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?

We have free education, thats your rod.

Redistribute? Back to Russia 1917? It didn't end up well as far as I know

OP I completely agree with you and think all the people trying themselves up in knots to argue otherwise just can't face the reality that the comfortable distance between them and poverty is the result of luck and chance, because they're so desperate to think that it's due to some innate quality in them.

I grew up in poverty, worked hard at school, got five a levels, went to a top five uni, tried multiple jobs but couldn't afford to live in London when I graduated, and am now homeless and unemployed in my mid 30s. My parents have been able to break out of poverty by marrying people with money who can financially support them, but people my age are far less likely to marry someone with less money than them, so that route out of poverty is probably out of the question for me.

Education is only a route out of poverty when it leads to a job that allows you a secure place to live. Otherwise what's left of your salary after tax and your student loan debt just allows you to earn just enough to enrich your landlord, without ever having any financial security of your own, and means one suprise rent increase that upsets you and means you can't be the unemotional professional that you're supposed to be can easily ruin your life.

The biggest difference in people I know that are rich and poor is that the rich ones have been given a flat by their parents and can afford to work in a pub if they lose their job, whereas the poor ones have no chance of ever recovering from something like that.

And the issue with what people refer to with derision as handouts is that they're simply not enough to make a difference to someone's life. No £100, £200 even £5000 won't make a difference, if a flat costs £350,000 then that's the equivalent of the fishing rod that is required to teach a man to fish - without housing security, lots of jobs will always be unaffordable or out of reach, however well educated and skilled you are.

I mean they didn't give me cash that I could choose how I spent it.

I was given food and a college place. There were no student loans, and the grant went straight out for my halls room and half a bus ticket, so I never saw any cash. I had no say over that money. I worked all through college to buy books & food. But I was given an opportunity.

That's why I think a return to adult education, night schools and free childcare for young parents is so important. It gives people a real opportunity to improve their life chances.

@iSiLwUibfeb There are much less expensive places to live than London.

Why not take a job in a smaller town or city where you could afford a room, and work upwards from there?

And if you’re going to school with holes in your shoes, no reliable food, without the right uniform or equipment needed, parents coping with the added stress that comes with having no money, doing homework in a cold, damp house, just how accessible do you think that free education is?

I think what you are saying is true for some people. If you aren't being paid a fair wage for a fair days work and don't have access to better paid work then no amount of education is going to fix it. Being poor is more expensive than being rich so that compounds it

Anxiety does impact our cognitive ability so a person in high financial stress is likely not going to be thinking medium to long term.

But financial literacy, education and hope can turn things around. If you can't see a better future or have no idea how to change it then things won't change - for many people the thing they need to change is themselves and that's hard as they are likely surrounded by people similar to themselves.

It's not a conspiracy. Our interest rates are hiked to reduce inflation by taking some disposable income out of the market & reduce spending. The working class are just the group it affects the most as we're the biggest. Unfortunately, they need new levers to pull as landlords just get greedy & don't put rents down & a lot of older gens don't have mortgages anymore.

It's not to keep us down so we work for the rich. They just employ offshore. I work in finance & many of the big financial providers have sent some or all their management offshore because it's cheaper & less tax. Some local, even family owned professional companies now use cheap offshore processing or AI, and still charging you $400 an hour. So I'm more worried about that, tbh. Not sure I'll have a job in a couple of years to pay tax on.

Most big or small companies don't pay much tax anywhere. They know how to avoid it. My DB turns over 500k and gets his taxable income to 30k (a lot of cashies & dubious tax claims). It needs to stop, but that's another fight as they just find another way to avoid it.

So much privilege on this thread. It’s deluded to think that you could pluck someone from poverty and solve it with education alone. Of course, there are outliers. I was one. But for so many, trauma and poverty go hand in hand and it is extremely difficult to ‘undo’ that with education alone.

Go to any sink estate and take any young person who has been dragged up by shit parents carrying their own generational trauma, who has behavioural problems and an IQ of 80, and see how far giving them access to education will get you.

