Well mol, I prefer not to give governments too much credit either way. They largely react to events rather than drive them, so can hardly take the credit or the blame
I'm commenting on the lack of compassion and understanding
Debatable - rhetoric v reality, but they have a PR problem for sure
the manifest desire to shrink government;
Hurrah - but painfully slow here, so yes black marks all round
and the lack of competence in managing society.
as above
Out of interest THM, how many people do you know who have fallen foul of the system through no fault of their own?
Quite a lot - I ran a marathon recently to raise money to support them.
Is it wrong that I always imagine THM dressed in his [url= 
]Kate Kennedy[/url] outfit while he types?
Anyway,this is all good news,rising employment must mean lots and lots of exports from the UK.Jolly good.
Great photo Fasthaggis and shrewd choice!! I happen to know the Kate in that photo, so your choice is spooky!! Very, very eerie!! 😉
Bravo!!
Agreed - it is good news
Goes off singing the gaudie....
"Quite a lot - I ran a marathon recently to raise money to support them."
I'm sure they were all very grateful. Well done [i]you[/i]!
But do you [i]actually[/i] know any?
It wasnt for me - apart from the fitness gains, so no thanks required. Yes, do you want names and addresses? Are you going to help too? That would be great, more hands....
It's threads like this that fill me with despair about the social attitudes of some forumites.
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It's threads like this that fill me with despair about the social attitudes of some forumites.
I wouldn't. It's mostly just laughable junk that's being spouted 🙂
From the ONS
There were around 3 million people in in-work poverty in 2013. This meant their household income (adjusted for household size and composition) was below the poverty threshold and were in employment themselves. The ten per cent of households with the lowest disposable income spent an average of £196 a week in 2013. Of this, half (£98) was spent on food and non-alcoholic drinks, transport, housing (including net rent), and household fuel and power.As for out of work people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance and Universal Credit, there were 760,200 people claiming these benefits in January 2016. This number has decreased by 11.2% compared with a year earlier.
I think looking at employment/unemployment figures alone is pointless. Yes, more people are in employment than ever before. That is a tiny part of the story. Three million working people in poverty?
That's three million people who are NOT BENEFITING from being in a working family.
This narrative that, once someone has a job, everything is fine is nonsense.
£44 billion goes on family benefits, income support and tax credits. This includes benefits such as child benefit and support for people on low income. Around £3.5 billion goes to the unemployed.
I would suggest that poorly paid jobs are costing the taxpayer far more than unemployment. Are we subsidising the unemployed or employers who don't want to pay their staff enough to live off.
So yeah, great news, unemployment is down.
Let's have a ****ing party!
"It wasnt for me"
So why mention it?
"Yes, do you want names and addresses? Are you going to help too? That would be great, more hands...."
How do you know I'm not already 'helping'? You haven't a clue what I do, or don't do. Some people chose not to bang on about such things. But if you think it helps make you look more 'good citizen', then crack on. Well done [i]you[/i]. Have a medal.
So why mention it?
To answer a question, Fred
How do you know I'm not already 'helping'? You haven't a clue what I do, or don't do.
In this specific case, Fred, I do know. But I am sure that you are helping in other ways so - what's the phrase - well done, [i]you[/i]
edit for edit: thank you, a chocolate one if you dont mind.
Ahhh lifting children from poverty until 2010,children in poverty increases since. Don't like the sound of that?
Easy.
[url= http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/iain-duncan-smith-defends-his-plan-to-redefine-child-poverty-and-scrap-binding-targets-a6893646.html ]change the definition of child poverty [/url]
I'm currently contributing to crowd funding with the aim of bringing Ian Duncan Smith to justice for his disabled and homeless program, I suggest others do the same.
To be fair to IDS, the current definition of poverty is useless.
If you're household income is less than 60% of the median then you'll be classed as being in poverty. People will always fall into this definition whatever you do, thats just statistics. It could be argued that to reduce the poverty figure, we could just reduce the median income of the country. Recession anyone?
