To think money ends poverty- not education, not mindset, not budgeting advice, just actual money?

[WildHazelCritic]

I keep seeing discussions about “breaking the poverty cycle” or helping people escape hardship and the solutions are always long-term or conditional: learn to budget, go back to school, change your mindset. But poverty is often just not having enough money. And people giving money - whether through better wages, benefits, or direct support, would make the biggest difference. AIBU to think we over complicate it because people are uncomfortable with the idea of redistribution or just giving people what they need?

Ha, so I've just discovered that alongside a well known discount website, MN algorithms don't like mention of "alternative currencies" so my last comment is under review 😅 noted!!

Aye, neither did Pinochet's Chile, but the kind of people drawing irrelevant parallels with a totalitarian regime seem to forget about that one....wonder why? 🤔

Divide it by number of staff!

Also don't forget that occupational pension funds are major shareholders of a lot of big companies, so the dividends paid end up in workers' pensions in years to come.

And the answer always given is that they should retrain, get a promotion, go to night school etc. At best this might help one person out of poverty. Then somebody else is just living in poverty doing the job that was just vacated.

Not really. Unless a person understands the need to budget and priorities, the money will run out.

Hurling money at a situation never helps. 🤷‍♀️

I’m pretty close to poverty because my wage doesn’t reflect the cost of living. I’m also in poverty because my parents and grandparents had no assets to hand down so I am only living on what I can earn, not inherited money through the generations. I’ve been going back through my family tree and one great, great grandparent died in a work house so my line has never had money. In turn as a single parent with no assets I can’t help my own children out of the poverty trap. They will be working just to survive too.

I agree that if everyone had enough to cover the basics and have breathing room they could have the opportunity to do better through education but someone who is working should have a comfortable life and the chance to earn more through education.

More money would definitely make me happier and solve problems.

Trades are great and pay well, only if you’ve got good manners and disciplined. I’ve been in a trade 35 years when I first trained you needed 2 A levels to do what I do, now there’s loads of short courses. The standard of the people training in trades is literally bargain basement nowadays. This is because they require no qualifications and do entry level, stuff with continuous assessment at colleges so they can’t fail. So what you’re getting is not a very high standard. People see folk like me successful in business but we aren’t in for a quick buck we invest. This is a character thing and honestly again it’s goes back to simple delayed gratification and playing the long game which some won’t do the long hours, invest in training, respecting and showing manners to clients (a lot have been brought up with zero manners). To conclude a lot of people in trades give the trade a bad name. The bright people will always succeed see opportunities and think long term, the others don’t and make no money and just complain but won’t actually put themselves out in any way.

Not just trades though. There are "technician" level workers in lots of professions too these days, including medical, dentistry, accountancy, solicitors, financial advisors, etc., who receive pretty basic training compared with the actual fully qualified professionals in those professions. It's definitely become a trend. I.e. in law, we have paralegals, will drafters, etc. In accounting we have "accounting technicians", for architecture, there are lots of self employed "plan drawers" who do the drawings and draft planning applications for smaller/simpler jobs, etc.

This is a character thing and honestly again it’s goes back to simple delayed gratification.

I think this is crucial to success in life.

If more people taught their children the benefits of this there would be fewer people living in poverty.Too many people live for now and give no thought to their future.

It's no good just pissing round at school, not paying attention, not revising for exams, then come out expecting to get a decent job.I taught my children to apply themselves at school right from the beginning, because in the long run that would enable them to get good qualifications and end up with a good career so they could have a nice house and a good life etc.

Even if a child is not academic there are so many other opportunities for a better life if they realise the benefits of making an effort now for gains that won't be seen straight away.

The same with teaching them about saving, it's better to save even a small amount and sacrifice some things like holidays, meals out, nice car etc if you have a goal like saving for a deposit because the savings add up, rather than blowing everything on clothes, going out etc because you're incapable of looking to the future.

Which we have plenty of in this country. So there is really is no excuse.

In some cases yes, in other cases no. DPIL are just above the poverty line living benefit payment to benefit payment and in significant rent arrears. Left school before 16 with no O levels. They received £30,000 inheritance. They could buy their council house for £10,000. They didn't. All the money is gone and nothing to show for it. Education would have definitely helped in this situation.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7b5fd940f0b64646935bc4/DFE-RR234.pdf

Just wanted to pop this here, someone claimed theres no evidence of generational worklessness. Thats just not true. In there it points out that if you grow up in a workless household you are more likely to not work.

It’s very interesting how everyone seems to see ‘education’ as a university degree or similar as a means to springboard to success. The education needed to alleviate poverty is far more wide-reaching than a piece of paper.

Having grown up in severe poverty (Daughter of an alcoholic, single mother. Often no food in the house, etc), I was luckily born with a high IQ which gave me the chance to attend a grammar school. I received a good education but left with a clutch of mediocre GCSEs due to my chaotic home life (eventually taken into care due to neglect) and an attendance of less than 30%.

