claiming are in work. Lloyd's and Natwest do not allow their BTL mortgage holders to let to those in receipt of DSS/LHA/HB, yet those taxpayers pay for their bailout and continue to pay for their bonuses despite yet more losses.

It will be propped up and is, the same as the banks were. So no one can say, 'That is capitalism,' for capitalism allows poor business to go to the wall. Instead we bail these two sectors out, all of us, to start to panic like they do in Cyprus. Better to hide your money under your person as you sleep and on your person as you walk before they make you pay for the crimes of others. Instead we fear. 'They will take their wealth with them.'

Where will they take it if everyone has to do the same?

We will not find out for fear.

And for all the 'America has problems', yes, they most surely have, but a housing bubble is pretty much no longer among them. They never encouraged individual BTL or absentee landlordism. Many states made this a nightmare with very heavy taxes, quite rightly, as it is very bad for any economy to make a commodity like shelter subject to too much speculation. MOST flat rental there is under the govern of corporation. A corporation is better able to weather market fluctuations.

You want a flat there, you present to the office of the apartment complex or its property manager. That's what happens. The apartment, many, is owned by a business and the running of it to a property managemenet company. First-come, first-served. 'No children' is illegal. If your complex is large enough, a certain percentage of it must be 'Section 8', housing benefit. You go into office, you present your income and identity for credit check. If you know you will not pass you present with guarantor's details or you apply under Section 8. They lie, they discriminate, of course they do, but if you go in there wired and catch them out they can and will be sued to hell.

Leases are standard 9-12 months. Other corps operate for short-term or corp let, I have lived in places, the Oakwood Corporation, that offered such, and standard lease for others. Many will only do 12 months. There's no two-month clause once you sign the lease. In fact, if you want to get out of it, you usually pay a very heavy penalty.

There's little 'rolling'. Your lease is up you either sign another 12 month or you move. You act ghetto and anti-social, three strikes and you are out as you have violated the lease.

It's not perfect, but the UK has a long way to go by comparison.

No stigma, either. Others married to Brits who came here are surprised about that, treated like rubbish by unregulated estate agents little above boyhood for renting. What stupid business sense!