to think that some people just don't get poverty?

[Ohsoworried]

I've seen a few posts recently where people earning a fair bit of money (think around 100k a year) are complaining that they're struggling with money, don't have enough etc. I DO understand that it is all relative but equally, for people like me on a low low wage, in insecure housing, wondering how I'm going to pay rent, having to stop paying in to my pension for the extra £30 a month etc it does make me cringe a little. Things are a little better for me at the moment but it has been hard and my secondment is up soon so back down to low pay. When I left my abusive ex I was living in poverty. And when I mean poverty I mean in a refuge, no job because I had to relocate, no money for a deposit to rent etc. It's the choice between being able to downsize your house, not go on holiday for a couple of years, make sacrifices but still live comfortably etc, compared with not knowing if you'll be able to afford your bills. Of course I'm generalising and I'm sure there are people out there who are genuinely on high wages but have high mortgage payments etc who are struggling. I do sympathise. But I don't always think this is the case...

Despite what some posters say about people not understanding degenerative illnesses etc, etc better off people do seem to have a blind spot for those who really struggle financially. They would never complain to a paraplegic about their sprained ankle or complain about a cold to a cancer sufferer. But they will complain about ‘struggling to go abroad this year’ to a family who have never had a holiday. I really don’t know why they do it. I have seen it so many times.

Emotion is what gets attention. None of the facts matter as long as you can get your point across with crying and wailing. This is often followed by categorising the person you've taken offence to and lumping them in with other types of people you don't like. All of these things are exactly what a child does and quite frankly if you insist on acting like a child, you'll be treated like a child.

This. Everything is harder when one is poor. Everything. Even illness and bereavement. Worrying about money/bills/food makes everything more difficult.

Someone who hasn’t experienced something is unlikely to fully ‘get it’ in the way you may like them to. We all have our own frames of reference, and our own understanding as to what ‘struggling’ is.

Someone on a higher income that loses a proportion of that may not in poverty, but they may still find themselves struggling relative to their previous standards. People with higher incomes generally have higher outgoings, and thus will feel, and struggle with, a drop in income.

Not being in poverty is not freedom from any and all of life stressors and/or concerns. Poverty is of course worse, but it’s not a race to the bottom is it?

Perfectly expressed; perfectly.

@venus7 My mum when on her second marriage always said 'don't marry someone with low prospects -- it's a lot easier to be miserable in comfort- '

A cheery thought!!

I like you OP; you understand.

But poverty can be changed; there are things that could be done, other policies which could be undone, whereas infertility, illness, bereavement are part of life, not a result of government.

Not all poverty....actually most poverty...is not caused by debt.

Yes exactly or families unable to eat or heat food... there definitely is absolute poverty in the UK.

YANBU. Some people really don’t understand what actual poverty is & will never experience it.
They will claim to be ‘poor’ or ‘on the verge of poverty’ despite having 2 cars, going on holiday a few times a year, having a secure roof over head & no worries as to where their next meal is coming from or how they are going to pay their bills but in these cases their view of what poverty is is based on their experience. They think poverty/being poor is having less than £5000 in the bank at the end of the month & that is not even adding their savings, that they never touch.
What people can do though is not judge others & do what they can to support community projects that help those less fortunate than themselves.
I have a friend who was literally sobbing down the phone to me as to how much her & her partner were struggling financially one week then the next they had booked & paid for their wedding, booked & paid for their honeymoon, booked 2 other holidays for later in the year ‘so they had something to look forward to’ while they were struggling financially & they were still putting £1000 a month into their savings!
Clearly her idea of struggling financially is very different to mine.
At the moment if I have 50p left after paying my bills & buying food I’m doing good. Already sacrificing trips out in the car & only did a trip to the cinema over the half term as I had a free ticket. We are struggling but we are not poor things are just tight right now.

While no one is suggesting that people with high incomes have perfect lives, there are vanishingly few problems that can't be resolved or considerably eased if you throw enough money at them. Few of us sail through life without suffering bereavement, health problems, relationship issues, dashed hopes. Money helps to manage these issues, while poverty exacerbates them.

God, my mum was like this. Our family were never well off by any stretch. However, my parents were gifted 50% of the purchase price of their first house by my DGM from my DGD’s life insurance. Now, to be fair, they did still struggle in the early years of their marriage but my DM especially would NEVER acknowledge that this was a huge leg-up for them.