What would be more meaningful would be to define what Poverty actually is and then tackle those underlying issues which hold back social mobility.
Things like Education & Health.
the current definition of poverty is useless.
agreed, but not a popular opinion to hold! 😉
The IFS stuff on childhood income inequality is interesting material though
the saddest thing about this thread is that there is little or no middle ground the discussion is two sided and thus becomes a willy waving competition trawling the web to find facts stats and quotes.
that 37000 people have cause to celebrate a new job following unemployment should be good enough in itself..
the argument re social mobility is disappointing in 2016 western europe.. in a year we ve witnessed millions of people walking thousands of miles across the middle east and europe and record numbers of eastern europeans jumping on the bus or easy jet to seek work in a country where they barely understand the language we use the argument that its unfair on the unemployed of rochdale to expect them to travel modest commutes to secure work..
Chew - that's relative poverty. See clodhoppers link on previous page regarding absolute poverty.
teamhurtmore - Member
No woppit, you tried to be a bit of an **** on two threads...
Charming.
Don't you usually report people who address you in a similar manner?
"In this specific case, Fred, I do know. "
'Fred'? 😕
You don't even know my name. How the hell can you know anything else about me?
"But I am sure that you are helping in other ways so - what's the phrase - well done, you"
What I, or anyone else, does or doesn't do, is irrelevant to his particular discussion. It's not about 'I do a lot of work for charity' type willy-waving. It's about understanding what is causing the issues in our society. So far, all you've demonstrated is a lack of understanding, and an insistence on supporting tory ideology by producing carefully selected 'statistics' you believe support your argument.
I'm not interested in waving willies around. It's far too chilly for that sort of nonsense.
Producing some carefully manipulated figures to show 'oh look, employment is up!', whilst all the real evidence proves society is declining economically and socially, for the majority of people, is fiddling while Rome burns.
See clodhoppers link on previous page regarding absolute poverty
Following through that report, the stats attached dont seem to back up the claim.
I wish that there were no Children growing up in poverty.
We [the IFS] refer to two main income-based measures of poverty. The first is the ‘[b]absolute poverty rate’[/b], which measures the fraction of individuals who live in a household with an income below a fixed (in real terms) poverty line. The precise level of this poverty line is inevitably somewhat arbitrary, but we follow the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)’s official Households Below Average Income (HBAI) statistics and d[b]efine the absolute poverty line as 60% of median income in 2010–11[/b]....The second income-based measure of poverty is the [b]‘relative poverty rate’. [/b]This measures the [b]fraction of individuals whose household income is lower than 60% of median income in the current (contemporaneous) year.[/b] In both cases (absolute and relative), incomes are adjusted for differences in household size and composition (‘equivalised’) to reflect that larger households need more income than smaller households to achieve the same standard of living. To give a sense of monetary amounts, in 2014–15, the absolute poverty line (after housing costs) for a single person was £138 per week, while it was £332 for a couple with two children (aged under 14). The relative poverty lines were £141 and £340 respectively....
While the current cut-off points are similar, absolute and relative poverty are very different concepts, and they can give a very different impression of the level and trends in income poverty over time. For example, rising absolute poverty occurs when the incomes of low-income people are falling in real terms, meaning that more people are living in households below the fixed poverty line. In contrast, there can be a rise in relative poverty even if there is no change in the real incomes of low-income households: an increase in median income can lead to the relative poverty line (and therefore relative poverty) rising. We believe it is useful to track both absolute and relative measures of poverty. In the long run, society’s view about what is an acceptable standard of living evolves, and it seems plausible that it evolves roughly in line with the level of resources available to society as a whole.
Therefore it is appropriate for a poverty line to change over time in a way that relates to average income, as does the relative poverty line. However, in the short run, there is obviously interest simply in whether people are getting better or worse off in absolute terms. This has certainly been the case since the recession. More generally, it is doubtful whether society’s views about what constitutes acceptable living standards change year to year as median income changes. Hence changes in the absolute poverty rate are important too and, because we tend to focus here on recent trends, we largely focus on trends in absolute poverty.
