To think people who have never been poor, really do not understand it

[brasty]

Just that really. Big difference between not having enough money to do what you would like to do, and going months and years where you constantly have to scrape just to get by. And the impact this has on you mentally.

I think this is true of a lot of things. There is poverty in the UK, more so than people realize. Not everyone is even entitled to things like benefits or other forms of assistance, and food pantries can only be used three times per year.

My dentist participates in crisis at Christmas and she said many homeless people have no dental care and are scrambling for food, so can't get across the city to a dentist who treats homeless.

I have worked for many years in developing countries, so I'm very familiar with what goes on in such places. I have a disability, and live in very rural areas, not like ex-pats living in bigger cities. I do find, people in developing countries are often very caring and ready to help, even though they don't have much. Thankfully, I have found some really lovely people in London, so when I am really in need, I have been OK. Thankfully, this forum has actually been a godsend at times.

I have been looking for a personal assistant though, and some people have asked me for a higher salary as some have been earning 31,000 pounds per year. These are able-bodied people who can just go out and get any job they want, I don't have that choice. I sometimes wonder if these people stop and think about the people who they are working with. I have to fight for everything, i'm not sure people realize this.

Homeless people who carry all their possessions around in a bag are poor. I don't see others in the UK as being poor though. I've certainly been hard up myself (mum brought me up on benefits, worked through uni getting by on the bare minimum and my first job was very low paid and I lived on my own), but I wouldn't class myself as "poor". Mum's benefits kept basic food on the table.
Rainbows, other than rough sleepers, I agree with you. There's no way that not having a holiday or mobile makes you poor, that's ridiculous. Most of us have years where we go without holidays to buy other things, foreign holidays aren't a human right.

If you are single and on JSA, it is very very tough. I have also been on statutory sick pay for months at a time, and that was tough as well.

I'm fortunate to have never been poor and no, I don't understand at all what it's like. I remember a post on here from someone who was feeling pressure to put £5 in the collection for the teacher and didn't have it. I really could not get my head around not having £5 spare. How can I, I've never experienced that.

But I do empathise and I wish I could do something. When I read stuff like this:

I often went hungry so my child could eat, didn't have more than 2 sets of clothes (which were kindly given to me) and got into debt every Xmas and birthday - because I brought my child a £20 gift from the catalogue.

it makes me feel horrible. I would willingly and happily give her £20 to buy a present but there's no way of doing that. If I knew her, I might offer but would worry about patronising or embarrassing her.

So many people do care but don't know how to help.

I have been most fortunate to have a good upbringing and never wanted for anything. I have worked hard for a career that has done well over the past decade, but haven't been as well off as I once was, as I am now part time.

I was duly put in my place by a friend last summer when I said that I was 'poor' and couldn't afford to go on holiday. She had a massive go at me saying I had no idea what actually being poor was like. She had a good point - I don't truly know real poverty at all - but it is all relative. I agree, compared to my friend who is a single mum on benefits, I am nowhere near poor at all. However, I did bite my tongue and not say that hers was in some ways through choice not to be with her ex, plus she could have worked over the past 8 years while her daughter was at school as plenty of single mums do. I know she refused to get a job as it would mean paying back some legal aid from a court case with her ex, and she says she gets more in benefits than going out to work. If I'd pointed out all the pros and cons of her situation while she had been ranting at me, I'd have been shot down in flames. I know I touched a nerve with my poor comment though, and have learnt my lesson there!

Such a sensitive subject, but quite subjective and relative depending upon circumstances.

YADNBU!
After digging down the couch, and begging 29p to get my bus fare to work one day and having a moan in the staff room, another member of staff was taking over the conversation about how utterly skint she was too - so much so that she'd had to break into her savings account. ^^ I hadn't eaten for 2 days prior to that.
People generally have no clue. I know it's all relative but ffs.

Yeah that is a ffs.
I still remember when I had enough money for the first time as an adult to buy yoghurt. It was outside my budget before then.
Although I did always have hope that it would get better, which it has. I agree it is different if that is your life for ever.

18 to 24 year olds get £57.90 a week. Given most have to top up their rent, how can you exist on that?

You are so right, and this is one of the saddest thing about our lovely country.

It never ceases to amaze me how little middle class / people who never been hard up understand what it's like to be poor.

Poverty is some far away concept in text books. From my own limited experience better off people perpetuate the myth that their parents earnt the privileges they were born into and that they work hard and so effectively they think society is a great example of you get what you deserve.

It's a lovely comfort to them to think well it's all down to me or my parents worked hard etc.

They often discount some of the key advantages they grew up with, high quality schooling, strong family support, someone to bail out any mishaps, teach them how to manage money.
Let alone all the more vulgar nepotism, racism and classism which is par for the course for middle classes / those who have any power in organisations or society.

ANY senior policy makers / leaders in large organisations should HAVE TO live life and manage on the salaries / benefits that they say are livable. This MUST include managing to pay for their children etc.

Can you imagine Osborne ever doing this....... Nohes got some cushdy job and just slags off the government now who are having to deal with his mess. Charge him for treason, he has betrayed the British people.

This obviously doesn't apply to all well off people - purplepicnic, you sound like a wonderful person. Some random suggestions below

1. Reflect this in your vote / be happy to support progressive increased taxes / increases in minimum wage / proper taxation or organisations
2. Please speak about these issues with your friends who are well off / raise awareness
3. Give to food banks (some people will flame me for this)
4. Rowntree foundation have a lot of information
5. Do you work in or are involved in organisations big or small. If you have any influence, can you bring up minimum wages / how contractors, cleaners, support staff are paid, just start talking about how much they earn, is it a fair wage, could your colleagues live on it
6. Ask your workplace to setup emergency / hardship funds with small loans that can help people
7. Continue to be such a lovely thoughtful person x

It's the fact that it's very expensive to be poor that those who've always had money don't get. Expensive in costs obviously, but expensive in opportunities too.

