Rich-poor divide 'wider than 40 years ago'

Could Attitude (or 'intelligence') have something to do with it?

I think unless you've seen generational poverty first hand its very hard to get a grasp of. The post war years I believe had much greater social mobility than we see now. I dont think intelligence is the key, attitude certainly is but its not something people are able to change much and its not just a case of not wanting to put the effort in.

When questioned about this on 'Today' a few years back, Alan Milburn(?) suggested that a lot of people had been helped out of poverty and those that remained were more difficult to help. I think that there may be some truth in that.

I think unless you've seen generational poverty first hand its very hard to get a grasp of.

Having grown up in a typical northern post-industrial town, attended a comprehensive and having relatives & a wife who work on th ground in 'social' occupations I'm not that ignorant of what you are talking about.

When questioned about this on 'Today' a few years back, Alan Milburn(?) suggested that a lot of people had been helped out of poverty and those that remained were more difficult to help.

more expensive he means, not more difficult.

It is a case of vastly diminishing returns though. At what point do you stop pouring money away?

For example, I think that "Sure Start" is a great idea, but who generally use it?

-Respectable/middle-class people who travel to the centres from further afield. It suits my family, but doesn't really help the target groups, ie. those people who are 'difficult' to help. I think the Tories (not a party I generally like) might have mentioned something similar recently. Do you suggest compulsory attendance at classes that will benefit families/children?

In a variation on what I said before, you can take a horse to water, but making it drink a litre of water might require wasting 10 litres of water taken from another horse, who might have appreciated it more.

you can take a horse to water, but making it drink a litre of water might require wasting 10 litres of water taken from another horse, who might have appreciated it more.

But who could afford to buy its own anyway.

Point is politicians should be honest.

But who could afford to buy its own anyway.

So, you penalise the people who have just a bit more than the poor, who then become poorer?

The people in the upper-lower/lower-middle range end up losing out because it is they who are paying for the government haemorrhaging money into schemes that are having no benefit to them or those extremely 'difficult to help' people.

Truly rich people wouldn't notice the difference, but then again where is the boundary of richness?

Truly rich people wouldn't notice the difference.

That would depend on who pays wouldnt it

I think difficult is probably a more accurate term than expensive. When you see documentaries based in developing countries, there appears to be a far greater appreciation of the importance of a good education and a willingness to learn than often appears to be the case in this country. Now of course this could just be a distortion caused by the nature of film making, but assuming it isn't, it would suggest that absence of finance isn't itself the root cause of absence of desire to improve your position.

Taxation is a tricky issue.

I do think that some people can't/won't be helped though.

When you see documentaries based in developing countries, there appears to be a far greater appreciation of the importance of a good education and a willingness to learn than appears to be often seen in this country.

Exactly. Wind back the clock a few decades and I suspect that you'd see the same sort of situation in the UK.

it would suggest that absence of finance isn't itself the root cause of absence of desire to improve your position.

Totally agree with generational poverty attitudes are they problem in part but with enough money and finance these problems could be overcome. If politicians dont think its worth it they should grow a pair and say it

It would probably be political suicide to say that it was a waste of money.

with enough money and finance these problems could be overcome

How do you propose spending the money then? Brain washing?

2 pages in and nobody's used the word 'feckless'!
This place must be mellowing.

education would be a good start

i have met a few people who have pursued degrees in various healthcare fields and their families have accused them of getting ideas above there station. In two cases other sisters were council house single mums as were the parents.

What kind of society do we live in where people are attacked for trying to do better?

What kind of society do we live in where people are attacked for trying to do better?

That's the underclass for you….

What class are you then Mudshark?

Well I'm not one of the underclass….

We do educate the population.

School education is free at the point-of-use in the UK and there are various schemes for adult learning, which is a good thing. I hope that people make use of them.

Sending everybody to university isn't the answer.

Healthcare is also free at the point-of-use, but that doesn't prevent quite a number of people failing to take their children for immunisation, health checks etc. -As a result, we have people who go to the homes of these 'difficult to help' people to try to carry-out the various health procedures.

What kind of society do we live in where people are attacked for trying to do better?

