To think that this is unacceptable in this day and age

[nighttrains]

• An estimated 14.3 million people are in poverty in the UK
• 8.3 million are working-age adults, 4.6 million are children, and 1.3 million are of pension age
• Around 22% of people are in poverty, and 34% of children are
• Just under half (49%) of those in poverty are in “persistent povertyy_” (people who would also have fallen below the poverty line in at least two of the last three years). This is as of 2016/17

This is from fullfact.org/economy/poverty-uk-guide-facts-and-figures/

It's appalling for a so called civilised country

It’s not as bad as it used to be.

Tell that to the people who are living it now. Poverty is relative, we're an entirely different country to that of fifty years ago, and we have entirely different essential needs. You can't compare like for like.

Ten years ago we didn't have a food bank in my town, there was one in the city and that was it for the county. Now they are in every town, often two, as well as the Salvation Army and the churches which offer food parcels. Do you think that's not bad?

It's awful. I was on benefits when I was a single mum. I ran my circumstances through the benefits calculator recently and I'd now receive about £30 per week less than back then. That's £30 a week worse off than 26 years ago. Shameful.

When you have shelter, food, education, medical treatments and all of it is free when you need it

But many people don't have those things. Maybe if you close your eyes these people don't exist to you?

What do you expect with a Conservative government. The country voting them in. Don't bother with the 'the alternative is worse' because you really have no idea because they are not in power.

Perhaps if the 8.3 million are working-age adults, and 1.3 million are of pension age people you mention above in poverty actually voted for another way or for some actually voted then maybe it would be a different story.... will they though?

I live in a wealthy town and even we've had a big increase in food bank referrals. It is shocking. In south east I do believe it's very tied to high housing costs. Many don't have any or much in savings because all their money goes to necessities especially rent.

@ChaChaCha2012

It’s not as bad as it used to be.

Tell that to the people who are living it now. Poverty is relative, we're an entirely different country to that of fifty years ago, and we have entirely different essential needs. You can't compare like for like.

Ten years ago we didn't have a food bank in my town, there was one in the city and that was it for the county. Now they are in every town, often two, as well as the Salvation Army and the churches which offer food parcels. Do you think that's not bad?

Of course we can compare poverty rates across time. How else are we to ascertain if poverty is getting better or worse? It’s getting better at the population level. Fewer people are living in poverty every generation. Whether or not a food bank is a good thing depends on what came before. If the poor were simply starving to death, then it’s good that there are now enough well off people with extra food to donate to the poor. If everyone had enough to eat so no food bank was needed then it’s bad there is a food bank. And you can’t look at one town, you look at the nation as a whole. And on the whole, poverty has been decreasing.

Compared to other developed nations we have significant levels of inequality in this country. However it isn't just about being poor, it is also about where you are poor. Regional inequality is a particular issue as well and is growing. We see regional differences not just in terms of income and wealth but also in terms of health and educational outcomes, life expectancy and funding of public services. It is demonstrably worse to be a poor child in Liverpool than it is in London.

In 1970, poverty was 8x higher than it is now
www.macrotrends.net/countries/GBR/united-kingdom/poverty-rate

Well this is the result of austerity and conservative policies

All this “well what do you expect with a Tory government”. The simple fact is Labour and Tories are as bad as each other. Under Labour, all councils were taking the piss and massively overspending. Then it all stopped dead when they could no longer bury their head any more.

Here is the Fullfact on poverty and the problems with SMCs measures

fullfact.org/economy/poverty-uk-guide-facts-and-figures/
“Secondly, they’re using a kind of relative poverty measure, comparing families across the UK. This means they’ve chosen to compare everyone to an “average” family in terms of the resources they have available to them, and those who have the least by comparison are defined as in poverty.

They effectively place all families in the UK in a line, from those with the most resources to those with the least. The family in the middle is the “median family”. Any family that has 54% or less of what that median family has is defined as being in poverty.

Why 54%? Actually, the SMC itself openly admits this is a “largely arbitrary” choice. It’s actually chosen so that there’s almost no difference in the overall level of UK poverty between this new measure and the existing ones used by the government. The main measure of relative poverty shows as many as 14 million people in poverty—this new measure has it at 14.3 million, due to this choice.

Changing that threshold makes a stark difference too—using the previous year’s figures if you made it 50%, you’d have “moved” 2.5 million people out of poverty. If you went for 60%, you’d have increased poverty by 2.3 million people.”

Cardibach
Having returned last year from 13 years in Belgium, I can safely say that the utility bills (so gas and electric ) are far cheaper here than they there were. It's 21% VAT on the fuel bills there. Same is true of broadband and food; we can live better and more cheaply here. Insurance is cheaper, car tax is way cheaper here. I pay the same for fully comp here as I did for third party in Belgium (you can't get fully comp on a car more than 5 years old there).

Shoes, clothes and books are cheaper here, and there is 0% VAT on children's clothes here. There is no VAT on books here either.