Education- in a broad sense, not just Oxbridge. GCSEs, life skills, learning to drive, apprenticeships... The more you know, the more options you have and better insulation and recovery against life-shit.

It's not a complete answer, but engagement with education tends to come with some degree of ambition and direction even if that's modest. Teaching in schools where there is a wide-spread post-industrial culture of poverty of ambition, where the culture is to stay put and repeat the previous generation and there is no aspiration to see and believe alternative future paths is really difficult. Parents can often hold their children back from fear of their own limitations or fear of rejection by children moving onto a different path in life.

There can be phases of life (e.g. young children requiring childcare that doesn't fit with working patterns or is unaffordable) where being educated isn't the answer, and additional resources are, but having the means to access better rates of pay reduces that risk. Education can sometimes open more employment opportunities to people with disabilities or caring responsibilities by enabling better access to flexible or WFH posts- many NMW posts would be inaccessible and be in-person and more physical. Where that isn't a valid pathway then the welfare state and support resources are needed (and still has an important place in supporting the higher living cost disadvantage of disabilities even when in work)

Numeracy and financial literacy can help people maximise the resources that they have.

The more skilled and employable people society has in being economically active, the better society can support the people who aren't in that position be it temporarily or long term. Skilled, employable people have better chances of making come-backs after challenging phases.

My dad worked and educated (at night school) his way out of the post-war slums waiting for redevelopment. It wasn't all plain sailing, there were phases where recessions hit hard and family life was temporarily tipped back into poverty until the next opportunity, but his work ethic, skills and drive to learn and better himself meant that he finished life in very different circumstances to his origins.

Too much has been cut from education (and children's support) budgets, financial support to education and careers support in the past generation and society is suffering for it.

My mother was born into a poor rural background. Her father was a farm labourer. He insisted that his children studied and got into grammar school and from there to university. My mum became a teacher and her brothers a vet and a probation officer. I feelI owe a lot to my grandfather.

I agree with you to an extent - my life is so much easier and more enjoyable because I have money (my husband and I were both born into wealthy families).

I was able to follow my interests in choosing a career. I enjoyed studying at university for as long as I wanted which ended up being a long time as I got a postgraduate degree. I studied psychology and social work - the need to earn money didn’t influence my career choice as I had inheritance/ family money behind me.

However from working with the most disadvantaged in society (in Australia, not the UK) there were truly some families where it didn’t matter what extra grants, material aid or financial aid they were given they still lacked the basic budgeting and life skills to care for themselves.

Almost everyone would agree that unemployment benefits are too low to be comfortable, but in my workplace with Child Protection and working with Aboriginal families we would often have “targeted funds” packages which actually did give people enough money to live comfortably but inevitably they would end up buying things they didn’t need (usually electronics) or things that were actively harmful (alcohol, cigarettes and drugs).

We would provide so much education on budgeting, literally offer to go with him on a weekly shop to show them how to best feed their families on a budget, and sign them up for classes to learn to cook. Our government doesn’t expect a cent up front for tertiary studies (including university, but I’m referring to bridging courses for those who never completed high school to prepare someone for vocational school) and yet so many families struggled to improve their lives despite the billions Australia spends on various kinds of welfare.

But just giving them money won’t help either.

I don’t talk from privilege I have lived this shit.

I think a lot of people on this thread do speak from privilege though it looks out of some posts where people romanticise the thought of living in poverty and the idea that they alone have come up with the great idea of how to fix it all. Just give them more money!

Yeah ok see how that goes.

It's complicated picture, but here's some actual research:

https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/science-blog/evidence-behind-putting-money-directly-pockets-poor

And then there's this:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/26/money-poverty-kenya-charity-inequality

If you have two children in nursery, that would be £4K per month if not on UC. Plus £2k per month for rent on a two bedroom flat in a not particularly nice area of London. £600 for two monthly travel cards to get to and from work. I haven’t even started on council tax, utilities, food, nappies. And that is your wages gone.