Too many times you hear the idea that just a few pence invested here and the poor would suddenly magically not be poor. What if you don't have that few pence?

That free education? How about if you need glasses to see the board, your nhs ones have just been broken by bullies and you cannot get any more? Or if you just need this particular book or item to be absolutely brilliant at a given subject? No use, you can't get it.

They just don't get it, and it drives me nuts. Witness the constant refrain of 'there's no real poverty in the UK, be grateful it's not worse'. There is food poverty, there is fuel poverty, there is housing poverty, and homelessness. Homelessness is rising fast. If it's not good enough for some, why do those trapped in it have to 'be grateful it's not worse'.

You're right. I'm badly paid, but I've never been unemployed, I've always had a secure home and I've never had to miss a meal.

I have sympathy for the homeless and anyone who isn't able to look after themselves. I have no idea what it's really like but I do feel very sorry for anyone going through this.

Personally I think it's a cop out to say you can't understand if you haven't experienced it. Clearly loads of people don't understand but not all. Many many people encounter people in poverty through their work or in their schools or local area.
I grew up in a very mixed area and while we weren't poor most of my school was on fsm and no doubt some were very poor. I know families through school and guides who are struggling and I have nothing but full sympathy.

I think you are correct OP. People who have always had money, don't understand what it's like not to have any. They don't realise just how many ordinary, everyday things are completely dependant on having some money, and how your choices/opportunities/ability to cope with the unexpected that life throws at you are severely curtailed when you don't have any..and the long term grinding effect of that.

I lived in a third world country before and witnessed real poverty. There's no safety net from the government at all. I saw a very young girl on the street near a red light begging since she was around 4 years old. She was carried by different adults knocking on car windows to beg and slept under the dirty bridge on some dirty cardboard. The last time I visited, I saw her again, she must be around 20 years old, and you can tell she has had a rough life. She is still knocking on car windows. I won't be surprised if she had never had a roof over her head in her life. I don't think she ever felt even a tiny feeling of security in her life. That's real poverty. You still get your benefit in this country, you don't have to sell your body or beg on the street, be very, very grateful.

I admit I did not really understand how expensive meters are to heat your home, until I lived with one. It ate up the money, and my tiny place was still cold.

Actually ManyMany that does happen in the UK. It's just not spoken about, I personally know a woman who has been on the streets having to sell her body to feed her children.

If selling your body doesn't happen in the UK, why does it? Do you think everyone doing it is there through choice? I admit not from age4, but it does happen.

Far too many richer people believe in this myth of the generous British safety net. It no longer exists. What's there is limited, and very very conditional and many people are slipping straight through it.

People who think that people in the UK don't experience poverty don't understand poverty.

The benefit system is not some bountiful gift. It fucks up all the time. my favourite weeks are receiving several browns envelopes in the post Within days with some saying we owe you money and some saying you owe us money. Benefits that are stopped, suspended or waiting to be processed for months leaving no money coming in for children, disabled people or disabled children.

Standing in the co-op the only supermarket for miles in a deprived area with £1 to buy breakfast, lunch and dinner for a family of three for two days and no electricity.

Years of my life and my children's life pass by like this.

We have no TV, Sky, goat, alcohol or cigarettes, even drugs in the house.

Near me there are families sleeping rough, theres children homeless sleeping in car parks. In freezing weather, they are sleeping on the concrete floor in multi story car parks.
In 2017 children, homeless

You don't see it, its hidden. But its there

I think people can empathise

but many people feel they empathise but then come out with some stupid comment oh I was hard up for a month and had to cut back that isn't being poor that is money being a bit tight

of course in other countries you might see a lot more poverty and often worse but that isn't to say people do not suffer here they do

Many I have worked in the community in the UK for years
You are talking rubbish.
Just because you have looked at extreme poverty in another country it doesn't make you an expert in poverty in the UK

People who use extreme poverty to shame those talking about relative poverty have very rarely experienced either

Looking at it doesn't count as experience.

We're not well off now, but we're stable. It was a fucking nightmare when we were going from shit private let (lots of damp, it grew on DS1's cot mattress) to temp accommodation (much less damp) to lovely lovely social housing. To live in our tiny one bed flat (temporary accommodation) we had to get rid of damn near everything - table, chairs, bed (we also lost a lot of stuff that was destroyed by the damp in our private let) and then we needed to replace it when we moved to our house plus pay for carpets, etc.

and one thing that often isn't mentioned is being poor or having a low income is expensive

not only gas/electric meters, shops in areas of high lower social income are not always the cheapest shops, the cash machines will be chargeable machines, phone contracts not having the money to buy a phone outright, not being able to pay for a weekly travel card or for car insurance or car tax upfront so you pay by d/d costs more (then often locked into paying one company as too expensive to change companies) all these other expenses add up I'm sure there are others I haven't mentioned

I worked in Nepal aged 18. On the way there we stayed in Bangladesh and witnessed the following:
Toddlers and small kids sleeping rough with no parents.
A madman thrashing around on the muddy floor with a begging bowl.
A small girl tried to sell me a snake to get money.
In Nepal itself i saw:
Polio crippled people crawling around the streets.
A single mum living in a single room shack with 2 tiny babies.
A truck that had fallen into the ravine killing everyone on board as the road had been washed away.
The toilet i used was a pit filled with shit and absolutely crawling with roaches.
I washed under a cokd tap and or river.
Same meal every meal inc breakfast for 3 months.

I could go on...

It shook me to the core and formed my current socialist views.

I am hard up right now. No oermanent job but i think back to my time in Nepal and count my blessings.