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

My DD went to brownies it cost £2 a week.

Renting a house or flat in my area of outer London would be about £2.5k a month.

Forgoing brownies wouldn't make a dent.

The world is very different to 100 years ago. You are comparing housing and living standards but it’s all relative. The houses you’re describing were mostly demolished after WWII and the government now has to provide social housing of a certain standard (arguably still disgraceful). The gap between the rich and the poor is growing and yes we have the welfare state but you still have people who can’t afford the essentials. There are many living in relative poverty despite working because of wages not rising with inflation. We have lots of families suffering from tech poverty too which leads to social isolation. It’s a very different world.

@GutsyShark I’m very aware of slum clearances, and how new estates were built often without the necessary infrastructure.

However, I live in a Northern city, with hospitals, universities, shops, factories and reasonable transport links. Parts of the city and surrounding towns have relatively affordable housing. It’s far from the back of nowhere.

Sorry to hear of your struggles- I hope things improve soon

Peasants get in line. Memorise sewing patterns to better yourself. If you can't sew just wear a sack.

@JLou08 You’re right about benefits.

On kids living in absolute poverty:

Under the government’s current definition, which measures only average income and housing costs, 18% of the UK population was defined as being in absolute poverty in the year to March 2023, including 3.6 million children.

With the new model, which is set to be adopted by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), 1.6 million more children are in poverty than under the current definition.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/nov/18/more-than-one-in-three-uk-children-poverty-deprivation-record-high?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Anyone who can afford a sewing machine isn’t living in poverty. You sell it to pay bills or buy food. These days, clothes come from food banks and other charities.

The dramatic social change over the last hundred years have made old style poverty unrecognisable. It's not because we're all rich now, it's because we're materially better off alongside living in a country with safeguarding and safety nets.

I've been reading witness statements given to the Scottish child abuse enquiry, from living adults who had traumatic childhoods due to a combination of poverty and social factors. My grandparents and great grandparents generation did what they were told by authority - sent their boys to war, sent their pregnant daughters to god knows what kind of care in a mother and baby home, sent their own little kids to Australia for a 'better life' which turned out to be exploitation and abuse.

There wasn't a kindly Dr Turner to make it all OK. There wasn't anyone to whistle blow to, there weren't any scandalous exposes because none of these things were considered scandalous at the time.

It even applied to the rich. Children endured broken lives after attending expensive private boarding schools, due to emotional, physical and sexual abuse. And there was nobody to tell, because at that time these were accepted ways to treat children.

I often think we should teach social history in school, so people can be aware of what life was actually like for our own families, a mere two or three generations ago.

Clothing makes for an interesting comparison.

Because nowadays we import clothes from developing countries due to their cheap labour, clothes are relatively cheap and available in abundance. The child from decades ago described on her as wearing an old sack with arm holes cut out....this is totally unnecessary now. There's a recycling clothes bank near me, it's absolutely overflowing with stuff.

The fact that poor people in the UK are no longer dressed in rags, is not because we are richest necessarily but because we are exploiting poor people from overseas.

Benefits are not "freely given". They are criteria dependent and require considerable admin to access.

Most food banks require referral from a relevant authority.

If you live "on hand outs" (as I currently do) "bettering oneself" on a budget that barely covers the basics is costly.

While the brave new world of technology offers opportunities to sell your services, goods and chattels, the market is flooded and terms and conditions often preclude active profit generation to a degree that makes an impact. Once you get near to I think it's £1000 you have to inform HMRC. After £3000 you are taxed. Given it takes hours to do all this and earn very little in real terms after expenses, and you might be doing this in conjunction with full time "work search" to avoid benefit sanctions, and (not in my case, thankfully at my age) possibly caring for children to the much higher standards of today, or (in my case) caring for elderly parents etc for extremely little in terms of significant gain, I can assure you that hopelessness sets in.

The spirit and flesh may both be willing, but in the current economic climate it often doesn't get you far.