FYI: IFS
And the latest numbers they use
In 2014–15, the absolute poverty rate in the UK when measuring incomes after deducting housing costs (AHC) was 20.3%, which corresponds to 12.9 million individuals. This was a fall of 1.3 percentage points (700,000 individuals) from 2013–14 and 1.8ppt (1.0 million) since the recent peak in 2012–13 – falls that are statistically significant.
As noted in the introduction to this chapter, relative poverty provides a different concept of how the living standards of low-income households are performing, where an increase or decrease in poverty is caused by poorer households ‘falling behind’ or ‘catching up’ with middle-income households respectively. Figure 5.4 shows the trends in relative poverty (measured AHC) since 1996–97. In 2014–15, relative poverty was essentially unchanged from 2013–14, at 21.3%, and slightly lower than its previous peak of 22.5% in2007–08. The main finding from this is that overall relative poverty is not very different from its level 10 years ago, with rises prior to the recession as median income growth outpaced growth in low incomes, falls between 2007–08 and 2010–11 as median income fell faster than low incomes during the recession, and little change since then.
Charming.
Don't you usually report people who address you in a similar manner?
Read the previous post that this was in reply to and you will get the context ie being called a bit of a c***. Then you will understand.
that 37000 people have cause to celebrate a new job following unemployment should be good enough in itself..
Only if the jobs they are doing are valid jobs (not zero hours contracts, not underpaid/demeaning jobs). The only benefit is to the employers.
Don't just look at a number and think all is good....
Ah, one rule for you and one for others.
What a surprise.
What I, or anyone else, does or doesn't do, is irrelevant to his particular discussion.
Agreed, so its odd when people ask this isn't it Fred?
It's not about 'I do a lot of work for charity' type willy-waving. It's about understanding what is causing the issues in our society.
True, which requires something that you seem to abhor - facts
So far, all you've demonstrated is a lack of understanding, and an insistence on supporting tory ideology by producing carefully selected 'statistics' you believe support your argument.
I have no need to support any party. The facts are what they are. In fact their trends seem to suggest that the party in power has little if any impact, so who is relying on carefully selected "anecdotes" that they believe support their argument?
You can see the levels of income inequality and absolute and relative poverty in the UK for yourself. If required you can also compare them with the party in power that the time, if you believe this to be relevant. You decide. Personally, I prefer to just get on with doing something about it, in practical and financial terms. That has nothing to do with willy-waving {although I am sorry if you are feeling the effects of the cold in that scenario)
that 37000 people have cause to celebrate a new job following unemployment should be good enough in itself..
I doubt very much that all 37000 have actually got a job. That figure will surely include those no longer in out of work/job seeking benefits.
Is this going the way you expected OP?
'Fred'?You don't even know my name. How the hell can you know anything else about me?
I don't know about that, I think he may have a point.
😀
"I don't know about that, I think he may have a point."
I've revealed absolutely bugger all about myself, my profession, and my personal life. So, please explain how 'he may have a point'?
"You can see the levels of income inequality and absolute and relative poverty in the UK for yourself"
Yes, I can. Because I keep my eyes and ears open I see for myself what is actually happening to real people, not just bury myself in 'statistics'.
"True, which requires something that you seem to abhor - facts"
Ah, 'facts'. Please explan this then:
"In this specific case, Fred, I do know."
As far as I am aware, we've never met in 'real life', and our contact as been limited to this forum alone. So, please explain how you seem to 'know' about what I do, or don't do.
Now, we could continue with going down your favourite route of using statistics to prove a point, but I prefer to look at the actual, physical reality of people's lives. Such as the massive increase in food bank use, just to use one example. The 'facts' of this are that increasing numbers of people cannot afford to buy food to eat.
It's 'facts' like that I'm interested in THM, not your carefully manipulated figures.
