To think having £211/week each after housing costs isn't poverty?

[PianoThirty]

It is according to the Social Metrics Commission.

They say the poverty line is £203/week for a single parent with one child, £422/week for a couple with two children. All figures are after** housing costs and childcare costs (if applicable).

I'd be over the moon if we had £422/week to spend, and I don't think we're anywhere near poor.

It's after housing costs incl council tax but not other bills like utilities and broadband, and childcare.
I checked the report as the OP suggested, it actually includes childcare costs too (which is a great equaliser between high earners and low earners when the children are small).

There's still council tax, utilities etc - mine come to £720 a month before food and other living costs

What about childcare? If that's expected to come out of that weekly amount then that is definitely poverty.

I have £80 left a week after rent and utilities/council tax/phone etc etc.
From the £80 I have to feed me and my 11 year old son, clothe us, keep us clean and laundered and pay for train travel. I can't afford to run a car. Any holidays or toys, fun, books whatever etc also have to come out of that. I also home educate him so have to buy workbooks and learning materials.
It doesn't go terribly far. So, yeah; I guess we're living in poverty.

I am a single parent with 1 child. We lived in a 1 bed flat for a year after I split from ex.
I’m fairly thrifty - cook from scratch, don’t drink/smoke or go to gym etc but I’d have found that tight.

It’s surviveable - just - but I would have struggled to send ds on the trips his classmates went on, and him being denied what society sees as normal would have made me cut into my own basics like food.

There's still council tax, utilities etc - mine come to £720 a month
It is not a typo? £720 / month for council tax and utilities?

By claiming that almost a quarter of the country is in poverty, we roll our eyes and say “oh not this nonsense again”

I mean, you dont have to do that, do you? It's not mandatory. Instead, you could check out what the minimum wage is, do some back of the fag packet calculations, and determine what's left over instead?

I think in the UK we’ve accepted that it is normal to struggle, and normal to see other people struggle.

Our perceptions of what it is ok to accept as a society, and what it is ok to expect other people to accept are utterly skewed.

There's still council tax, utilities etc - mine come to £720 a month before food and other living costs

How?! That's insane...
Normal bills are around...
£120 gas and electricity
£50 phone and broadband
£50 water
£20 TV licence

You're trying to say you spend nearly £500 a month on council tax?

What is included in the household costs?

£1700ish a month for 2 adults and 2 kids. Minus...

£180 council tax
£120 gas/electric/water
£60 tv license, sky + broadband (luxury I know!)
£250 food
£100 petrol
£180 car payment
£200 clothes (whole family)
£80 home, life and car insurance
£80 DH train pass for work

That's £1250 on what would be essential bills for us. So £450 left a month to cover absolutely everything else - holidays, birthdays, Christmas, uniforms, house maintenance, car maintenance, nights out, treats, activities, after school clubs, savings.... It's not a lot for a family of 4. All it would take is for the boiler to pack in and the whole thing goes to pot. You would need a loan to fix it, need to make monthly payments, leaving less money for everything else and the cycle continues. Don't know if I would class it as poverty, but it would be tight with not a lot of wiggle room for dealing with the unforseen.

Disclaimer - I know some of the things would be considered luxury (sky, car) and could be cut back but I'm just going off our rough costs for what I would consider the basics.

What about childcare? If that's expected to come out of that weekly amount then that is definitely poverty.
This metric is after housing costs, debt repayments, childcare costs, extra costs associated with disability and other "inescapable family costs" (unclear what these are). The formula is shown on pg 14 of the report.

And here's me living on under £900 for me and my 6yo.
#luxuryliving

People seem to be looking at these figures as some sort of minimum amount which everyone gets.

Skimming through the report, what struck me was the % of families and individuals who are way below these levels.

We have a generous welfare state in the UK to provide people basics and then some

Really? I can't get any help, and after rent and utilities I've got £75 a month to live on. That's before I've even bought any food.

Placemarking so I can read report later. The £211 figure seems right but the family of 4 figure seems plenty for a family of 4.

I have £130 left a week after rent to cover all bills and food as a single parent. I wouldn't say we where in poverty. I have to be very careful and tend to buy clothes etc from charity shops, can't afford to run a car and no holidays but I see them as luxuries.

The £130 is just enough to keep a roof over our heads, keep us warm and food in our belly.

So you still have to pay for bills, food, and travel...sounds pretty tight to me.
Atm DH pays £150pcm on the train, and I pay £53 for the bus. That's £200 gone on just getting to work.
That's excluding any car journeys.

Shoes I always think are expensive for DC, my friends year 7 boy is already in a mens size 10 (so school shoes, outdoor trainers/football boots, and indoor trainers probably needed every term/6m)

It sounds like a lot to me but then I've never lived in expensive areas. Is this an average for the whole UK? Because I'm sure if you lived in London that could seem like sod all money.

I would class poverty as being unable to meet basic human needs - eg rent, food, heat, running water, electricity. But those things will cost different families different amounts for a whole variety of reasons. It'd quite difficult to put a number on it that applies to everyone.

But what you describe is quite a comfortable standard of living - an expensive car, plenty of money for clothes and food, above average council tax and utilities, suggesting you are putting the heating on and covering these costs, being able to afford insurance and public transport costs in addition to a decent car.

Just because someone may run out of money before they run out of things they can think of to spend it on, doesn't mean they don't have enough money, more that their expectations on what they can afford might not be reasonable.

The UK is an expensive country to live in. Having to make choices about what you spend your money on does not necessarily equate to 'poverty'.

That's £914 a month left over.

You've got

• £100 council tax
• £80 fuel
• £45 phone/internet
• £400 food

-£40 water

Which comes to £665, meaning you have £249 a month over - and that has to cover clothes, any school equipment, car costs, any holidays.

It's tight. Uncomfortably tight. I'm happy to say it's poverty by the standards of the global north. Of course, by global standards even the poorest in the UK are comparatively well off. But it's not a race to the bottom, is it?

We have a generous welfare state in the UK to provide people basics and then some.

The welfare state is far from generous.

We have a generous welfare state in the UK to provide people basics and then some

Tell that to the people who are currently living on £44 a week (yes, true!!). That is BEFORE council tax of around £10. So £34 a week for food and gas electric, toiletries, travel, communication, all other bills.

They haven't done anything 'wrong' or been sanctioned. They just happen to be jobseekers or disabled people and have old debts taken from their benefits which have already been FROZEN for many years. These debts are taken at 40% of the already meagre and frozen amount human beings are expected to live on.

But keep going on about the 'generous' welfare state we have.

Makes me sick.

Having enough to just about scrape by with basic food, no savings and no real quality of life has become acceptable in the U.K. thanks to the bloody Tories.

This is wholly unacceptable in this country in the 21st century. People need to wake up and stop thinking this is ok, it isn't.

I have £60 a week. The amount mentioned seems like loads!