If you're poor it's basically your own fault, isn't it?

[ReputableBiscuit]

I'm so sick of this attitude, in society in general and on MN specifically. Some people just don't seem to have the imagination to realise that poverty is a complex thing and fucking hard to escape. 'Why don't you try budgeting?', 'how can you call yourself poor when you have a big TV?', 'give up smoking then you won't be poor'. 'Cook from scratch.' It's just not as simple as that. Unemployment, disability, mental health problems, social disadvantage, debt, benefits stoppages... none of these are magically undone by somebody writing a list of their outgoings or learning to cook a hearty potato soup.

[LaurieFairyCake]

The worst is ingrained, generational poverty.

If I suddenly became poor it would take a while for me to sell everything I owned and I have all the advantages of being educated. I know how to cook, have an allotment to grow food, I know my legal rights and would be squatting somewhere within a couple of months.

Poverty would not be as hard on me now as the terrible poverty I had before I learned those things.

[Sparklysilversequins]

"At the end of 2011, the Daily Telegraph reported that there were 23 job seekers in the UK chasing every job vacancy, for every retail job there were 42 applications, in customer services 46. In Hull there were 18,795 people chasing 318 job"

Ref: "Chavs" Owen Jones.

Tell me how giving up smoking is going to impact in any way in the above situation?

[SolidGoldBrass]

Oh, the poor shouldn't have tattoos? Jack Monro had the best answer to this = 'I got my tattoos when I was in work. I can't peel them off and sell them.'

If you are one of the smug fuckwits whining on about your taxes supporting these fag-smoking, tv-watching scum, why are you incapable of remembering that a larger proportion of the tax you pay is propping up the large corporations who avoid paying their share of tax and keep the their employees' pay articficially low? WHy aren't you a bit more concerned that your taxes contribute to the pampering of the Royal parasites, despite them being independently wealthy?

[TaliZorahVasNormandy]

Im on JSA (I hate it, but still no luck finding work), I dont drink, smoke, have takeaways, Sky, or a contract phone, no latest gadgets.

I shop in Iceland, I try to cook for scratch, my biggest monthly expenses are my car insurance, (live in a small village) and my internet, in which is very cheap, I budget for those.

Where I live, theres 3 childminders, none of which can take my DD.

So YANBU, theres a lot worse of than me, so i consider myself lucky in some respects.

[TheCrackFox]

YANBU

If I see the word "eke" one more time I might just hurl.
Poor people need more money not learn how to eke out a chicken so it makes 17 meals.

[Thereishope]

Poverty tends to breed poverty.

If you grow up in an environment where education is not seen as important and you have no role models, you will struggle to excel. There is unlikely to be an expectation to attend college or university. This immediately puts you at a disadvantage.

Imagine a child who has never seen his mother or father work. They will not value the importance of making their own way in life. It is as if their future has already been carved out.

My dm was a young single parent, she struggled financially, we had no family holidays (UK or abroad), we had limited clothes and lived on a council estate. However my dm worked hard and encouraged us to study to raise our opportunities.

[wonderingsoul]

to get far,, you do need to work hard.. weather that be your parent shelping you get better education.. working your way up.. BUT you still need a bit of luck to get you there to imo.

[Nondescriptsuburbanhousewife]

Exactly susyot.

The argument that "we worked hard to get here" is even more vexing when coming from those who have benefited from, rather than been screwed by, the housing market and the job market.

[roadwalker]

It isn't about tattoos it is life skills people are missing
Without life skills and education they have no chance

[CoffeeTea103]

If you do work hard you do reap the rewards. You just need to be willing to put everything in it.

[Sparklysilversequins]

Yes, the "we worked hard to get here" it was all made pretty easy for you though wasn't it in many cases?

My parents bought their council house for £13k 25 years ago. Everyone around them bought theirs too so it's actually a pretty nice place to live. My Mum hadn't worked since she was 40, no kids, we were gone. How did SHE work hard to achieve what she has? Yet she's the first one to moan about her taxes going on the feckless poor and is a staunch Tory.

[Ubik1]

"people who have worked really hard at school and then worked really hard a uni and then go out and work really hard and have put themselves in the position where they have a decent standard of living are ofter told they are "lucky""

I'm not poor but I work in a call centre. I got AAB at A Level, RG university degree, career, children and now do a job alongside people who have a few basic qualifications.

It's the most important lesson I have ever learned. That no one owes you a living no matter how hard you work.

[Thereishope]

Preciousbane
Some council estates are grim. It only takes a few residents to bring estates down.

[MummytoMog]

Buuuuuuut being poor doesn't necessarily make you hard working, deserving and generally a good sort.

My feckless middle brother for example had a perfectly good full time job, despite having no qualifications, and chucked it in because he was 'too tired' to work full time. My idiotic mother, who's been letting him sponge off her, even though she is in thousands and thousands of pounds worth of debt because she cannot control her spending, agreed with him and continues to allow him to live with her, rent free, ramping up the CH and never contributing to bills, food or even fricking housework. I don't have a lot of time for that attitude to be honest.

Now my older brother works his arse off all the time, and is still poor, partly because of bad decisions in his youth (criminal record, debts etc) but basically because he has found it impossible to get steady work. So he does self-employed stuff and just works works works whenever he can. Lean months and fat months. Unless he's lucky enough to find a stable job, he's never going to be on an even keel, but he works hard, is really good at what he does and doesn't smoke or have a big tv. Well he does actually, but only because I bought it for him in exchange for him sorting out some stuff on my house.

[Sparklysilversequins]

coffeetea how can you put everything into it when there simply aren't enough jobs to go round?

[BettySwollocksandaCrustyRack]

I do agree that a lot of it is down where you were brought up, the environment you are brought up in and I appreciate it is difficult to break that cycle esp if that's all you have ever known or love somewhere there are very few opportunties.

However, I do believe that sometimes...just sometimes...people can help themselves rather than sit back and wait to be dug out the shit by someone else.

[Sparklysilversequins]

Yes "sometimes" Betty but the idea of lazy, feckless, breeding poor is not applied only "sometimes" is it?

[BettySwollocksandaCrustyRack]

No but I think we have the media to thank for that. People should actually take a step back, use their brain and make their own minds up. That's why you can't generalise these things. Some people who are "poor" work their bollocks off and never get out the trap, some others have opportunities and just piss them up the wall and don't try to change.

It's a minefield I'm sure.

[Ubik1]

Buuut being wealthy diesn't make you hardworking or a 'good sort' either.

[CoffeeTea103]

There is always something to do to help yourself.

[BettySwollocksandaCrustyRack]

No of course it doesn't.

[Sparklysilversequins]

Great. Give us some ideas.

[Thereishope]

Betty You need confidence to believe you can do better than the generations before you. After a while it is easy to accept a life claiming benefits, buying clothes in Primark, eating out in McDonald's and never travelling further than two miles from home.

Working opens your horizons in so many ways. You can meet people who motivate, inspire and encourage you. You are likely to mix with people from different walks of life. Being unemployed, there is nobody to help you develop. Your friends will probably live exactly as you do.

[Wheresmysocks]

Bloody hell...an awful lot of generalisation on this thread!