How the term 'poverty' has changed

[Deeperthantheocean]

Just this really.

Poverty in my grandparents' age was 'be rich, a gangster, work hard or you die'.

This was so true, whole different era and real poverty from their times being born in the 1910s and the aftermath. Sadly my GF died so GM was alone bringing up 2 children and then adopting another as that's what what you did when members of the family were being abused. No benefits, only a council where you to practically beg for help and it was so looked down upon and gossip then was brutal.

So, a little 2 bedroom house, outhouse toilet, coal fire, no electricity. My GM worked all day and night... cleaning, making clothes and took in 2 male lodgers in the downstairs 'parlour', made breakfast and evening meals for them.

The 3 girls shared a double bed, GM got up at 4am every morning to bring in coal and make the fire before everyone else got up to go to work/ school. Then she went to work, physical cleaning work to the rich and snooty. The sad thing is she was she was so intelligent, gifted at creativity and music (she played the church organ with music she learnt from heart voluntarily) and sowed the most beautiful dresses. Also cakes.

Having rambled on a bit because this is deep to my heart hearing the stories, poverty was a case of just being able to survive, eat and have a roof. The DC were incredibly intelligent but had to to go to work aged 15 cand over all their wages for the family fund.

Poverty now has a different criteria, which of course it should as society has progressed. However aibu to compare the claim to poverty now to then? There is help, UC, recognition of SEN with DLa etc.

Sorry, but now those claiming poverty now wouldn't consider letting out a room, working all day and night, making clothes and baking just to survive.

Am I right? I wouldn't either as there has been so much to eradicate these hard times but I truly respect the hardship and feel so grateful for what we have now. Xx

But you never know when your circumstances will change.

I was born in the 80s and as a child I didn't have a proper coat. I had a hand me down coat which my mum altered as I grew until it was basically a collection of patches and seam extensions (she tried to make it as fashionable as she could). Shoes came from "humanitarian aid" packages sent to school from Germany. Despite working all hours (thanks to free state childcare), there was never enough money. I would get simple meals of soup or porridge, my mum often survived on toast and margarine. We had no TV. No rooms to let either as we lived in a studio flat.
My grandmother was brought up in one room with kitchenette. Two parents, four kids. She later moved to a similar room when she married my grandfather. There were four of them - MIL, grandparents and my mum in 16 square meter basement room with kitchenette and a small pavement level window to let some light in. That was 1962. Victorian poverty isn't as distant as you think. You just never experienced it.

@Deeperthantheocean You clearly don’t know how people are living right now. I work with families living in poverty. They don’t talk about it, as it’s so shameful. They hide it as best they can. So do their kids.

On average, one kid in every class in the country is now homeless. But much higher in some areas. Families who are homeless in temporary accommodation are living in Victorian conditions. In one small room for months and sometimes years, kids sharing beds (even teenage kids) with siblings and parents, all in one room, basic cooking facilities in the room, no laundry facilities, having to eat on the bed. It’s like living in a prison cell with your family. You have to sign in every night, so can’t stay anywhere else for respite (camping, nan’s home). No visitors allowed.

Some are dark basements with the window looking out onto the bins. Some are converted office buildings. Sewage comes up. They’re riddled with damp and mould, bedbugs, rats… About half families homeless like this are working. But it’s hard to work as the costs are so extortionate, so they often have to give up. It’s a money trap. They send families to temporary accommodation in other parts of the country with high crime areas, where they know no one. No friends or family.

There are now thousands of families with negative budgets. That means the money coming in is swamped by the money they have to pay for out just for bare basics. So they’re in deep, deep poverty. There are thousands of kids going without food, healthy food, heating, even without lights as their parents can’t afford the energy bills. People are in horrific debt, often to violent loan sharks.

Not everyone gets UC. Thousands of families with kids have no recourse to public funds. They have to work to pay for everything, working two and three cleaning/delivery jobs. Others are benefit sanctioned and get nowhere near enough to live on. And UC isn’t enough. Housing benefit is frozen and covers about 5-10% of rents in many areas. The rest (hundreds each month) has to be made up out ‘standard allowance’: money that’s supposed to be for food or energy.

Plus, I’m sure you see people homeless on the streets. That was rarely seen before welfare cuts in the 1980s. They’re the people who have no rights to any accommodation and can’t afford a private hostel.

