The 'Underclass'. Discuss.

[MrsSeanBean]

I am coining the term the media use to describe people living in similar circumstances to Karen Matthews - never worked, 7 kids, 6 dads, largely feckless and with no apparent aspirations.

Do we have one? Why?

Who or what is responsible?

When did it all go wrong?

What can be done to resolve the situation?

Answers on a postcard please.

Yes Peachy. The Mail online has a big picture of KM to illustrate the piece about getting feckless scrounging single Mums back to work. But she wasn't a lone parent, or entitled to those benefits. She was illegally using an established system to get as much money as possible. Plenty of educated people do this too with tax evasion and legal tax avoidance. M.P's expenses too.

I can asure you teenage pg are caused by lack of contraception - if contraception was used 95% of them would not get pg.

You will not stop teenagers having sex, if they want to have sex badly enough they will, regardless of there religious backgrounds.

Ivy thats interesting- I'm in wales though so maybe not the same here? Am fast learning much isnt when looking at SW training!

Yes ninkyonk the mail does ike t do things like that doesnt it?

I am off to bed, It all seems to keep coming back to Jesus and I don't really want to get involved in a religious debate as I may offend and I can't still see what religion has to do with the underclass.

night night all

I don't know why I put myself through it Peachy. I was raging at the comments. Why not focus on people like my ExH? Nooooo... we'll concentrate on vulnerable mothers with young children. The honest ones who live , albeit temporarily on benefits, not the ones with secret working partners or the people who will just have more and more children in order to avoid working.

Actually, how is this for underclass mentality? I met ExH's ex girlfriend in town. She had her first at fifteen, two with exH, three with next partner and was expecting her seventh. She is not yet thirty and has never had so much as a Saturday job.

Anyway, the conversation moved to CSA and how I am finally seeing a laughable amount of money. Her comment was, I kid you not, "Oh I don't bother with all that. I've never asked any of my kids' Dads for nothing. I bring them up just on my money."

The implication was that I was being greedy. It didn't occur to her where this money was coming from, why should it?

'Peachy - most people are not in your situation though. Many people moan about 'Where are the jobs that fit neatly around school hours?' - well, the answer is, there aren't many of them, and they tend to be low paid! So you organise childcare - childminder, after school club etc (and there are hundreds more of those about than when I went back to work after my kids!).'

Findthe river, very good point and one which most people miss. We are supposed to slot into the world of work, not have work slot in around us. My job makes no concessions to me having childre n(beyond legal minimal standards) and neither do I expect it to.My kids, my responsibnility.

lord is this about bashing those who believe in god again?

the term undeclass was first used to try to explain black ghettos in post war America. It is usually linked with the phrase 'culture of poverty' and the premis of the argument is that the underclasses existance is primarily an economic one.

However there is a culture of poverty. we know its there and it doesn't mean that we are right wing tories to say so. the above theory is often times refered to as blaming the victims, but why are the poor 'victims'?

there is a culture of poverty. and if we are to change culture we need mass investment in parenting and education from the government. equality of opportunity.

there will always be people who activly chose this life as an option.

there are girls who try to get pregnant on purpose, not becuase they dont know what sex is, or they dont know how to use a condom

becuae they dont know what its like to have a baby, a lifetime of poverty or hard work.

i would venture, ask the majority of 16 year olds - party or baby - most would say party!

party - means money and no responsabilities

you work, you buy YOURSELF things - oh how appealing is that to self obsessed teenagers , who think having a baby is like having a puppy, someone to look after and love them. yip, someone who will love them.

there are the fuck wits - like me - who wee just plain stupid, but parental guidence is the key.

a cultural shift to not normalise ths behaviour - but to teach our society as a whole what we expect from our 'culture' in this country.

but that would require too much of your tax. too much time and effort from any government to invest in parents, to teach paretns,. to say " this is the right way, the good way, the proper way" its easier to leave you out of theequation and parent poor people by proxy, through schools.

Custy, this govt. has invested massively in educating parents.It's called Sure Start and although a terrific and noble idea (in which I am heavily involved) by and large, the data suggests that it has made fuck all difference.

Many argue that it effectively rewards people for being shit parents (ie the worse you are,the more you get) and I have come to the reluctant conclusion that they are right.

Ivykaty44 on Sun 07-Dec-08 23:36:26
"I can asure you teenage pg are caused by lack of contraception - if contraception was used 95% of them would not get pg."

Absolutely. I hope noone thinks that the reason that the Scandinavian countries have had lower teenage pregnancy rates than the UK is because youngsters don't do it

does nobody think that making people work for benefits would be a vicious circle? Employers offer temporary jobs to those on benefits, people on benefits do those jobs, employer thinks "that person was a really good worker etc (or not) shall I offer them this vacant post" oh no, I think I'll just wait for my next allotment of unemployed people to do this job for free.

If people on benefits were forced to work, employers/councils would basically use them as slave labour. There would be even fewer entry level/unqualified jobs than there are now. So people on benefits would be really trapped instead of just appearing to be trapped .

On the issue of food stamps, if someone is willing for there children to go without the basics to buy cigarettes/alcohol/drugs (and I'm mostly dubious about this). what makes people think that food stamps would not mean an escalation in petty/violent crime?

sorry sticky x-posted, I was a yts girl and I resented every second of the 40 hours I worked a week (for £30) grrr. I felt like slave and was treated like it too.

