@DragonOverTheMoon
I personally think the hyperbole is around 'starving dc'. We don't have starving dc in this country unless there is neglect and abuse within the home. Posters say others rely on food banks, they don't, it's rubbish, you can't rely on a food bank. They won't dole them out weekly. You get 3 at a time. I'm not saying there arent poor people, I'm not saying that it's not shit that the people in power get richer whilst we all get poorer, but we're not in a starving war zone living off rice and beans in this country. Yes there is awful practices with UC, the 5 week wait and only money for two dc ect yes the poor asylum seekers can't work and get shit asda vouchers to live on, but we're not starving on refugee portions, far from it. We're one of the richest countries in the world. I'd rather vote for a party that has finally woken up to the TRA agenda than one who hasnt even though I don't agree with them economically
Yes. You'd have been better off citing facts and figures to support what you're saying though.
PublishedWednesday, 14 July, 2021, the House Of Commons Library states near the end that:
"Food bank data should not be used as a proxy for poverty measurements...."
A study published in the open access journalBMC Public Health suggests that headline figures may have overstated the growth of food banks in the UK.
“This study fills a key evidence gap by presenting the first estimate of the proportion of adults and children using UK food banks.
Headline figures about the prevalence of food bank rely on data from the Trussell Trust – the largest provider of emergency food in Britain – and capture the number of food supplies that are distributed, but because people can visit food banks more than once, the overall number of recipients is unknown. This means that an estimate of the proportion of the population who use food banks has not been possible so far.
If scaled up nationally, this estimate would equate to approximately 850,000 people in Britain each year. It shows that while only a minority of people use food banks, this still equates to a substantial number of people. Growth in the distribution of emergency food was inflated by a rising number of people visiting the food bank on multiple occasions, suggesting that for some people using food banks, this behaviour is becoming more entrenched as the circumstances underlying food bank use aren’t addressed."
- Dr. Elisabeth Garratt of the Centre for Social Investigation, Nuffield College, Oxford.
Full FullFact stated in 2017:
"The Trustsays thatthe average person using a food bank will do so twice in a year, so it estimates that around 590,000 different people used its services in 2016/17."
Sunderland Food Bank stated:
"We don’t claim that The Sunderland is reporting unique users. We measure numbers given three days’ food, which is a measure of volume."
This is the same for the Trussel Trust, in fact. They don't claim to be reporting unique users of their food banks.
They also said:
"Recent evidence from a wide range of Sunderland foodbank showed that 69% of foodbank clients only needed one foodbank voucher in a year to help them break out of crisis. Only 15% of people needed more than three food vouchers in a year."
This is also in line with the Trussel Trust.
Most food bank users are NOT relying on them weekly. Any that are get flagged in the system and given further help, but they're a small minority of food bank users.
If you use one of the Trussel Trust food banks three or more times, the system flags you up as requiring further help.
The upshot of all of this is that whilst the Trussel Trust handed out 2,537,198 million food parcels this is NOT the same thing as 2,537,198 million UNIQUE individuals receiving food parcels.
Food bank usage is also NOT restricted to low income areas as there is food bank usage in high income areas too.