Very simple Fred - none of the people that are involved are MTBers nor do they post here, hence, safe to conclude that you are not part of that group. The great thing about facts - they are so simple. 😉
I am well aware of the food bank issue. Have we met there perhaps?
I've revealed absolutely bugger all about myself, my profession, and my personal life. So, please explain how 'he may have a point'?
Dunning-Kruger effect?
Wanna take bets on that THM?
on what?
On the people being involved in these factual stats not being MTBers
"Very simple Fred - none of the people that are involved are MTBers nor do they post here, hence, safe to conclude that you are not part of that group. "
So, because I'm not 'involved' in your particular charity activity, you assume you know about any other aspect of my life?
You don't, end of. You really have no idea who I am, what I do or don't do. The world is a bigger place than just you.
"Dunning-Kruger effect?"
I have long suspected similar.
Does anyone know whether the ONS classes people who travel to a place of work, then spend all day quoting internet drivel on STW as being in or out of work?
Some of the posts in this thread have more contemptuous smarm in them than I thought it was possible to communicate in writing.
So at least I learned something.
"that 37000 people have cause to celebrate a new job following unemployment should be good enough in itself.."
It should be, but rising homelessness for one, somewhat tempers this. For any 'good' news the tories may chose to focus on, there will be many more bits of 'bad' news. The net effect is that society is declining, not improving.
No Fred, I assumed nothing, but merely guessed that
teamhurtmore - Member
But I am sure that you are helping in other ways...
POSTED 2 HOURS AGO #
So all is good! The more that people actually do something the better, hey? No point leaving it to governments....
On the people being involved in these factual stats not being MTBers
why bet on that, no one has suggested it? 😯
... but I prefer to look at the actual, physical reality of people's lives. Such as the massive increase in food bank use, just to use one example. The 'facts' of this are that increasing numbers of people cannot afford to buy food to eat.
I don't remember there being any food banks when I was a kid. Their use has increased exponentially since then.
fin25 - MemberI think looking at employment/unemployment figures alone is pointless. Yes, more people are in employment than ever before. That is a tiny part of the story. Three million working people in poverty?
That's three million people who are NOT BENEFITING from being in a working family.
This narrative that, once someone has a job, everything is fine is nonsense.
Add in underemployment- now falling at last from record levels but still about 50% higher than it was 10 years ago. That's been estimated at a 5 million hour a week shortfall. To put that another way, the equivalent of 140000 full time jobs.
Nice footnote from the BBC on today's figures, btw:
"The ONS is 95% confident that the figure of a 37,000 fall in unemployment is accurate give or take 79,000. That means that the fall in unemployment is not statistically significant."
The level of employment is a second derivative issue - far more important for all concerned is the level of productivity. Our record there is pretty dismal and without it, many of the real issues described above cannot be tackled.
Well this is the Work and Pensions Secratary's ideal;
[i]Jobs of the future may not have stable hours, holiday pay, sick pay, or pensions, the Work and Pensions Secretary has said.[/i]
[url= http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/dwp-gig-economy-damian-green-speech-holiday-minimum-wage-sick-pay-hours-a7421071.html ]http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/dwp-gig-economy-damian-green-speech-holiday-minimum-wage-sick-pay-hours-a7421071.html[/url]
still, gets those pesky statistics down...
IT contractors typically choose self employed, no pension, no sick pay, no health insurance .. its not about the terms and conditions its about the wages. Also they do this to pay less tax.
The issue we have in the UK is scams to get round minimum wage and tax law and agencies / contractors who facilitate this. Add on top an unli ited supply of cheap manpower and you have a problem
Major factor in these disagreements is the reliance on stats. Typical example....a working stw member reads a (biased on left or right) newspaper and comes to a conclusion. I'd bet that if that person actually went and spent some time with people in a homeless persons hostel, soup kitchen, mental health ward, walked the streets taking the time to get to get to know the lives and back stories of these people they have an opinion on, said opinion would change and you'd realise life is shit out there for many many people (which is unacceptable in a country with so much money)...and a lot of it is because of issues that are out of their control.