Don’t think there’s a safety net. It’s full of holes. There but for the grace go all of us. Some of the families were fine until a parent got cancer or a kid was born with severe disabilities and they could no longer work.

I mean, it is all relative, isn't it? You could compare our living standards to a developing country , a war torn country or an authoritarian dictatorship and there would definitely be people there worse off than even the poorest in the UK.
That doesn't make poverty levels in our well developed, rich country OK, by whatever bench mark we set. I see plenty of people in utterly desperate situations and choosing between eating or heating for example. Its heartbreaking.

It is not just people who are out of work, or on the fringes of society either. Wages simply do not go as far. I do not consider myself in poverty, but we are not by any stretch well off. Household income is about 45k a year, and we can cover the bills with occasional niceties-but definitely don't have spare cash for big luxuries, holidays or anything. I'm not complaining as I am content with life generally. It would be lovely to afford some of the "nicer" things in life, but I won't go into debt for them and it seems unlikely we will ever have the money to do them.

To some people on a high income, I might seem to be living a very basic life missing some elements of life they might consider essential. I would probably be considered poor by some, possibly even in poverty.

As I said, it is all relative.

What do you mean by poverty used to mean ‘be rich, be a gangster etc?

Yes, the idea of "poverty" has indeed changed over time; and I, for one, think that is a good thing.

My mum grew up in a house with only an outside toilet and no central heating. I remember visiting my grandparents and, even until the 1980s, there was still only an outside toilet and no central heating.

I am very glad that our ideas of poverty have moved forward.

This idea of what a concept (eg "poverty") means changes over time in many different areas, not just poverty, to take account of changes in social standards and attitudes.

To take an extreme example, the concept of "cruelty" is the same today as it was when the Bill of Rights 1688 forbade the infliction of "cruel and unusual punishments". But changes in social standards mean that punishments which would not have been regarded as cruel in 1688 will be so regarded today.

Or how about the concept of a child's "welfare"? That word was used in section 1 of the Guardianship of Infants Act 1925, now section 1 of the Children Act 1989. The concept of "welfare" is, no doubt, the same today as it was in 1925 but the content of that concept has changed and continues to change.

A child's welfare is to be judged today by the standards of reasonable men and women in 2025 – not by the standards of their grandparents (or maybe now, great grandparents) in 1925 or their parents in the 1980s.

The concept of "poverty" is no different.

Yup. I am stealing this. Absolutely spot on. The problem is people see the surface differences in what poverty 'looks like' (poor people having a flat screen TV was a real source of outrage in the media for a while). But not what it feels like- housing uncertainty, cold damp homes, fewer opportunities for your children, no hope of change or having more control over your life. That's all still there.

Have you visited any of the temporary accommodation the council provides for families?!

Some of that is akin to slums and the poor families placed there have no choice but to get on with it. Everyone crammed in one room with no cooking facilities and a bathroom shared with other families, building poorly maintained, often miles from anything on an industrial estate or similar because that’s the cheapest option.

I think the difference now is there’s less poverty and a lot of people never really see it, it was widespread and people were going through it together 50 years ago. Now it’s something you only see if you work with or are one of those impacted, for everyone else it’s unimaginable.

The UK poverty line - Households are considered to be below the UK poverty line if their income is below 60% of the median household income after housing costs for that year.

Two commonly used measures of poverty based on disposable income are:

• Relative low income: This refers to people living in households with income below 60% of the median in that year.
• Absolute low income: This refers to people living in households with income below 60% of median income in a base year. This measurement is adjusted for inflation

Median income is the point at which half of households have lower income and half have higher income. Income can be measured before or after housing costs are deducted.

Poverty isn't an idea or a feeling it is properly measured and takes into account numerous parametres
HTH

#Not all boomers but...

Greatest generation - fight and die in WW2. After the war build a welfare state with the hope that their children and grandchildren and great children will have better, less precarious lives than them

Boomers - grow up in a free democracy bought with the blood of the generations before them and with a safety net bought with the sweat of the generations before them. Are weirdly jealous of the fact their children/grandchildren have better lives than their parents "my dad grew up in real poverty" and object to paying taxes.

Later generations - repeat this pattern of resentment. Also, resent the rising poverty/inequality and "protest vote" for right wing populists who destroy what is left.

Generations not yet born - presumably will look back at all of us as the most feckless, individualistic and selfish generations who passed society on in a worse state than they inherited it.

As I said - this isn't everybody or even most people. But it is an attitude that, where it exists, is very hard to respect.

