WTH is going on?!

[hungryhippo90]

This isn't so much about my circumstances, but more about the circumstances of others,

Growing up we were on benefits, our family seemed to struggle more than most others In the same sort of financial situation, but I don't remember things being anywhere near as bad as many who are on UC and are finding themselves without benefits, being evicted etc.

I heard on the radio yesterday that there are a large portion of teachers who believe many childrens families won't be able to buy enough food over the holidays,

Now I've just read that 2/5 don't have £100 saved up.

I know a family with a working mum and a deceased dad, they go to the food bank a lot.

What I'm wondering is, am I right in thinking that instead of things getting better that they've gone sharply down hill over the past several years?

I don't understand how things seem to have got so much worse.

Are things going to continue to decline?
Why is this being allowed to happen?

Austerity is an ideological policy, not a natural consequence of the global recession, y'all know that, right?

I can assure you that it isn't Global. Since leaving the UK to live in Australia, I've never felt so well off. And that's with no real change in circumstances....DH still works full time at a manual job and I work part time as I did in the UK in a similar role.

Same for us but in the USA

It's frightening to me. My DP and I could have the option to move to a Scandinavian country and we are quite seriously considering it.

AjasLipstick
Me too. I am a nurse in Australia, I make $68k working 4 days per week. That’s £38k. I am not in a senior position and I am not particularly experienced. My other half makes $110k (£62k). He has a trade qualification but doesn’t own his own business.
Our house cost us $540k. Repayments are 23% of our take home pay after tax.
Having spent my whole adult working life out here I am so sorry for my relatives back ‘home’. It is wage slavery and it is so unfair.

Redneckstumpy - Yes, overpopulation is a real problem in the UK and has exerted most of the pressure on the housing market, driving prices upwards. As also has the buying up of large swathes of housing stock in some areas by foreign investors - who then rent these out, so removing stock from the market, further increasing the upward pressure on prices.

IVflytrap It was not just the richest section of the population which was taxed more - everyone was. Between1973-1989 (Labour and Tory Govts) there was NO tax free personal allowance, tax started at 30% - 35%and rose through 6-9 bands to 73%-83%.

This was during the deep recession of the mid1970s to late 1980s, when inflation topped 24% and interest rates were 11%-15% between 1978-1992.
Three million were unemployed, manufacturing capacity was reduced by a fifth, government spending was slashed, benefits were cut.

In short, we have been here before. However, we now have a culture of higher spending than in the 70s, due to credit and technology, amongst other things, and are less able to cope.

Yes it's a combination of various things which are driving people to the financial brink. People are less likely to make do and mend and all the advances in technology are tempting to those unable to afford it.

People are more likely to get into debt for luxuries, less likely to save and live within their means. That's economically dangerous for people already on low incomes who may then be hit by wage cuts and other factors.

My friend is a lone parent on a low income and she regularly struggles. She has a lot of debt that she's paying off but she's not helping herself by taking more credit out. She's a lot younger than me so is of the 'I want it now generation' whereas I'd be having palpitations with her level of debt.

from the ONS: www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/bulletins/householddisposableincomeandinequality/financialyearending2017

have more disposable income than at any time previously. However, compared with their pre-downturn levels the incomes of the poorest households have risen nearly two thousand pounds but the incomes of the richest are only now slightly higher. Overall, income inequality has slowly fallen over the last decade.

Absolute and relative poverty has fallen over the last 10 years
the poor are better off then they have ever been.

I’m a journo and I’ve just written how money desperation isn’t necessarily to do with psygrade. Rich bastards worry too apparently. However not being able to buy tampons or feed your kids is the fault of the government irrespective of political leaning. No one gives a tiny shit about the impoverished because they’re too busy surviving to vote.

Carol but prices have risen. And the incomes of the poorest households have risen by 2000 for people who haven't been sanctioned on benefits I suppose? They mean working people yes?

There are even people who do work all sorts of ridiculously lengthy hours for very low pay. These people I believe use foodbanks and try to claim some benefits.
They don't always get them though. How touch is that? This government is so wrong

I also concur that it isn’t global. I’m also in Australia and have a much higher standard of living here than I did in the UK and Ireland, despite changing career to a lower stress job. I am paid much higher here in a much lower grade of work than I was as a professionally qualified job in the UK, same for my husband. In London our high salaries had us living in a one bedroomed flat in a very ordinary bit of London that we would not be able to afford now. Here we can afford a beautiful house with a pool near the beach. We have plenty of disposable income! I genuinely worry for my family and friends in the UK (especially my mum). I am under no illusion that things will remain so rosy here for ever, Australia does feel like an affluent bubble at the moment. It amazes me here how so many ordinary working people have enormous houses, multiple cars, boats fgs!And we are meant to be in a recession! And minimum wage here is something like $17 an hour, it really is a different world.