However, what grammar school gave me was the chance to see a different life. My middle-class peers were living lives that I never would have even countenanced had I attended the local secondary modern. In my 20s I returned to college and ended up in a very well-paid professional role.

People stay in poverty because they don’t know that anything different exists for the likes of them. Of course you know that there are people who have money and good jobs, but they’re for the ‘others’, not for you. Schools don’t have aspirations for kids from sink estates. Parents often don’t even have aspirations for their own children because they share the same mindset. Their own lives are all they know. If their children end up in a job, even a minimum wage job, they’re doing well.

As an example, when DS was in school he decided that he wanted to do an apprenticeship rather than uni. He spoke to the careers advisor who arranged for him to interview for a level 2 Customers Services apprenticeship. DS told them that he wanted to do accountancy, and despite the fact that he had 11 high grade GCSEs including A* in maths, he was told that he was being unrealistic. We advised him to ignore the school careers ‘expert’ and follow his plan. He is now 27, a qualified accountant and owns a house. Without parental guidance he’d be working in a call centre.

Education needs to cover the soft skills - parenting, nutrition, finance, goals and aspirations, and probably a hundred more things. It’s not just about getting a diploma. It will take generations to change a collective mindset, and no government will ever tackle it because it would take too much investment and they wouldn’t be around to see the results.

https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSBLeS2j2/

explains what I was saying earlier about wealth

I see 'education' as wider than uni. Any skilled trade is a pathway out of poverty. I'm paying £250 day rates for plumbers, joiners etc. In fact, unless my child had a clear vocational skill or calling into a profession, I'd be pointing them to an apprentiship or trade over uni.

70% of families lose their wealth by the second generation and 90% by the third. It obviously isn't as simply as inheriting wealth, at least in the long term.

Ultimately I think it all begins from a very young age. Your child will have the opportunity in the country to get a ln education that can lead to a well paid jobs. If may well be harder for them than someone from a wealthy family but their fate is by no means predetermined. I find your belief that it is very depressing and possibly part of the problem I say this as someone from a poor background that has made something of myself. It is absolutely possible

I certainly don't see education as just uni. I dont have a degree myself, neither did my parent's or siblings, or my adult niece and my children are not going to do degrees.

But I have made the assumption that if someone is already doing an essential role that doesn't pay enough to lift them out if poverty that:
a) the role is essential so someone has to do it even if one specific individual trains thenself out of it (and there are a lot or roles like that),

b) that they already have the education level to fulfill that role as its their current role.

I take on board some people may benefit from money management lessons specifically.

Anything is possible, but how likely is it? There’s a difference.

You talk as if :

1. There’s an infinite amount of well paid jobs.
2. The country(any country) could actually function without the low paid workers, when the exact opposite is true.

None of that is based in reality.

This.

It is possible for anyone to get a well-paid job. It is not possible for everyone to get a well-paid job.

If you are working full-time, you should be able to afford housing, fuel, and food, and other essentials with a small amount left over for luxuries, no matter whether you are doing brain surgery or cleaning the operating theatre the brain surgeon works in. Education doesn't change the fact that the brain surgeon cannot operate without the cleaner.

Exactly.

No one seems to have a problem with people doing these jobs while they're using the services, or employing people to provide the services, which makes them money, only when it's discussed that the wages they pay aren't enough, suddenly no one should do these jobs and should better themselves.

We can't have it all ways, people need to live, they don't disappear under a rock when they've stopped being useful to you. Either you pay more for the initial product/service or you pay more through taxation and people get that to survive.

One thing we could try, and I would be wholly in favour of, to lower the number of people needed to fill the essential low-paid roles is for everyone, including Oxbridge graduates and politicians, to spend a year in one of these essential roles either before or after university.

However, I have a feeling the NMW would rise sharply if that ever happened, and zero-hour contracts would be illegal.

My Mum always used to say that education is the only asset no one can take away.

Where I live is full of them, you can make up that they don’t exist until all you want I live amongst this so don’t tell me what is or isn’t true until you have lived in and around this stuff your whole life.

It absolutely exists. Where I live it's not necessarily generational unemployment but definitely generational under employment. Flip flopping between being unemployed, working a bit cash in hand, maybe getting a job with a few part time hours before dropping it when it becomes inconvenient or they start to get a hard time from the boss over timekeeping or whatever. I personally know of 2 families who actively tell their kids education is not important because they didn't get any qualifications and it never did them any harm (well it did do harm of you count being pretty unemployable).

Except has it done them any harm?
Sounds like they still have a place to live, they still have some money, they were able to have a partner and kids, so love in their lives. They have an abundance of leisure time. They can still access healthcare and other public services.

I'm not saying they shouldn't have any of these things by the way.
Compare this lifestyle to someone in the same neighbourhood who works 40 hours a week in a chicken factory job that might just give them very marginally more money (or not) once all the other costs/benefits are added in.
If these were my options I know what I'd choose, I'd be walking my dog, hanging around with friends and playing video games all night. I wouldn't be slogging my guts out in a grim chicken factory.

Work doesn't pay.
This is the problem we have.