Covering the basics and avoiding debt is where alot of people sit, treading water despite every effort. Society demands we behave ethically in our quest for money, so avoiding tax is scorned for the little people at the bottom of the heap, but is considered legitimate at the top of the tree.

I am not religious but I recall a Bible verse that says something about those who have the most will be given more, and those that have the least will have even that taken from them. Seems particularly relevant in discussions about poverty, which is built into society to keep the rich rich, and the the poor too fearful and busy with survival to do much about it.

You talk of "bettering" oneself. I counter with "get over yourself".

It's true. People had it much worse, but wealth concentration has reached new extremes, with a handful of billionaires controlling wealth equal to that of billions of people, and we seem to be heading back to those times again.

No welfare state until 1945 and NHS until '48. Things changed after that. Yes the measure of poverty has changed massively. There is such a thing as 'digital poverty' now which is a contradiction in terms when you think about it. Absurd but its a sign of the times.

Makes me laugh when people suggest poor people should sew their own clothes to save money instead of buying a £2 primark t shirt. Sewing is difficult, expensive and takes time to learn. A new cheap sewing machine still costs £100, and a secondhand one might not work - would you be able to service a sewing machine op? Sewing machine servicing is upwards of £100.

Fabric is expensive, cheap thread and needles can be bought from the pound shop but they will be shit. Schmetz needles are good, but they cost from around £2 a packet. A half decent reel of thread will be £2 each. It might take a beginner 10 hours to learn to make a t shirt. Fabric cost - at least £3 a metre for t shirting fabric, you'd probably need 2 metres. So far we are at £10 to make one tshirt - not including the cost of the sewing machine. Oh wait, You'll need some dressmaking pins too, that's another £2. Pattern for the t shirt - let's say £6.

£18 to make a t shirt. What if you've got 3 kids and they all need a t shirt? And jogging bottoms? And pyjamas? And school uniform?

OP, imagine being in emergency accommodation in Middlesbrough with 3 young kids and no family support for months on end. Drug dealers hanging out in the halls of the flats and outside systematically tearing down the fences for fun and kids hanging out playing music on their phones and banging on the windows for shits and giggles till God knows when in the morning or until and overstretched PCSO finally comes and moves them on, drug addicted prostitutes hanging out outside the local shops even in daylight asking for business. All knowing that you can't afford private so you have to wait for a council house and you just have to suck it up or maybe go back to an abusive partner.

And then when your kids do go to school it's in one of the most deprived areas of the country and the chances of them getting in with or into trouble with some kids who themselves have been abused all their lives and your life just feels fucking hopeless, no good jobs or opportunities, everyone fucking angry with their lot (and young lads getting recruited by far right grifters or religious fanatics)

OP hasn't got a fucking clue what poverty in this country looks like, middle class fucking naval gazing bullshit.

What poverty looks like has changed. Frankly, with all the resources and technology at our fingertips now, we shouldn't have any poverty at all. It's an ideological choice, IMO.

I volunteer with homeless people and they all have mobile phones and some tech. They also have serious addictions (mainly alcohol but also heroin), MH issues, are in and out of prison, no place to go and have no security in life whatsoever. They're reliant on a disparate body of well-meaning people to help, but it's not very joined up and it won't solve their issues. It's highly unlikely most of them will live to see 60. Poverty is very much alive and well in the 21st century.

Not just victorians. In the 50's I went to the local primary school which was linked to the parish church. Children came to school in winter with no coats and broken shoes tied onto their feet. We were by no means rich. We lived in a private rental which was subsequently condemned and we moved to a newly built ground floor council flat. The ground floor of the condemned house was an old warehouse and we lived on the two upper floors which had been the offices and storage. outside toilet, no bathroom at all, no running hot water, heated by two open fires and we were considered fairly well off. Clothing that we had outgrown was passed to other children via the church and I was taught at an early age not to comment if I saw a child at school in my old clothes or shoes.