This is very interesting. We are in Australia too (Sydney) and are moving back to London next year as we will be better off financially long term there. Housing here is a complete no go for us. We have a 3 bed+ study in London and can only afford to rent a 2 bed here.
I am trying to upskill to be able to WFH when we are back in London and after our second baby is born. We can't afford to put our DD in daycare here, so I am looking forward to her going to nursery a little when we move back.
We've been gone for 2 years but so our friends might be in different positions to when we left, but our friends are upsizing their homes and growing their families so if people are feeling pinched, they're making it work somehow. I am terrified of leaving the medical care here though (which is why I am so pleased DC2 will be born here). The NHS makes me want to weep. Not to mention to woeful provisions for MH services. I had severe PND after DD was born and received amazing care. I'm not sure I would have lived to tell the tale had I had to go through it all in the U.K.

Berries Sydney's expensive hey? We're not in Sydney and we're semi-rural. I wouldn't have it any other way though. We're less than an hour form a decent city either way.

I also have been amazed at how good the medical care is. I was astounded to find that I could always get an appointment, didn't have to wait ages in a waiting room AND the doctor's don't shove you out of the room asap.

Technically, from the official stats, it's not getting worse as a % of the population, the last 3 ONS reports show people in persistent poverty - I.e for 1-3 year is 7.5%, then 6.5%, then 7.8%.

It's also a similarly consistent stat for people who will experience poverty for 1 year at around 30%.

Absolute and relative poverty has fallen over the last 10 years
the poor are better off then they have ever been

Really? Government figures from March 2018 showed a rise in child poverty, from 4 million to 4.1 i.e. 30 % of children living in poverty along with 21% of working-age adults and 16% of pensioners. In addition there's a rise in homelessness with 790,000 in temporary accommodation. I think the problem with the ONS figures is that they are based on median incomes not actual incomes per household. The freeze on children's benefits, cuts in other benefits have had negative impacts on poorer families, low pay, rising cost of childcare and other costs seem to outweigh any increases.

So while median income calculations show a decrease in 'absolute' poverty there is a rise in actual poverty for a great deal of children/families. Similarly although overall 30% of children are in poverty, that is not evenly distributed so in Birmingham it would be 53%.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/child-poverty-increase-children-family-benefit-households-a8268191.html
www.theguardian.com/society/2017/nov/02/child-poverty-britain-set-to-soar-to-new-record-ifs
www.theguardian.com/education/2018/apr/02/teachers-warn-of-growing-poverty-crisis-in-british-schools
www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2018/research/poverty-report-children/
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-43784482

Brexit has turned us from one of the fastest post-crash growth economies into one of the slowest according to Mark Carney. And that is before we have left! For sure this was started by the global crash but it is being extended and deepened by Brexit.

The pound Plummeted the morning after the Brexit vote and has never recovered. We live in Europe so we watch the the currency rates

We have a want it now mentality where due to sustained low interest rates people think it is fine to borrow for stuff

This is the line that right wingers have been feeding us. It is rubbish. It is not all the fault of people at the bottom, nor is the 'want it now' mentality in anyway new. Or haven't you heard of the never-never and people hiding behind the sofa from collectors? Fact is that whatever bullshit they come out with - I was listening to another MP talking about the wonderful economic growth we're having, increased employment figures etc etc - wages are dropping in figures, never mind in real terms.

Can we not have the squabble over whose fault it is? Tory / New Labour / Corbyn v May, the whole political circus, that whole over-simplified duality, it's just a show for the media. We need to focus on the substance, not the style: pragmatic solutions over party political finger pointing. The preeminence of party politics is half of what's causing the problems. If not all of it, when it comes to Brexit.

there are a large portion of teachers who believe many childrens families won't be able to buy enough food over the holidays
There are a large portion of teachers whose families won’t be able to buy enough food over the holidays! Since some employers started hiring teachers on term time only contracts to save money after budget cuts.

Wow, some of these replies are quite scary,
Not sure what to make of poorest households being £2k better off each year when the poorest families are I’d assume on UC, which has had a lot of publicity for making people financially worse off.

I believe there are people who aren’t hit as hard, but I don’t think that’s the norm.

If this is going to get worse. I don’t know what to do. My instinct is to save as much as possible and flee the UK.

LLama Pyjamas. Really? I had no idea.

Today I think we’re going to the food bank with donations.

A big issue is that you can't trust any official information now. It's so twisted and turned and made to jump through hoops beneficial to public agendas.

Yes, austerity. Softening us all up nicely for when we 'get our country back'. O what fun it will be when the only markets open to us produce what we want at greatly reduced cost. Hurrah! Produced by their underpaid exploited workforces in their unregulated utopias. Hurrah again! Watch and applaud as companies pack their bags and hotfoot it to Europe to maintain access to the massive market that we've thrown away. Governor of Bank of England? Idiot. What does he know,? I agree with Fred down the pub he knows much more. I'm sorry OP. You are right. Its very much worse than it was. Food Banks for crying out loud? Your mum didn't have to use one. I saw a photo in paper a few weeks ago of our Tory M P smugly grinning at the opening of yet another in this area - one of the most wealthy cities in an expensive area of the south - when he should have been ashamed to show his face. I'm sorry I cant offer hope of improvement.

Reasons why a large proportion of people are struggling:
Living above their means
Consumer debt
Feck all to do with the economy or the evil tories.

Agree longwayoff and the NHS will be flogged to the US and free healthcare will be a thing of the past.