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.

Excellent & balanced post WooWooOwl

YANBU. I've never met anybody struggling financially who didn't have a reason why they were poor. Even if it was poor choices then so what? Does that suddenly make them undeserving of help and sympathy? I've made some seriously poor choices in my life. But I'm still comfortably off. I'm just lucky.

It really does annoy me though when people tar all "the poor" with the same brush - there is no comparing a singe mum who has fled abuse and is living in a hostel with her kids getting no maintenance for them, with the sorts who go on Jeremy Kyle with their copious tattoos and bling moaning about not affording fruit for their dozens of kids, and thinking they deserve the tax payer to keep them living in more luxury than many working families who struggle to make ends meet.

See, I actually do 'tar the poor with the same brush' - the brush of just currently dealing with a really shit set of circumstances.

A girl I was at school with was on Jeremy Kyle once - she has tattoos, wears bling, smokes heavily, drinks heavily and has had at least 3 children removed by social services. She was also brought up by an alcoholic and abusive stepfather on a hellish estate, her mother died when she was 11, she was taken into care at 13, moved foster home at least twice, was constantly in trouble at school and was pregnant by the time we took GCSEs so left school with nothing. Her boyfriend didn't want to know, stayed on at school and, as far as I know, does quite well for himself. Did she ever have a real chance of getting out of her poverty trap? Really?

People I know who are poor due to having lost their well paid graduate jobs and struggled to find another one may well be dealing with their poverty in a wiser fashion (not all do though). But that's because they had a much better start in life and have the mental and physical resourcefulness they need to fall back on.

There are plenty of people who are poor due to no fault of their own but there are those who are poor because of their own attitudes.
I'm glad there's help for those who need it. No one should have to struggle for money because of poor health or for caring for someone in a developed society but there are also those who just don't want to work.
I've met people who would make the daily mail dance with glee with their attitudes of why they don't want to work yet expect things handed to them. One woman even asked me in all seriousness why I had a mortgage and worked when I could just get a council house. These people really do exist.

Look at all the immigrant families who came here with nothing but made a life for themselves. The same opportunities available to them are available to everyone yet there are plenty of people who don't want to start work from the bottom.

'Look at all the immigrant families who came here with nothing but made a life for themselves. The same opportunities available to them are available to everyone yet there are plenty of people who don't want to start work from the bottom.'

And look at all the many more of them, trafficked in and exploited hideously, forced to work as sex workers and other professions as slaves and live in horrendous conditions, often by other immigrants.

Fine example that.

Your point makes no sense expatinscotland. I'm not talking about criminals. I'm talking about the thousands of normal hardworking immigrants.

But surely if people have made decisions and it has resulted in them being worse off, to just top them up with benefits etc - well, what will that do. A friend of mine worked for the local council helping people who had got into debt whilst on benefits. Her help was free of course. She lasted 6 months, when she pointed out that smoking and Sky and nights out would have to be cut back she was complained about.

There really was a sense of entiltlement that even on benefits you were still entitled to luxuries even if you werent working

YANBU it really isn't that simple. if it was I think a lot less people would be skint.

i'm going to be frighteningly poor very soon and I'm not well off now. its all my own fault for having aspergers, anxiety and other issues that have finally beaten me.

The drinking/smoking/take aways is not the reason for poverty, it is more likely the result. It is grim and stressful being trap in poverty. If you cant get out and you are called names aswell erm yes you light up a fag. If you cant buy house, not in million years and not by shopping in Lidl then you might aswell have a take away.

Those who think it's the fault of the poor for being poor probably gloss over the fact that they probably didn't have to work that hard to get yo where they did. Especially those with inherited wealth, went to a good school and walked into a decent job.

Starting off from a comfortable position puts you miles ahead of children that don't. That is a fact. Yes you get exceptions but that's why labour invested in early years because that is where the real differences can be made.

My dad was dirt poor, grew up starving - literally, family could not be fed had to be sent to live with relatives. My five siblings are all well off, really well off, as am I. My parents had a severe alcohol problem, we were mostly neglected, I'm not really sure how we all managed to fall on our feet but we did and oddly we now all look after our parents financially because we feel we should.
Dh's Cambridge Uni friend, used to work in the city, great job successful life, nice house in Fulham....next time we heard for him, he'd lost his job, got divorced and had a mental breakdown and moved into a bedsit. It can happen and does happen to anyone. But I do think poor decision's are made often out of necessity sometimes out of the desire not to be poor for one day, pay day loans are a disaster that seriously need addressing.
People are poor for all sorts of reasons but rarely would someone choose it, that's just daft and ignorant.
I remember a flatmate who grew up on a really rough estate in Newcastle telling me that his biggest success in life was to grow up heroin free - many kids had such little hope, a hit was the only thing they looked forward to - life can be really grim.

Bravo to the poster who said we are fed a lot of propaganda about "the poor" to make them quite literally the enemy of the state.

Thank God I don't live in poverty and I'm not stuck in a poverty trap- my maternal grandparents and father came from this kind of background and turned it around for themselves and that meant that as the years went on I emerged as a lucky member of the lower middle class. Nothing I did. But plenty I members of their respective families didn't "get out" and are trapped in a cycle of low aspirations and low expectations through no fault of their own. As others have said they work hard- backbreakingly hard- and couldn't give it any more than they do. But they're not educated. They don't know that they need to fight and wangle to get their kids into better schools than the local comp. They're suspicious of the idea of further training and further qualifications. They value hard work and think that the kids should be out working not poncing about at college and university. They don't understand and don't get it because the cycle continues.