OP would you be willing to take in lodgers and have an outside toilet and not heating and risk illness?

This is such a weird thread. You’re romanticising how our ancestors lived. Our ancestors once threw excrement out into the street, regularly had wars and lived in caves. Your grandparents time has thankfully gone. Stop making out that it was filled with better people - it wasn’t. People were ostracised and killed for all sorts of reasons. People died from diseases. People died from the cold.

People in this country are fucking struggling to feed themselves and their kids and this is massively insulting to them.

I hate sentiments like the OP. No one wants to be poor. No one’s poor because they don’t want to bake their own bread or let out a room in their house. Few people have a spare room to let out or are allowed to do so anyway. Mobile phones are not luxuries— how would you get a job without one? All TVs are flatscreen TVs. UC is a ‘safety net’ of sorts, but a pretty flimsy one. People are still feeling forced to choose between eating and heating, or between feeding themselves and feeding their children. Some children still don’t have decent warm coats and shoes. Yes, poverty looks a bit different now because the world has changed, but let’s not kid ourselves that it is any less miserable.

The working class and middle class has been gutted by globalism, big businesses got very rich by bringing down their labour costs -all the jobs that our grandparents could get have gone abroad to China or other countries and the modern poor have to rely on handouts from the state.

Power has been concentrated into the big businesses and now they are bringing down their costs through unprecedented mass immigration, more employees chasing each job and opportunity, it only favours big busineses so a chance at a good secure well paid job and a decent pension is getting scarce for the working and middle classes.

100% agree. Poverty hasn't changed but the world has changed.

Exactly this - plus in pre-contraception times (not sure exactly when this was, but still into the 20th century), poor people would have had loads of kids and extra mouths to feed, even though some of those kids would have died. No vaccinations so childhood diseases were rife and often fatal, as well as adult diseases like TB (consumption) and smallpox. Life was harder and grimmer. You just can't compare it to now when people can make a conscious decision to have one or no children if they can't afford it.

People in poverty today often don’t struggle with any of those things.
Below 60% of median UK income (AFTER housing costs) is how it is now defined. This means that no matter how rich our society becomes, 40% of us will always be classified as living ‘in poverty’.
In other words, it’s utterly meaningless.

And in those days there was no NHS, no antibiotics, no effective pain relief in childbirth, education for most ended very early, and girls and women had far fewer rights. I know I am going slightly off topic but the point I am trying to make is the broader perspective of progress. Poverty at whatever point in time and however it manifests is a scourge and it blights lives. I was very poor as a young single mum in the mid 80's, I am talking about having bare legs in the winter because I could not afford tights, putting cardboard in my one pair of leaking boots and skipping meals to feed my child. I don't want anyone to have to go through that. Sadly some instances. I did at one stage have a friend living with me who had started a new job in my city and that really helped with money but she was a woman I knew and trusted around my toddler not some random stranger. As for the current economic climate, the essentials for life are horrendously expensive now, gas and electricity up by 67%, food up by 30%, never ending increases in council tax and water bills. These days people have to have smart phones and the internet to participate in society, it is not a frivolous luxury and we cannot compare how things were over a century ago with the society we have today.

Literally nobody has suggested sewing clothes to save money in the modern era. Poverty used to look very different, and poor people used to have to make their own clothes because manufactured goods were beyond their reach. Knitting and sewing are now relatively expensive hobbies. That doesn't change the fact that home made clothes used to be an indicator of poverty.

This, with the addition that it is essential to have a phone. My employer has just told us to download an app to have access to rotas, which is essential as we are all on shift work nowadays. They are not the only one, I was able to leave a previous employer a few years ago when they demanded the same, but there’s no option now. Technology is forced down our throats whether it is cheaper for us or no. In fact much modern poverty is caused by modern technology, with the loss of jobs and required fuel costs. Meanwhile the rich sit on hundreds of acres or hundreds of owned houses and sneer at those whom they force to create their wealth.