And no, nobody needs to live in London, but London needs street sweepers and shelf stackers and baristas and office cleaners. Where are those people meant to live? Birmingham?

I’m not sure what your point is, I posted that in reply to someone who says two minimum wage jobs bring an income of £50k which is sufficient. I was arguing that research suggested that’s not the case.

I think the thing that lifts people out of poverty is the ability to earn / get money. How you give people that depends on a lot of things including opportunities for education and employment or access or even regular payments if nothing else works.

@MermaidMummy06 It doesn't reduce spending though, does it? It just means you are forced to spend money with organisations that make billion dollar profits and pay reduced taxes; not retain it for your own use and priorities - you know like feeding or educating your children. There were comments in Australia before interest rates dropped that taxpayers weren't as stretched as eg UK so they could hike rates further if needed.

The basis of taxation can be changed so the burden is spread equitably. But that would mean rich people and businesses pay their share and don't tax dodge. That will never happen so individual tax payers are penalised and bear the burden.

IMO organisations who make excessive profits $500M+ should be taxed on marginal scales similar to individuals. We've got major grocery stores over here price gouging, making excessive profits from every day people. They should contribute a fair share of taxation income that is used for the benefit of the country eg hospitals, schools etc At the moment, individuals who are on salary and wage incomes shoulder the burden as there is limited tax avoidance available to them. They might make a $200k salary but it seems that needs to be taxed to oblivion (in the name of fairness) while organisations make billions and pay barely anything in comparison. The billions in profit is after salary costs - it isn't needed to employ people.

Yes, but the definition of poverty, according to organisation like the Rowntree Trust aren't necessarily what most people would think of as poverty.
There are plenty of people who don't earn 60% of the median wage who aren't actually poor. I don't think that helps.

Plus, of course, most people in the UK don't live in London, so a household income of £50K is very manageable indeed. Painful though they are at the time, the childcare years don't last long, and now there are so many hours provided by Gvmnt funding, not many people (twins aside) need to be paying out £2K a month for Nursery.

I’m agreeing with you, not arguing with you

People are purposefully kept in poverty because corporations prefer to maximise profits rather than give a fair wage.
There are a heck of a lot of people out there keeping the world turning by cooking, cleaning, driving, sweeping, marshalling, delivering, caring, entertaining and many other jobs which pay minimum/v low wages.
Not everyone can go to university and educate their way to high wages - there just aren't enough uni/college places for a start. Many people are also just not academic in that way or are struggling too much with chaotic lives to be able to stay in education.

The answer is more money to all people who are working in all the traditionally low paid jobs. The gap is way to big between the low paid and the average paid.

If people on current low wages were paid more they would also pay more taxes and spend more money in the economy instead of the terminal pit of despair they are often stuck in.

So yes OP, I agree.

When I was starting my career in the mid 1980’s, I would have said it was education. But you are right, OP - wages now are about 45% less, in comparison with cost of living, than they were back then.

Successive generations of accountants have cleverly persuaded Companies to collectively drive down wages so that normal jobs can no longer sustain the lifestyle they did back then, and the race to pay the least because of “market values” is, frankly, disgraceful, causing a top tier of overpaid so-called executives, and a huge gap between their earnings and those who actually do the work that gets the money in.

That’s why I support Unions who back their workers up and maintain their earnings in line with the cost of living - so far that only seems to have been upheld by the train drivers in the UK, so it’s awful when they get condemned for striking - if more people stood up for their rights, wages would be more in line with what they should be!

This was true in my family, especially with the housing meaning that they moved out of literal slums and then the free education. Has meant we now have intergenerational prosperity, and not through inheritance.

a truly caring socialist government has had an impact so beneficial and far reaching, and I am truly grateful

Education has its place for some to get out of poverty but not all.
As someone said upthread we still need unskilled labour.
Higher minimum wage and affordable rental accommodation would enable people to get out of the benefits trap.