To think his proves the government haven't got a clue about poverty?!

[whatthewhatthewhat]

Disgusting

chancellor

I think you can give equality of opportunity via education and health care, but you cannot guarantee or expect equality of outcome.

I have friends who earn very well, but are constantly on the bones of their arse and pleading poverty due to their choices.

Yes, you are heartless. And have clearly led a charmed existence.

Relative poverty is still detrimental to children's life chances.

Utter bollocks

It just isn't. Western societies are based on opportunity for all.

If you actually believe that, then you are extremely naive and lack any critical thinking.
If western societies were that based in opportunity fir all, there would be no issue about social mobility!!! As it is, it’s not the case, quite the opposite. Which means that the family you ar born in and their wane actually has a huge impact in your income potential. And here goes more poverty...

@alsohuman I Daniel Blake is a work of socialist propaganda

I think there are a lot of children in poverty because of the bad choices of parents.

Every pound spent on alcohol, tobacco, illegal drugs, and a whole raft of other pointless rubbish, is a pound that could be spent on those children.

As a former free school meals child whose df spent hours in the local bookie, my heart bleeds for them. So I’d add breakfast clubs and school uniform vouchers and family centres but not more money to parents.

Hungry children who don't get enough to eat in the holidays, and plenty of parents skipping meals so they can feed their kid = definitely poverty.

That's leaving out the numerous other people who can right now afford to eat and pay the rent but would be truly fucked if given notice because they couldn't afford deposit and moving costs. Again that equals poverty, because they will be depending on a council B&B.

People in the UK have been conditioned to believe they are not in poverty - remember the thread where one person was strenuously arguing she was not in poverty, despite her not being able to replace her 1 pair of shoes which had holes in

Adequate food, clothes and safe secure housing are all very basic needs that a large swathe of people in the UK cannot meet on an ongoing basis.

If you can't meet these needs, then yes, it's poverty.

Mental Health problems may be self inflicted, depending on what they are. The circumstances leading to a need for benefits may be self-inflicted. Not all, but not none either.

This is disgusting ableist bullshit right here.

Shame on you for perpetuating a myth that some people choose to be mentally ill @Gth1234.

Load of bollocks, leftie propaganda as usual.

@AbsentmindedWoman
mental health issues as a result of drug use isn't self-inflicted then?

Poverty is about so much more than money.

It is as simple and as complicated as that.

What on earth is david Scheidner making if he thinks an income-after housing and after tax- of more than £1700 a month is poverty?!

He must be making an awful lot if he can look down from his perch and declare that income poverty!

So must the rest of them who are squawking about that being an impoverished income! How much are they making?! It's all relative, so they must be making a hell of a lot of an income of around £60,000 a year is considered poverty by them.

What would they think is an average income-after tax and housing. I suppose if they're raking in huge amounts, they would consider anything less than £4000 a month, below average.

Pillocks. This stupid tweet of his just shines an enormous light on his over privileged and patronising arse.

The trouble with 'relative poverty' is that the poorest 20% are always going to be the poorest 20%, even if the wage of the poorest 1% was £100,000 at today's money (and spending power), with the next 19% (most of the 20%) earning more than that and 80% earning even more.

As PP say, if we persuaded the richest 10% to leave the country - taking their tax contributions with them - 'relative poverty' would 'improve' dramatically. But no one would actually have more money and, having lost a lot of tax, services would decline sharply.

It's also the case that the people who fall into the poorest 20% aren't always them same people. There's quite a lot of movement in and out of the group as circumstances change. Growing up I was a coal-lorry chaser, and even as a young adult I didn't have skills that allowed me a good income, but today, although I have to keep an eye on our finances, I would consider myself 'comfortable'. But something could cause me to drop into the 20% again.

@Gth1234 drug addiction is frequently a result of people self-medicating for untreated mental illness, often with roots in unresolved trauma of some kind of another.

So no, I don't see it being quite as simple as you seem to think.

Gth
Is relationship breakdown due to domestic violence self inflicted or due to an abusive or feckless partner - the sort of partner who is also unlikely to pay child maintenance payments.

Are we really back to the concept of deserving or undeserving poor?

The trouble with 'relative poverty' is that the poorest 20% are always going to be the poorest 20%

Yes they will, but with a changed income distribution, they might not be in relative poverty any more. It's about feeling included in society.

The key thing is that it's a percentage of the median (the income of the middle person), not the mean (traditional average).

So, if you have:
1 person on 240k
2 people on 100k
6 people on 30k
1 person on 20k
Mean income is 60k
Median income is 30k

No-one is in relative poverty (60% of the median is 18k). There are enough people on 30k that the person on 20k will be able to afford the kind of things that are expected by society. Doesn't really matter that there are a few people with much more.

If instead you have:
1 person on 210k
7 people on 50k
2 people on 20k

Mean income is still 60k
Median income is 50k

The 2 people on 20k are now in relative poverty. The 'norm' is now to have 50k, which means that e.g all the other kids are going on a a school trip abroad, and the people on 20k risk feeling socially excluded.

It isn't about how rich the richest are (in both those cases, the median would stay the same if the super-rich guy moved abroad). It's about people not being left behind from the norm.

I don't think that choosing a system other than capitalism would be the death of entrepreneurship and progress. Ultimately, it is the public recognition and power that drives the wealthiest in society- money is just a nice by-product. So people are still going to start and grow businesses, partly because they enjoy the challenge of doing something new and becoming better at things but mainly because they can become recognised figures, whether locally, nationally or internationally and have power over others. Would people like Alan Sugar or the Dragons really abandon their business empires or even stop trying to expand them if they were taxed a lot more? They would probably threaten it, but ultimately the power is far more important to them.

And then you also have the many people who enjoy learning, teaching, understanding the world whether with a scientific or humanities bias. Plus the people who help others because it gives them satisfaction. They are more important to the long term future than business people and they are often doing it for peanuts already.

So the world wouldn't collapse without financial capitalism, it would move to social capitalism instead.

Alternatively, keep capitalism but change perception of what a merit based society should be. Merit becomes a measure of your contribution to society in terms of personally helping people, making lives better, rather than of how much money you make. That would be very interesting to see.

If you don’t think there is ‘real’ poverty in this country then you are deluded/wilfully ignorant/live a sheltered life.

There may be some poverty but the real problem is how people manage their money, in every income bracket. Some manage on their benefits because they live within their means, I worked as a teacher with people who were permanently skint because of how they chose to live.
It's not, never has been under under any government, as simple as political points scoring.

@LadyRannaldini it is not true that the real problem is how people 'manage money'. There must be money to manage in order to create a realistic and sustainable budget to meet basic costs like housing and bills.

The 'real problem' is wages have not kept up with inflation. Huge amounts of people in work reliant on government top ups. And then benefits like tax credits and UC get cut or made difficult to access.

Budgeting, and living economically, shopping around for good deals, is something you can only do if you have a little money to start with.

Ultimately, it is the public recognition and power that drives the wealthiest in society- money is just a nice by-product

Not really convinced at this, I'm afraid.

Maybe the likes of Alan Sugar, but would the many small entrepreneurs - who are such an important part of our economy - put up with years of working all hours and putting it all back into the business (which really is needed to get a business started) when they could do a chilled 9-5?

Would you or I choose the longer hours/more responsible job if we didn't gain financial rewards for our family which make up for the time and energy we're sacrificing?

I wouldn't. And those small, individual decisions miltiplied across the whole country is why the economy would suffer.