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.

oh god, yes - zero hours contracts

very very bad and a bi-product of capitalism

I think it is fine to call them the Under Class.

They are not Working Class because they don't work, and it is reinforced with each short generation.

I think it should be made clear to women in her situation that after one or two children, no more child benefit will be paid for subsequent children. They will be taken into care or adopted.

It was once mentioned on a thread I was on that I had been at shcool with the " underclass". I don't think I was; the parents of my firends had had jobs at the towns main emplyer which had mad many redundancies. These people were working class who had found themselves unemployed, possibly long term or permanently. What keeps them apart fom the underclass is that thier children had the whits about them to get a decent jop/ go to unirversity.

You can't blame corporations. Companies still need cleaners, and it is more efficient to outsource. The same work get done but managed by focussed experts who genuinely care in the work they do.

I'm no expert on employment history, but I know that having no job security is not a new thing. London dockworkers would always have to show up on the day to see if there was any work. I'm not saying this was a great system, but it was one played out by honest hard-working people, who did manage to put food on their family table. Maybe some days they would take handouts (from the Church, mostly), but that would not stop them from showing up the next day looking for work.

Blaming corporations is just another example of a culture of blame and entitlement.

I think that benefits should be paid in food stamps rather than hard cash. Benefits should not be used to fund tobacco, alcohol, drug and gambling habits.

The underclass are outside of society. They feel they have no stake in society and that society has nothing to offer them. Therefore they are very dangerous to the stability of a society because they are not motivated to follow the rules of that society.

Our society has too wide a gap between the rich and the poor and a value system which champions materialism. People need to feel that they can get at least some of what they want from life. If all the money stays with the rich then it is hard to see that you will achieve much financially if you start out poor. And if material gain is the main value of a society there will be a lot of folk who see no reason to remain within society.

So to sum up the reasons for this are

1. rampant materialism as the core value of society
2. the big and gettting bigger rich/poor gap

I think it is completely untrue to say Karen Matthews is without aspirations.

She patently aspired to having more money.

Not everyone who is on benefits/is unemployed is a member of the 'underclass' and also many crimes are committed by both working and middle class people.

I agree that education is probably the key factor. It's the education system which needs an overhaul imo - lower the school leaving age and introduce more vocational subjects.

Indeed, Podrick.

(agree with your first post too)

"after one or two children, no more child benefit will be paid for subsequent children. They will be taken into care or adopted."

You don;t go far enough, abraid - surely they should be forcibly sterilized?

Or, I know, why don't we find an undiscovered continent and ship them all over there? Kill two birds..

Someone said people in the sixties and seventies suddenly started thinking they could do what they like - but why did this happen? Nobody has mentioned the break up of communities that happened in the sixties, when working class communities were put out of inner city housing and moved to the sink estates. Community ties built up over generations were destroyed overnight. Also, people had to move to get jobs when local industries were shut down in the eighties. So, if you get families living in isolation from other people (older generation etc) who would have previously kept them in check, you get a loosening of morals if you like. It's all very well saying you can't blame this and that, but there must be a reason for it.

What depresses me is how many young people aspire to having money (any way they can) without any attendant sensible ideas about what to do with it, any financial nous, any taste, etc.

I did a workshop a few months back in a school using this poem as a model, and inviting the kids to write their own versions. It depressed the hell out of me how many of the Ryans and Jaydens and Armanis and Lateeeeeeeeshas and Storme-Chelises imagined themselves in a big "bling" mansion with gold Rolls-Royces "pimped" by Xzibit, and so on, without any mention of actual aspiration or educational or professional goals.

Culture of entitlement. Totally.

As a "forriner" the two things that have always struck me about the UK are:

1. Education not valued enough - before I moved here I'd never come across people whose parents had actively discouraged them from further education. The country I grew up in was very poor with high unemployment but education was seen as a way out of that situation...

1. People not being prepared to relocate to get jobs. Again I come from a country where people have historically emigrated from in hard times. Can't understand why you would rather remain long-term unemployed than move... (and if people emigrate to the UK from all over the world surely there is work to be got - present recession excepted of course.)