KittyFloss on Mon 08-Dec-08 00:20:54

"On the issue of food stamps, if someone is willing for there children to go without the basics to buy cigarettes/alcohol/drugs (and I'm mostly dubious about this). what makes people think that food stamps would not mean an escalation in petty/violent crime? "

Indeed.

And why we are on the subject, there seems to be a group of posters on here who believe in a mythical Golden Age when no "underclass" existed.

Do you mind telling me when this is supposed to have been?

In the sixties? Read Kes. In Victorian times? Read Dickens. In the 18th century? Gin Lane has already been mentioned by one poster. In the Tudor era? What about those sturdy beggars? In the Middle Ages? When people who went travelling through their own country needed an armed escort.

moondog, my dh used to work for sure start many moons ago, and in my role i have had various dealings with them. IME over bureaucratic, wastage is high, however from first hand experience i can solomnly swear that in two different areas in two diferent parts of the country, supported my sure start breast feeding groups have started up, and i truly believe that they have made a vast difference educating poor communitities about this area - but they didn't do it alone.

when i say culture - i mean culture of the country - every parent. not target who you think is poor, sure start worked in some areas of high deprivation becuase it was really easy to identify, but in others not so much.

poor does not = bad parent and that is why parenting classes should be available for all and compulsory or lose child benefit.

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workfare. i have no idea how this is going to work, does anyone have hard facsts as to what is proposed.

i agree with work fare in principle - if you can work you should work, if you dont like workfare - get a proper job - kind of mentality.

however this was the argument with the yts and other similar govt schemes.

the problem with YTS is that it was to all purposes - workfare. i was on a yts for 29 quid. and i wasn't taught anything, i didn't recieve any qualifications.

and i thought - fuck that, i'll go back to college.

Me too Custardo, I did the yts in the year I took between college and school. I tried 3 weeks of college, didn't like it. I tried lots of weeks of pointless work and didn't like it, went back and got 4 A-Levels, not that it did me any good.

just plouged through all this lot. good grief. Agree with kittyfloss. The welafrae for work thing is being used in the US and employers are seeing it as 'freebie labour' thus low paid work for those struggling to lift themselves up is disappearing.
I reckon its education. Many kids are diaffected within a few years of starting school. Why is that?

As for soup kitchens...I'm looking forward to wheeling myself and dd down to a soup kitechn so some stuffy type can look down their nose at us feckless cripples. Oh yes.
Carers cannot access childcare. 80% of carers do not work for this very reason (plus you stil l care for over 100 hours a week along with your job). And you are still caring when the child turns 18 and the day centres are shut and there's no 'childcare' any more.
DH had to give up a reasonably paid job to be a carer (he cares for me and dd) because there's no bloody help. Do I see any of these church goers coming round? Do I fuck. Its all talk. And then judging.
Off to the soup kitchen....

Custardo, if someone tried to make me go on a 'parenting course' I'd go ballistic.

Parenting courses don't have to preach the bleeding obvious though moondog - they could be fun.

Not that I am advocating compulsory parenting classes. Just think parenting and it's importance should be given much more kudos in society.

maybe parenting should be taught at school?
Where are the men in all this? All the papers are blaming women. Why do men no longer see their role as provding for their children? Its always the women.
Walking down my High Street, I see so many blokes from 18 - 40 doing fuck all, hanging out at the bookies. Its doubtless they are working. There's women with kids but they might be sahm and at least they are doing something. Why are men being forced into work first? But no, its all about going after women.
(am aware dh looks like feckless scrounger dad too. He's at home, he's scruffy (and seriously, I cant see how anyone on benefits manages to look non-scruffy. It really isn't very much money. We struggle every week))

in Germany there is year of either the army or voluntary social work for every young person, so nobody can say that they have never worked.
voluntary social work is things like helping in homes/schools for disabled people, or hospitals or old peoples homes. It is paid about the same as unemployment benefit. Most of the kids doing it are away from home for the first time, and are getting valuable experience.

There are also 400 euro jobs. These are temp jobs that you can take, without affecting your benefit (I think). Some employers do try to have a trickle of 400 euro employees coming through.

I remember yts and the ripoff "trainee" places.

nnedmore coffee - the suop kitchen in my town the stuffy ones are in the que and it is a cripple that runs the joint. There are all walks of life that use the soup kitchen and they turn up in allsorts of vehicles from mercs to realiant robins or on foot or push bike.

Allsorts of people fall on hard times and just because they look or appear in a certain way doesn't mean they cant use the soup kitchen - it is there for eveyone with a need.

As the goverment is the worst parent by far - I dont want to see pareting taught in schools that are run by the goverment, thats not in my mind a good idea.

I still go with the idea of more much more contraception.

I agree toa certain extent. But to teach children that they don't have to churn out babies, that parenting is hard work, that getting a job is good has to start somewhere. And school is the only place where children are gathered (unless you;re a home edder)
All the right wing types are suggesting the stick appraoch and threats, the sort of thing that will lead to more crime.

needmorecoffee. Didn't know we were allowed to use the word cripple!

Needmorecoffee, I agree, it definitely needs to be men who are heavily persuaded to work for their benefits first.

Mothers however feckless some may consider them to be do still have children who will need to be cared for by somebody else if they work.