I hope billusugger watched it then remembered how much his bike cost. 😉

I caught some if it but sap that I am I couldn’t watch it as it was just too depressing.

I can’t help thinking that having children is something that a lot of people seem to enter into without any thought to how they will provide for them or is that view too simplistic?

Yeah point taken.

I did feel a twinge of guilt when watching but then I’ve lived around poverty on and off growing up. My ol man used to live on Buttershaw.

I could have bought my bike 15 times over for the same price as Wazza’s do. He could own half of Bootle for that.

Shame the red top rags such as the Mail and Sun don’t focus on these appalling inequalities in our supposedly developed society rather than splash the odd family of spongers all over their front pages. There are many more families like those on the programme than those who are taking the p*ss of the benefits system. And the policies our Dave and George are introducing and the state of our economy are going to make those kids lives a whole lot tougher.

I didn’t see the programme but I am all too familiar with the level of poverty described in this thread…
I think anyone who hasn’t had first hand experience of this themselves would certainly gain valuable and in some ways vital experience from making sure that they try to befriend someone in the sort of situation being discussed..

Unfortunately the red tops have been at the forefront of the creating those inequalities. Political Attack on the poor started in the late 70’s as part of the Thatche Neo-Liberal campaign. But that politcal attack continues through the printed press regardless of which party is power. Regardless of whether the winning party wears a red or blue rosette the majority (something like 7 out of the top selling 10) of newspapers have a right wing, neo liberal editorial. They drive the debate no matter whos in charge

Thats what make is so easy for Dave and George to say the things they do. And thats why I referred to Ian Duncan Smith as the ‘the guy who used to be Ian Duncan Smith’

What I find shocking in the increase in inequality that this and the last few governments have encouraged – the top 1% are getting obscenely rich and the bottom 10% poorer and poorer with the safety nets being eroded as a sop to the middle classes to keep taxes low for the rich (quite how that works I’ve never figured out – vote to make the poor poorer so we can avoid taxing the rich, but seems to work every time).

Under the last government poor where better off in real terms than they had been, the gap that widened wasn’t between the rich and the poor, it was between the very small amount of super rich and everyone else.

Those problem those kids have is that they are faced with two types of poverty – poverty of cash, and poverty of effort from their parents.

We live in a very poor scheme and are apparently living below the poverty line, but we sure as hell put the effort in to make sure that we make the most of the cash that we do have. Some people round here spend so much money on so much crap then wonder how they cant feed themselves.

The proportion of children living in poverty grew from 1 in 10 in 1979 to 1 in 3 in 1998

That’s a shocking statistic and made worse/more confusing by the fact that food and clothing were relatively more expensive 30-40 years ago than they are today.

Its a difficult measure because the way we define poverty changes over time, which it needs to. But as a nation we’ve gotten significantly richer over time, so what it means to be poor has changed too. That seems like a huge shift – too big to a true reflection, even if it isn’t factually untrue.

I’m from a single parent family, mother worked 3 part-time jobs, neighbours looked after us (me and my 2 handicapped brothers) whilst she worked and in turn she looked after the neighbours kids so they could work and no where near the benefits available today. In all that time we were fed and clothed, we cleaned the house between us and taught how to look after myself and my brothers from an early age.
I watched the programme too last night and most of it I could blame the parents for or more accurately lack of parenting. The only ones that I had praise for where the ones in Glasgow who tried to make the best of what they had. Leicester complained about money but had a huge tv, broadband, play station and then towards the end of the show another tv. Cut the broadband and they could have bought a few shirts for the lad each month. The girls in Bradford was terrible with what level of care the mother showed to her children with no bedding, house never cleaned and kids allowed to run feral.
I know I’m going to get flamed over my comments but like others have said I have seen real child poverty in other countries and last wasn’t it more like child neglect 2 out 3 cases.

no where near the benefits available today

😕 What decade are you talking about ?

I spent my childhood in pretty dire poverty. And there was a period when during the school holidays, me and my siblings would walk to a school which was specially opened up at lunch times, so that we and other poor kids like us, could be provided with free meals – it guaranteed us one decent meal a day. No such provisions exist today.

The poverty stats speak for themselves, surely?