I wonder if it's because for so long there was plenty of work in mines, factories, whatever so people could leave school at 16 and walk into a job but that has changed but people haven't adapted to that change?

People are quite insular. An awful lot of people are born, live and die in the same town, and would rather have a long commute than move for work. In some communities it is still seen as odd if you want to "move away" for further education.

Half the school parents we know seem to have their mum or dad living round the corner. Quite a culture-shock when you are 200 miles away from where you were born, and your parents now live 200 miles in the other direction anyway.

Relocating for jobs - very sore point. We had a much maligned employment secretary Normal Tebbit), what, 20+ years ago, that said 'on yer bikes'.

The sentiment was that in prior generations (early 20th century) would not whinge about no jobs, they would get on their bikes and find work.

I am from a working class family and was the first to go to university. Although there were job opportunities with my degree in my local area - central Scotland (well, 20 miles away), it didn't occur to me that the whole country wasn't open to me. I even ended up getting my first job in the USA, and then moved onto the Home Counties).

Anyone who gets a degree from a Russell Group university does not let 'on yer bike' faze them at all. It is natural.

There is definately an underclass in this society, how it evolved or what we can do about is beyond me.

However, in my opinion it is closely related to benefits, why go to work if one can sit at home and play xbox all day? This way they don't have to move out of their social circle and won't get judged if they drink special brew at lunchtime and let their children stay off school at sit around the smoke filled house with reprobate friends. This is not working class. I am from a very working class family, my dad had many different jobs though as he would do anything to bring home money for our family and would have never dreamed of accepting the dole as a lifestyle choice, which in my opinion, the underclasses deem an acceptable way of life.

One of the commentators I listened to in the last few days said that members of this underclass do not form relationships within the community. Everything they do (presumably, apart form signing on) is within their own house. They do not go to church, school functions, coffee mornings, M&T groups, working men's clubs and pubs, and of course work. They do not learn how to interact with people or empathise/sympathise with them, or learn good behaviour by example.

This is a huge contrast to my own middle class existence, but also to the lives of their neighbours on sink estates who do get involved in the community.

Someone said that the 'underclass' started in the 60's adn 70's because people suddenly felt they could do what they liked.
Does anyone thing that is somehow linked to the emergence of the council estates?
AFter all, if you are the only family not working surrounded by working neighbours, you would get a job to fit/ keep up. Whereas on a (sink) estate, surrounded by other work-dodgers, it is acceptable not to work and to scrounge benefits etc. So there is not the social 'push' to further yourself.

Or am I talking rubbish?

Am Dutch, so not really with the whole 'class' thing...

Their social circle is limited to people like them.
They can see nothing wrong with living like they do because everyone they know lives in the same way.

Their social circle is limited to people like them.
They can see nothing wrong with living like they do because everyone they know lives in the same way.

Someone like Karen matthews could never get or keep down a job as they just wouldn't have the social skills to do so.

Do we have one? Why?
Yes we have one, not sure why

Who or what is responsible?
No-one is responsible - individuals are responsible for themselves

When did it all go wrong?
It has always been like this, it just wasn't so widely reported years and years ago.

What can be done to resolve the situation?
Nothing - give them their benefits, their council houses and their anti-depressants and let them get on with it.

Face facts you lot, it's not as if they affect us in anyway is it? They don't shop where we shop, they don't join the health clubs we go to, they don't go to the restaurants we go and they don't go to the schools we go to.

However, their children are a different matter entirely and clearly something should be done. In fact, it already is being done. That's why free breakfast clubs were invented and they also get free lunches so it's only a matter of time before free after school clubs with dinner are invented and then at least their children won't be hungry. It's sad that all this soup kitchen type action has had to be taken because it reflects badly on all the decent families but at least it means that children can get some hot food.

The shame of it is that the adults are spendding the money allocated for the children on fags and special brew whilst children like Shannon Mathews are sent to school in Bratz boots instead of proper fitted shoes.