Having paid rent whilst in Belgium, I would say it was expensive to rent as well; everything I paid for as a landlord in UK, I had to pay for as a tenant in Belgium, from buildings insurance, through to chimney sweeping and boiler servicing. When you leave a rental property there, there is no such thing as wear and tear. You've damaged it, you pay (through the nose) for it. The property is expected to be given back in perfect condition, or the same, if not better, than when you rented it.

Lowest state pension in Europe - but we are allowed to have an occupational pension alongside that. That is not the case in all countries.

Highest military spending in Western Europe? Is there 'Western Europe' any more, since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and the accession of many former Warsaw Pact nations to NATO and the EU?
We spend about 2% of GDP on defence, which is bang in line with our NATO commitments. Germany should be spending more than us, but prefers to ride on the coat tails of others.

I don't think the UK is as bad as some would like to make out. There are food banks in Belgium - we are not the only country with them by a long chalk.

It's the cost of housing which makes me livid, London rates aside, £650 per month is average cost of a 1 bed privately rented flat, after tenants pay admin, reservation and reference fees on top of a hefty deposit.
The cost of food can be reduced if you can shop around, look for offers etc, but poverty in the UK is nothing like poverty in other countries.
In Venezuela people struggle to find affordable clean drinking water, or water to wash clothes, if they can acquire soap with current inflation rates. Here in the UK, we can access clean water by switching on a tap in our homes. I mentioned this to my former partner, who said "Well we pay for it, we pay for this priviledge", I am sure most Venezuelans would love to pay a modest amount for water if it was in their means. How did an oil producing nation become like this, where clean drinking water becomes a luxury?

If poverty is defined as a comparative to the mean then there will always be poverty.
I have never thought of it like that before. Very helpful to my understanding of things.

Privilege.

@Chevron123 I didn't grow up in the UK, so I'm curious about what you mean by "I now live in a very affluent area and am genuinely shocked when I return to the town where I grew up. The opportunities that allowed me to go to university and move on are not available to kids growing up there today. "

What opportunities were these? Do you mean the free university?

another point is that we are creating a 'dependent society/class/group' who expect others to feed/clothe them for free
ie school meals - during lock down (our school) free school meals of sandwich , crisps and fruit were given out twice a week with parents queuing at the kitchen door for this hand out surely no-one is that skint to not afford bread and a filling

surely no-one is that skint to not afford bread and a filling

1.9 million food bank referrals between March 2019 and March 2020, a number that will probably be considerably higher for the 2020/2021 year. Yes, there really are people who cannot afford bread and a filling or for whom buying extra bread and extra filling, to cover the meal usually provided by school, would put a hole in their already tenuous finances.

Nandocushion. Having access to grants to go to university (and meaning that I could apply to universities in more expensive areas), certainly helped. Taking the 11+ and going to a grammar school - in the days when there was no tutoring and you simply passed or failed on the day. Having at least a handful of friends with aspirations beyond getting married and working in a local business. I think that last point is key. The area is one of the few, possibly the only area in the country that didn't have a single young person go to Oxbridge from a state school last year. By no means a perfect measure but it certainly makes you think. As levels of inequality increase, I think people tend to accept their situation and focus on survival.

If people don't want to be in poverty then they shouldn't have children until they can earn enough to support them out of poverty

1. Circumstances change. Marriages/relationships breakdown, people die, companies go bust, health fails. A run of bad luck is often all that's needed to tip a family into poverty

1. Children aren't responsible for the decisions of their parents and forcing them to live in poverty is not a justifiable punishment for the crime of daring to be born

1. The measure of a society is in how it treats it most vulnerable members

Because people have consistently voted to deliberately impoverish others.

The impoverishment and suffering inflicted on disabled people in this country has been a deliberate choice by its citizens.

I don't know what you think the date has to do with any of it. The passage of time does not magically improve things.

And a number 4 for my above list:

1. Over 1.9 million of those living in poverty are in employment

@Chevron123

Nandocushion. Having access to grants to go to university (and meaning that I could apply to universities in more expensive areas), certainly helped. Taking the 11+ and going to a grammar school - in the days when there was no tutoring and you simply passed or failed on the day. Having at least a handful of friends with aspirations beyond getting married and working in a local business. I think that last point is key. The area is one of the few, possibly the only area in the country that didn't have a single young person go to Oxbridge from a state school last year. By no means a perfect measure but it certainly makes you think. As levels of inequality increase, I think people tend to accept their situation and focus on survival.

That's really interesting that the grants are the crucial ingredient, because they create/drive the aspiration. I know this is probably really obvious to people in the UK, but in North America we've never had free university so we've never seen the difference.

@ILoveAllRainbowsx

£2trillion is the exact sum the coalition govt spent on bailing out the banks through quantitative easing. Makes you think eh?

£2 trillion is the same as our annual GDP and in line with France, Germany and better than the US.

I think we should try and reduce our national debt BUT by taxing the wealthy, not the poor and DEFINITELY not by reducing benefits again. Tax the rich pensioners!