To ask why there is such food poverty.

[Helendee]

Please no flaming as I genuinely am seeking answers as to why so many children are going to school hungry these days.
This is not a critical or inflammatory post, I just want to know what’s gone wrong.
Obviously many of us are struggling financially because of Covid but food poverty was a huge problem before that.
Is it that benefit levels are too low to adequately feed our children?
What can we do to ameliorate the situation?

@Marmunia1975

Sometimes TVs, mobiles and cigs take priority. I always thought benefits were generous. My friend's dad used to deliver food bank goods but stopped when he saw this smoker guy's 50 inch TV with Sky Sports. He then asked for a second parcel for his mate.

And people like you are why children are starving.

I'm amused by people saying we should be more like Norway, and also complaining food is expensive here.

Food in Norway is massively more expensive than here. Some basic things 3/4/5x as expensive. (Alcohol significantly more than that- standard bottle of wine in supermarket starts around £15 last time I was there)

And they have to pay to see a doctor.

[quote roarfeckingroarr]@IronLawOfGeometricProgression bill relief, housing benefit etc all adds ups. £74 is single people right, without any additions for disability etc? So someone who should be working,[/quote]
I dunno. That's what my friend got earlier in the year. It didn't cover very much.

@roarfeckingroarr nope its only 74 pounds even if you have dependants. They make you do a big song and dance for it aswell even if you have been in employment for 20 years and never claimed a benefit in your life.

However I walk past our local foodbank daily on way from car park to the office and the queue outside consists of people who are smoking and chatting in their phones, Surely they should prioritise feeding family over those non essentials,

Part of it is that it's expensive to be poor. I recall being so frustrated that I could couldn't afford to take advantage of bulk buys or paying insurance annually.

I'm glad I didn't have DS then although I'm glad of the experience as it taught me to manage money. But it would have been so much harder to have DS to provide for as I would have felt guilty at not being able to give him what he wanted.

[quote roarfeckingroarr]@IronLawOfGeometricProgression bill relief, housing benefit etc all adds ups. £74 is single people right, without any additions for disability etc? So someone who should be working,[/quote]
No. It includes many sick and disabled people who have been 'assessed' by a private company paid millions by the taxpayer to find people 'fit for work'. Lots will eventually, after months and months, receive a higher amount on appeal but only if they have the physical and mental strength (and access to some support, not always available). It's a system so unfit for purpose it's been condemned by the UN.

Others - Jobseekers - are normal everyday people who've had a bit of bad luck, like redundancy. They need to survive whilst looking for a new job. The exceptions are a minority (who you wouldn't want to employ or work with).

10 years of austerity, lack of housing, benefit cap, rising cost of living have all contributed.

@linelgreen, I suggest ripping the fags and phones from their hands and forcing them to get down on their knees and beg for that tinned fruit.

Supersimkin Funny you bring up IQ actually because studies show low IQ people overwhelmingly support right wing policies of the sort you are spouting

I'm sorry but I'm sick of hearing the same old rhetoric about "the government can't afford to spend more on benefits." This is utter shit. You people really need to look at government spending and you'd be disgusted at the billions wasted on utterly ridiculous crap, rather than spending more on tackling child poverty. Our contemptuous Tory government would rather top up their friends heaving bank accounts, than continue fsm over the holidays. Despicable bunch of over privileged wank stains

All those who want more benefits or the cap reduced - where is the money coming from?

We could have used the £12 billion that Boris gave to his crooked mates.

Phones are essentials now. You need internet to claim benefits and apply for jobs. Smoking, maybe. Maybe there should be support to stop? And social support to unload some of the stress?

With so much being online I don’t know if there’s people-to-people support now. At one time -way before mine - job centres used to help people look for jobs and actually matched people to work available. Now they’re remote and punitive.

There's lots and lots of reasons why food poverty is an issue ,I live in the northwest accomodation is fairly cheap and social housing is more plentiful and tbh there's not much diffence in rent anyway ,in my area if you were a single parent living in social housing benefits probably would provide an adequate standard of living ,not luxiourios but adequate even in private rent you would be better off than somebody living in the South east ,but living in temporary accommodation with no cooking facilities must be incredibly hard .

@linelgreen

However I walk past our local foodbank daily on way from car park to the office and the queue outside consists of people who are smoking and chatting in their phones, Surely they should prioritise feeding family over those non essentials,

But they're doing what you want aren't they? Saving billions of tax.