'I'm talking about the thousands of normal hardworking immigrants.'

What's not to make sense. For every one who is 'hard-working' and 'makes it' there are thousands more who are exploited, including plenty of legal ones, paid less than min wage and living 10 to a room.

Or does that not fit in the paradigm used to demonise the poor so it makes so sense to some?

This thread is depressing :(

I'm poor, very poor - I exist I don't live.

I'm trapped in the situation I am in now by a LOT of different factors, and have no chance of anything improving, bar winning some money somehow - this will be my life now until I die.

I once posted on here about being stuck in an awful life and was told by someone that there must be something I can do

when pressed on what I could do, given my circumstances, that poster could not come up with anything. That's because there is nothing I can do.

It's really not a nice life and now I'm terrified of the same happening to my children.

The percentages are just against some of the poor, my df lost his job when we where small spiraled into depression fuelled by drink. Out of four siblings myself and DB have moved and are comfortable, other two still struggle. If we had more choice and opportunity maybe all four of us would be comfortable. I have been able to move to an area of excellent state schools and apart from my disabled ds my dc will have choices, whether they are financially successful I do not know but the have the options that many do not. I hate the fact I have paid into the system of keeping the poor down through education my morals where not strong enough to not join the selective postcode lottery.
I was offered grammar school, it was never an option my dp's worried that it would incur extra costs. Yes you can work yourself up, but not everyone can and without a fair education system it is self prophesying that the odds are against the poor.

YANBU, I'm sick of being told that I'd have more money if I stopped smoking, drinking, going out and got rid of Sky/virgin. Since I don't smoke, drink, go out or have Sky/Virgin I really can't see how this advice would improve my finances.

I realise that there are many on MN who feel I deserve what happened but it really is unfair to ram this down my throat as if poverty itself wasn't punishment enough. It's also wrong when people say I've done nothing. I've already managed to get off HB. That's progress no matter what people think. I'll never be rich but there's more progress to be made and hard work alone won't be enough, I'll need luck thrown in too.

YANBU. If you only have so much money coming in, then it will only go so far, no matter how many hearty soups you make.

My sil is a special needs TA and she said that the percentage of dyslexic kids from the historically poorest area in her city is remarkably high. These people don't tend to leave this area, the gene pool is very limited. The number of people in prisons with dyslexia is remarkably high as well, part of the solution to this issue has to be education and proper investment in children's future otherwise it comes back to bite us all.

Oh not again the immigrants example.
Apart from expat's points, look this 'lifestyle' is doable for sort period. Yes i know it is doable. You can work 18hours. I ve tried. Only for sort term. My parents did for longer, and my Pil, and my uncles, aunties.All immigrants. They are all very ill now. They have very bad old age.
We shouldnt have to work 18hrs in order to have heating and pasta. Just because you could do it and someone have done it in the dark days it doesn't mean it is right.

Yes, there are immigrants who sleep 10 to a room. Many then go on to live in their own accommodation and bring their families over. They are happy to have any opportunity to start at the bottom and work up.

Of course there are criminals and people wanting to profit on the exploitation of others but that's not my point. I'm not talking about immigration generally or exploitation.

My point is that there are plenty of immigrants who take the opportunities that this country has to offer to carve out a decent life for themselves when they came here with nothing. Thousands of them. Starting off with nothing. They work hard and expect their kids to as well. Those opportunities are available to everyone.

YANBU some people are arseholes

My DF was born into and brought up in poverty in East London in the 1930s/40s/50s. His mum was an abusive alcoholic and a gambler and gambled and drank away the tiny salary his father brought home. DF was sent out to work from a very young age and missed out on a lot of his education. He went to bed hungry all the time. He says the highlight of his childhood was being evacuated and finding out how other people lived. He smoked, drank, etc etc. But he started as an errand boy in a bank, and worked his way up, up, up until by 1980 he was managing his own department in a large London branch of a bank. He married my DM (totally middle class), had me and they are now comfortably retired and live in a big house in a very naice area. Ok, he was exceptionally determined and clever, but don't say it can't be done because it can be. His DSis has also escaped from poverty but his DB is also an alcoholic gambler and obviously hasn't.

Kiteattack the immigrants who decide to risk everything and come here are not like the general population they come from, they have invested everything, they have the get up and go, the drive, spirit, energy and health, a will to succeed against all the odds. I think this is a talent in itself and many people, including the people the immigrants have left behind, do not have this spirit, the motivation and the drive to succeed is often sucked out of most people when they are faced with the daily grind of life in poverty.

Being poor is my stupid own doing.

Credit cards, store cards, loans, HP and missing payment left me way in over my head.

Slowly clearing the debts off and hopefully 3.5 years I will be clear.

YANBU
My uncle was born to alcoholic parents - he wasn't looked after, seriously poor am bullied at school because he didnt have the right shoes or clothes (as he was so poor due to his parents funding their addiction)

Fast forward a few years - an older gang of 'hard' lads befriend him. He relishes at the idea of finally havin friends and a gang to protect him. They offer him a substance that will make him happy - he takes it. It was heroin.

Fast forward a few years he died. 24 year old, overdose on heroin.

Now someone on here tell me, tell me now how he could have made it better for himself? Out YOUR child in his fucking diabolical situation from birth and what would you expect? Not hope, expect!?

I'm sorry, but these ignoraniouses bewailing the poor should hav a go at living te life of the poor - from BiRTH and then see what fucking choices YOU would make!?

Unfortunately most people are so close minded this is the ony way we could get them to see why it is so hard for the VAST majority of the poor. The rest of us have human compassion and empathy.