to think that 20 grand on benefits a year is loads

[MrsBucketxx]

considering they dont pay any income tax.

just watching we pay your benefits program and worked out that this is over 30 grand if it was a normal tax paying salary.

why was this not mentioned.

A government study showed that a family of four living on an income of £27,000 would be classed as on the poverty line. A typical income deemed suitable to survive "comfortably but without luxury" (so including broadband and a UK holiday, but not including a foreign holiday or a second car) was £45,000.

I just don't think gadgets lare that cheap. I mean an ipad is 3 or 4 hundred quid, a basic holiday for a family of 4 abroad is about 2k. That to me is not cheap or affordable to most.

Tax credits are partly to blame because the wages have not risen because the government have been topping up earning. It is a vicious circle.

Really? I guess it depends where you live and what you spend. My friend is on under 20k and still gets a uk holiday. She cuts back go other areas.

Think the study needs to get more realistic, broadband and holidays are both luxuries. Since when has a holday been essential?

Gadgets are not cheap but often available via deals etc. I took on my first ever contract phone two years ago because I was always running out if credit (disorganised I know) and have an iPhone. My contract is now finished and thankfully Sim only deals have massively improved meaning that I never run out of credit.

I agree that holidays are a luxury. I disagree about Broadband though, nearly all schools use the Internet for homework now. My son often gets a link to a video, information etc and the local library has now sadly gone.

Broadband is also relatively cheap now as well and often comes as part of the package with the phone line (if you have a landline).

But yes, holidays are a luxury, I haven't had one for five years now...couldn't afford them IN work, never mind now I am out of work.

It's based on the legal definition of poverty - as being below 60% of the national average. If you feel that the definition is too generous, that should tell you something about the lifestyles of the top 10% who artificially inflate that figure beyond all proportion.

The reason holidays and broadband are counted are because it is in comparison to what most people have in the UK and what is deemed necessary for healthy family life, not how we compare to an African nation or Victorian Britain.

If all your classmates have holidays - some in the Maldives, some in Skegness - you will feel like the disadvantaged child when the teacher asks you what you did in your school holidays and all you're able to answer is "watch DVDs" because you parents don't have a garden and couldn't even afford to take you to the park because it involved four changes of buses at a cost of about £10.

And while holidays may be a luxury (I didn't have one for a decade at one stage in life), it is consistently proven that people who have holidays tend to suffer less sickness and be more productive workers.

Exactly fasterstronger so the workers on we pay your benefits don't. Actually others pay to support their lifestyle. Take heed Debbie STevie and co.

Ooh can I be classed as "deprived" for my lack if holiday then?

Actually my DS who is autistic is going away for a week with his Dad soon...now that WILL be a holiday for me. Just being able to potter and just think about myself and nobody else is a real holiday.

Some people don't even get time off.

We may have NMW but those on 0-hour contracts don't get paid if they don't work because holiday pay is based on your contracted hours. THey simply can't take the hit of no income, let alone no income and the cost of a holiday.

I'm not the one who makes these classifications, a lot of research and policy development has gone into it and it is supported by cross-party groups because of the ramifications it has for wider society. It's not a lefty definition or anything.

As I say, we don't like in an African nation or Victorian Britain. If you feel noticeably less well off than those in your social circle, it can spiral. One of the problems behind our growing underclass of the Jeremy Kyle ilk is that you're talking about people who feel completely disenfranchised from society. They have nothing, know they can't achieve anything through honest means, and so aspire to nothing positive. At the same time, media means that we witness the lifestyle of the "haves" in a way that the poor in the past never did. We also have less social mobility now than we had 50 years ago. It breeds resentment and was one of the leading factors in the riots of a few years ago.

I'm not trying to make excuses for a criminal contingent who should be punished, but if we don't learn from it we are doomed to repeat it.

Hope you enjoy your week's break Jake.

Dahlen - completely disagree that there is less social mobility than 50 yrs ago. My two DS's go to some very well known private schools and I went to a bog standard second modern with no aspirations from the school.