Benefits have not grown in line with average salaries. The poor are in relative terms poorer than ever before, even if absolute living standards have risen.

70s & early 80s.

Having watched it all the way through, I cant help but think we are only being told half a story. For example – the people in glasgow – probably temporary accommodation after an eviction. The guy with the TVs – benefits witheld due to something or another maybe. The full true story would probably be much less dramatic for want of a better word.

Benefits have not grown in line with average salaries.

Yup, I think you’ll find that benefits/the welfare state isn’t as generous today in relation to wages, as it was in the 70s.

Only set to get worse…

Although by abolshing public sector pay increases Dave and George can do something to help the statistics.

The poverty stats speak for themselves, surely?

yes and no – what are you meaning by ‘average’, the way the poverty threshold was defined changed recently because the form of averaging that was being used had become redundant.

It used to be measured and percentage of the mean income, but a handful of billionaire distorts the mean, so now its a percentage of the median. Thats why i was questioning such a radical change in those proportions above. I’m not denying either stat but its likely they are the result of two different measurements.

Can anyone give me a definition of poverty?

watching it now on the wii.

the kids all seem very switched on. probably too switched on. Things in my childhood dawned on me around 13, not when i was 6.

Converting back to the previous measurement would make it worse though… if the billionaires where a significant enough distortion.
Otherwise they’d have stuck with the old measure?

but what was the threshold being measured?

Don’t know… I suppose my cynicism depends on who has created the definition… World Health Org… our Gov’t??

Can anyone give me a definition of poverty?

Defined in purely financial terms its taken as a percentage of the average (however you measure that) income – in the UK I think its 50% of the median. You then make adjustments for the size of the household, (larger families are considered to be able to live on less per head).

But its something a bit deeper than that, theres a difference between being poor and being skint. Students are skint, struggling actors are skint, nuns are skint, dusty academics in the 23rd year of their phd are skint. Those are choices.

In absolute terms it’s measured by the ownership or access to certain products / services.. a telephone etc.

IIRC a microwave is now on the list of ‘essential items’… which means I’m on the verge of slipping into poverty.

So not really linked to leading a healthy and fulfiling life then? Just not able to lead a stereotypical materialistic life. In that case poverty is not necessarily a bad thing.

IIRC a microwave is now on the list of ‘essential items’… which means I’m on the verge of slipping into poverty.

Thats interesting too – broadband is mentioned above, when does that stop being an indulgance and start being and essential

When you can’t buy a shirt for your boy and have him wearing his sisters blouse then broadband is an indulgence

When you buy a shirt for your boy and have him wearing his sisters blouse then broadband is an indulgence

True. But I have a feeling that the definition of poverty as measured by standard of living / possessions might actually include a computer and access to the internet.

So not really linked to leading a healthy and fulfiling life then?

Well that too, the damaging effects of poverty: The whole gamut of nastys – poor health, social disorder, mental illness, addiction, child mortality, criminality, victimhood, and much more are tied to inequality. While its not true to say everyone of modest means is harmed by their modest means the threshold tries to represent when and where that damage occurs.

Not all the consequences of poverty effect the poor, some of them are problems for everybody. If we could eleviate the effects of inequality it would be better for everyone.

Then the measures are wrong.

In a way its trying to measure the unmeasureable, its more like art than science

In a way its trying to measure the unmeasureable, its more like art than science

… an economists wet dream.

But surely it should be based on the basics of food on the table, warm dry roof over your head, clothes on your back.

When you can’t buy a shirt for your boy and have him wearing his sisters blouse then broadband is an indulgence

hand me down blouse or ps3 and a big screen tv

they made their choice

Can anyone give me a definition of poverty?

the poorer you are, the bigger your TV

See – all this is interesting. So why not have more TV like this (which I still haven’t actually watched)

Then the measures are wrong.

No they’re not wrong. It’s just that poverty in 1750 manifested itself differently to poverty in 1950. But there was definitely poverty in 1950.

But surely it should be based on the basics of food on the table, warm dry roof over your head, clothes on your back.

And your health and happiness?

And despite all that tough upbringing craigxxl, you still manage to disparage others who are more disadvantaged. Maggie would be proud.