Smoking (a small comfort to cope with a life of grinding poverty) = billions for the tax coffers AND massively reduced pension and social care costs.

@DoctorYang

It's not just not knowing how to cook, its families living in poverty or low-income households that are stressed and tired! Working long hours for little pay, huge childcare costs, the mental load of not having enough money, etc can mean that there is not enough capacity (either mentally or physically) left to cook. Convenience food or takeaways use up more money but might be all they can muster up the energy for. On top of all the reasons already stated.

Absolutely this

@linelgreen

However I walk past our local foodbank daily on way from car park to the office and the queue outside consists of people who are smoking and chatting in their phones, Surely they should prioritise feeding family over those non essentials,

Since when is a phone a non-essential?

MiddleClassMother nope never went with out heating etc...I guess my point is, being poor or struggling financially and being an addict of some kind don’t go hand in hand as much as people like to insinuate it does

I think unexpected events have a lot to do with food poverty; especially in the way society is now compared with historically. Car breaks down; job loss.
I find literature gives a good insight into how supportive communities were before. There was the scene in ' Emma' when she's going with Harriet to give soup and provisions to a family in hard times. Someone else in the novel was receiving help from the parish. It was like a food bank, but offered with grace and a sense of obligation to others. I know people who support or work in food banks are gracious. But it was normal to help everyone less fortunate with apples from your or hard; some pork if you slayed a pig. You basically were always handing out food to somebody. Then in 'Sons and Lovers' Stephen's mother actually borrows the train fair to London from her neighbour when the eldest son gets I'll in Beckenham. Her home was in the north. Could we really, today, ask a neighbour to lend us £150? Maybe not so much, and societies are dislocated and even within families the compunction to take away the misery doesn't exist. There is a sort of blame hovering over falling on hard times which I don't think used to exist, maybe because more people have never experienced actual poverty, or uni and good careers have taken them away from insecurity, and so there isn't the sense of being in it together. If you are down on your money - maybe because you've had to buy a bandage and those big plasters because your child has scraped their leg or something, or new football boots for them - it would really help to go to a neighbour to ask "Have you got three eggs I can borrow till next week, and some sugar, as I want to make pancakes?' instead of needing to buy six eggs and a bag of sugar. I feel being able to borrow money from family is the main thing which gives you a safety net to take you through the bad times. But paradoxically, people will tend to help when you are on the up and they feel that they are just offering a helping hand. If you really are struggling, family can sometimes be terrified of being sucked into a bottomless pit of helping and never ending obligation.

. We need a caring society, whether it be small scale or the welfare state. I know we have benefits today which we didn't have years ago, but, if there is more food bank use, month by month, I guess the only inference we can draw is living must be more expensive and dependency and hardship on the increase.

@poshme

I'm amused by people saying we should be more like Norway, and also complaining food is expensive here.

Food in Norway is massively more expensive than here. Some basic things 3/4/5x as expensive. (Alcohol significantly more than that- standard bottle of wine in supermarket starts around £15 last time I was there)

And they have to pay to see a doctor.

But buying or renting a property and utility bills are much cheaper there relative to average earnings

Primary schools already have enough to do without teaching cooking. Most do a little bit of simple cooking related to topics and healthy eating- but they can't possibly do it well enough to give children all the skills they will need to be adequate cooks in their adult lives! It's a parent's job!

Sure you do linel, cool story.

I really wish there was a national drive teaching people how to use seasonings and even vouchers for them.

A tin of beans, an onion, a tin of kidney beans, a tin of tomatoes and some rice will fill bellies really cheaply, but let's face it won't taste of much.

Add to that a load of paprika, chilli flakes, garlic and cumin and you have a very tasty, veggie chilli that people want to eat. Not just a plate of calories being forced down.

We need to bring back basic cooking lessons for budget food which doesn't happen. Kids should be taught how to cook cheap, nutritious meals and how to use what's available. As a skint person I keep my spice rack topped up and make a point of buying a jar of some sort of seasoning each week. Just Aldi ones which are absolutely fine and half the price of branded ones.

@lockeddownandcrazy

Its not a new thing its just more awareness that its a bad thing. Kids have gone to school over the years with just a bit of toast or nothing - it was just put down to them not getting up on time. Now its seen as a state failing to provide not a lack of parenting All those who want more benefits or the cap reduced - where is the money coming from?

How about redirecting the money given to Serco for the useless track and trace, or HS2, or the money spent on painting Johnson's plane. There is plenty of money, it's ideology.