Something that probably couldn't happen 50 yrs ago.

there were more chances for some of the wc to go to grammar schools as did both my dps. both from wc backgrounds.

i think nowdays people expect the world for doing very
little. my dad came from the estate where the riots kicked off,

I agree, there is a sense of entitlement amongst some people that 'someone' else will pay for those choices (right or wrong) and that no one can question the decisions they have made.

And destroying the grammar school system was a great mistake. They are extremely popular around here but only really for people that can afford the tutors -although many pretend not to have done s+.

handcream - you might disagree but numerous studies have proven this. The LSE and OECD are just two I can think of off the top of my head.

Have you ever gone hungry? Properly hungry, not skipped a meal or fasted. Ever sat in the dark because the electric meter ran out? Ever had to wear so many clothes in the winter that you can't stand up and walk properly?

My real sympathy lies with the working poor. The ones who experience this sort of hardship despite working. They do everything you want - they work full time and they don't expect a holiday in the maldives for it, they just want to be able to put the heating on when it's cold and maybe afford a present for their child at Christmas. Is that really too much to ask? Can you not understand how bitterness thrives when you've been working all hours for a pittance in the same week you hear of big business being let off billions in tax rebates and top bankers being awarded bonuses amounting to millions?

Pay for what choices?

The choice to work in a dead-end job? That's not a real choice. That's determined overwhelmingly by life chances, and do you know what influences those life chances more than any other single factor? Income.

That might not fit your rhetoric, but if you want to argue with the hundreds of research projects that have gone into this - all of which say the same thing - you just carry on.

I don't disagree that adults have to be held accountable for their decisions BTW. What I disagree with is that their children have to be. Unless you change things for the children, they'll simply make the same mistakes as their parents. How does that benefit anyone apart from maybe feeding the sanctimonious hand-wringing brigade?

I do think that there is a two fingers at you attitude to authority in modern Britain and it is always someone elses fault. I think people used to be more respectful.

There's even more of a problem in America where there is less of a welfare culture. They also have bigger social problems.

It's lazy thinking to think "loss of respect for authority is caused by the welfare state making it too easy for people to get money without working"

We all have choices. We cannot keep blaming others for our choices or our circumstances.

FWIW - I came from a single parent family from early teens and went to a really rubbish school. No one stayed on for A levels, we all left and got typing jobs.

Well, I didn't want that. I went to a 6th form college and whilst I didn't get great grades and go to uni I want those opps for my sons.

I could have got married much much ealier than I did but I wanted more. Some che to go another way but that doesn't mean that others have to pay for those choices.

Throwing money when you have more children with no visble means of support is not the way to go.

I am a single parent. I made a bad choice in partner although if we;re going to use that as a case for deserving or undeserving poor then that's going to be 50% of the population deemed undeserving.

As a result of that, I've suffered quite badly at times. I've managed to rise above it and these days I'm sitting pretty. I don't think this is because I'm fabulous, I think it was because I was lucky enough to have better and more choices than others.

1. excellent parents who valued education and encouraged me
2. an excellent education (sheer luck due to catchment area), the second-nearest school was failing and if I'd attended there who knows what would have been the outcome.
3. a fabulous boss who understood the demands of being a single parent and allowed me flexible working.
4. great friends who took up the slack when professional childcare fell through
5. being fortunate enough to be born with the intelligence to do well at education and in work, because hard work does not automatically equal financial stability.

What I want to see is more money spent on education and family intervention and support. I'm not on about chucking more money at welfare families - though there aren't that many TBH, most are working and had their children at a time where they thought they could afford it. Only 1 in 9 HB claims is made by the unemployed. I just don't see how making deprived children even poorer helps anyone.

And someone's got to do the low paid jobs if nobody did everybody would be fucked and not in a good way.

dahlen I don't think this is because I'm fabulous, I think it was because I was lucky enough to have better and more choices than others. good for you. but don't generalise that everyone else has had support to get where they are. and you don't know the stuff of their lives.

sock And someone's got to do the low paid jobs yes. but that is not a terrible thing. not everyone works to a good enough standard to be worth much in terms of salary.

On the other hand fasterstronger some of the most important jobs are the lowest paid ones.