And 100 years before she was alive she would've been considered well off compared to a large % of the population, and 100 years before that she would've been considered as living in luxury with the food she had and the fabrics and bedding she had. Society moves on thankfully.

Idk I know whole families living in one room mum dad and all the kids. I agree that many of the people who moan about being broke on this site aren't actually broke though but there definitely are people who really are broke out there.
Food is easier to get than back in the day though

No. You are wrong. In my line of work I see the real picture of poverty. Elderly people with no central heating, eating nothing but sandwiches for years and becoming malnourished.

I'm afraid you are a very lucky person who has no contact with actual poverty in this country.

Also, this. If we're not striving for continual improvement for humanity what the fuck is the point. We might as well allow nuclear Armageddon

Is this a thinly veiled benefit bashing thread? Do you want us to go back to the 1900s? Shall we start leaving disabled babies in a room with the window open, would that make you feel better?

It means that the overwhelming majority of people in this country have a much better standard of living than you.

Don't you want that recognised in some way so that things could be improved for you?

This. There is hardly any affordable housing nowadays. Where I am they have started renovating offices into tiny studio apartments, basically 1 small room, a kitchenette and a bathroom. The full length and width windows mean there’s no privacy without blocking out all the light, too cold in the winter, too hot in the summer, rent is over £1k a month. There are families with children living there, I’m sure they would love a 2 bed house.

No it doesn't, but I do think it is important to look back and see how far we have come and remember that on a societal level, when we are bemoaning how horrendous everything is. Of course for the individual struggling, the fact it could be worse is of no value, but we all seem intent on pretending that life is appalling and has never been worse, when - on a population level - this is demonstrably untrue. It's important for us to remember that, particularly policy makers. By remembering how we have progressed we may also gain insight into how to progress further.

But poverty is a relative concept - so yes, it may feel tough having less than those around you (and there's a whole other question separate from this discussion about whether or not that is fair) but in the UK those in poverty are not, when compared with previous generations, experiencing the same issues. It doesn't mean they don't have different ones. But let's not pretend that everything has never been worse. Pointing that out isn't saying we should stop trying, it's saying we have done well, let's do better. At least I think it is.

100% this.

Lots of people judge how things are from their own living standards and those they know. They don’t watch reports, read accounts or look at statistics.

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/policy/publications/negative-budgets-data/

I agree 100%. Poverty even today in other parts of the world means something else entirely. Not that people who are struggling here should settle for what they have - because some things could and should certainly improve! But I got torn apart not long ago on another thread. I made a similar point about human rights when somebody claimed they had none here in the UK. Real absence of human rights looks different (see for example what happened to those poor women and children who got burned alive in the DRC the other day). Failing to recognise that won't help safeguard the rights and the prosperity that we do have in this country.

My health centre seems to regard it as ridiculous if you phone to make a GP appointment and tell you to do it via the online booking service. However, the online service just makes an appointment and texts it to you. If it's at a time when you have a work commitment, you have to cancel it and start again.

After 3 tries and getting increasingly frustrated by appointment dates/times when I had to be elsewhere, I rang to book in person so I could be sure that it was at a time when I could go. The person who took the call was really quite indignant and tried to tell me to do it online.

Next time I might just say I don't have the internet...

Poverty means insufficient money to reasonably participate in the society to which you belong, including accessing leisure activities, having an emergency buffer, and the ability to meet realistic short and long term goals. Its a relative term with the comparator being other people in your country and era, so the lifestyles of people decades ago aren't relevant.

I understand your sentiments. But I’m sorry lots of what you say isn’t true. Inequality and deep, deep poverty is again rife. Thousands of people are experiencing the same issues as previous generations. If you saw what I see, you wouldn’t think we’ve come a long way. Life is appalling for many people, including kids and pensioners. The most upsetting thing is people have no idea.

https://equalitytrust.org.uk/scale-economic-inequality-uk/

There is absolute poverty, and relative poverty and you’re misunderstanding the difference.

It's interesting to think about. Lives lived in poverty look very different now to 100 years ago but I think there are still many people who are faced with the same problems- how to feed, clothe and keep warm a family. Nowadays the breadline jobs are different - no one is going to take in sewing or laundry because there's no demand for those services, likewise baking. Much more likely to take multiple out of home jobs like cleaning, caring etc. As soon as the jobs are out of the home you have childcare issues, which brings significant costs.