I was in crappy paying jobs forever and really couldn’t afford to rent even in my shitty hometown. DM would say things like “Well, if you gave up having your nails done…”. Like, yeah I’m sure that £30 per month (roughly - it was a long time ago now) would have gone so far helping me save a deposit for a 2 bed terrace; about £60k so would have needed to spend nothing for 20 years to be able to get a 10% deposit. It’s like she thought I didn’t deserve to spend my wage on anything that just gives you a little smile for a while.

I didn’t go to uni as they couldn’t afford it and the loan wouldn’t have covered my costs. I was in a bit of a weird paradox with them (parents) that I was only allowed to do certain jobs, while they’d moan at me asking for money 🤔. When I was about 13 my friend asked me if I wanted to waitress for her relatives catering company; my dad refused as it was ‘illegal’ 🙄and got me a paper round instead. So while my friend was earning about £30-£40 pw (a fortune in the early 1990s), I was getting about a tenth (seriously) of that. So by the time we’d have been going to uni, everyone already had more experience in the type of jobs students typically get.

I moved away ten years ago, but unfortunately redundancy forced me back. We live comfortably now, but only because DH had a decent salary and now has a good pension. My wage is less than his pension. I can only afford to get to work because he subsides my fuel and parking (work shifts 30 miles away so have to drive, employer does not provide parking).

I dread losing my job, as there is very high unemployment here with no career jobs to speak of. I’m also restricted and can’t do manual work due to an accident a few years ago. We’d have to move somewhere else for me to be able to find work. Again, not possible for the vast majority in low-paid roles.

It’s all relative though. You still have to pay your rent or mortgage/gas/electric which has all gone up - if you live in a bigger house this still means your bills have gone up above the cost of wages rises and inflation. those that live within their means are suddenly finding that this is becoming impossible because the cost of living rise affects everyone!
my husband is in the high earning tax bracket but is now £85 a month worse off for NI, our utility bills has gone up by £200 a month and our weekly shop at tesco as gone up by £20 a week (we aren’t splurgers). We don’t get a takeaway on Saturday anymore but I know people on universal credit who are still taking kids to McDonald’s after school which we feel we can’t afford to do at the moment… you can’t tar one set of earners with one brush

No they dont op.
I was on a thread this week. By the way the woman was talking I knew she was reasonably well off, and also someone who "wasnt getting it".
She was saying "Britain will be ok because as a country, we have more money to buy food than poorer countries.
Completely not cottoning on that, so what if the price is too high for some of British citizens to be able to afford the higher prices? She just couldnt see the problem.

This is exactly why someone worth £400 million should not be chancellor. How on earth can they have any understanding of what it’s like for people in this country living in poverty if those on £100k struggle to.

well people keep voting for this, opining that we 'don't have a viable opposition'.

I am not a true fan of labour, but ffs!

strange how most of us in the 90's managed really well, eh?

I think we need to change things up. What on earth have these cunts offered us or given to us in 12 long years of utter SHIT?

there’s lots of reasons why Rishi shouldn’t be chancellor but just because he has never known poverty isn’t one of them. And to be clear people on £100k aren’t struggling, relatively or otherwise. They have made choices that are making them struggle.

I hear you and get what you’re saying and agree with you, but… there seem to unfortunately be plenty of poor people who have enough money for sky, Amazon prime, getting their hair, nails and eyelashes done. They give very poor people a bad name.

It is relevant if he isn’t able to empathise with those in different situations. For someone who claims to be interested in facts and data, he’s very ignorant.

Empathy is different to what’s being expressed by some on this thread which is unless you’ve lived it you can’t know.

If your H is the sole earner and has only just squeezed into the higher bracket, maybe. But the OP is talking about £100k salaries, which should be able to easily absorb an extra £3600 per year costs without tipping into poverty. You would have to be servicing a very high level of over indebtedness or have incredibly poor financial literacy if you couldn't afford McDonalds on that income.

People in poverty wouldn't have the option to spend money on life saving medical treatment, so there's the difference right there.

That's why I put the part in about if they didn't have the money for the medical treatment the person would be dead and they'd still have just as much to live off but you just pick out the parts you like to try and prove your point instead of reading the whole post.

yes, I can make a blanket statement

Knock yourself out. I've tried to explain some variables as simply as I can for those having trouble working out why people who are well off in their mind may not really be depending on their situation and circumstances. But along comes the competition of life again where people are trying to prove they had it worse than the last poster.

Those people who post about not being able to afford a holiday this year or are struggling to pay extra curricular activities don't say they're in poverty. I've never seen it mentioned by these threads about struggling that they're labelling themselves in poverty. They've been accused of that on this thread.