That's the underclass for you….

No, that's the 'difficult to help' class. I don't think that throwing money at them is the answer though.

I've spent time with school leavers in a council estate in London with an organization involved with trying to help them become employable; they're very difficult to help – it's a generational thing. They're used to being provided for by the state so don't see the need to do anything differently and think there's no point anyway.

i know this sounds harsh, but i think that the only way to help some of these people is to remove all benefits and force them to do something. Make it impossible to sit back and do nothing for ever.

You'd have to give many of them a lot of help as they're fairly clueless.

mastiles_fanylion – Member

Where is that lad in green tights

What will Peter Pan do to help?

Don't be so sily MF, he must mean the Jolly Green Giant.

I blame the teachers for this kind of foolishness.

'Human nature' is the reason that is desirable to keep the rich-poor gap as low as possible, even if it simply means reining in the rich.
For most of human history our psychology has evolved to live as hunter-gatherers. Such societies have almost no major difference in material wealth between the great or the lowly- Status is aquired by deeds and actions.
True Hunter-gatherers have surprisingly low levels of mental illness, depression, crime and at least within the tribe, violence, All problems that our modern societies excel in.
Now, much as it would be nice, nobody is going to turn the clock back, but those nations and cultures where there isn't a big (and obvious) wealth gap also seem to show less of those undesirable traits.
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(now, where did I leave the keys to my Lambo)

But its when you read comments such as this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8481534.stm

By retirement, the difference between rich and poor can be "colossal", the report added.

The panel pointed out that half of those who have worked in the top professions have net assets worth more than £900,000, while a 10th of those who have had unskilled jobs have property, savings and possessions worth less than £8,000.

So 1/2 of the very top have over £900k in assets while 1/10 of the very bottom have less than £8K – talk about apples vs pears!

And TBH I do agree that social mobility has reduced (in my lifetime), but most of that is due to the government meddling, complicating everything and increasing the price of the basics (it controls) and dismantling 'society' so that we've now a greed-based culture.

The fact that a supposed Labour government failed to do anything about it is equally shameful though.

The didn't fail to do anything about it. I think you'll find that they made it a lot worse.

i know this sounds harsh, but i think that the only way to help some of these people is to remove all benefits and force them to do something. Make it impossible to sit back and do nothing for ever.

That would make us more like the US then, a rich country without a social safety net. The have roughly the same Rich/Poor divide as us but markedly higher social problems. More than 750 people / 100,000 in the states are in jail (compared to less than 150 here or 93 in the Netherlands or 66 in Norway). Infact almost a quarter of the worlds prison population are in the states. They do everything big.

I'm quite sure I don't aspire for us to have any of the problems the US creates for itself.

We're also presuming that the poor don't/won't work. While there are people who play/cheat the system there just aren't enough of them to get in a twist over. There are plenty of poor people in employment and doing important jobs. There are also the sick, the disabled, the elderly and their carers. Included in those are roughly 2 million people who've been made sick, many terminally, by their work.

epicsteve – Member
The fact that a supposed Labour government failed to do anything about it is equally shameful though.
The didn't fail to do anything about it. I think you'll find that they made it a lot worse.

I think you'll find they made it a fair bit better

Do we import people to work in our lower paid jobs because Brits won't do them, or do some Brits lack jobs because we import people to work in our lower paid jobs?

I'm down in London for a few days, working from our office near Liverpool Street, and it seems that a lot of the people working in the shops and bars are foreign. I went in Evans at Spittalfields for a browse and all the staff there appear to be Australian.

We're also presuming that the poor don't/won't work

Whilst that is true of many poor people the underclass are unlikely to want to work and that's a generational problem for them.

t seems that a lot of the people working in the shops and bars are foreign

well London is a cosmopolitan city, you could say the same about any capital city

The huge increase in the underclass during the 80s WAS largely Thatchers fault, as mass unemployment was 'a price worth paying'
The fact that the unemployed were encouraged onto disability benefits as a way of reducing the figures was another great Tory idea. And we're still seeing the effects of it to this day.

I think you'll find they made it a fair bit better

I've only skimmed the full report so far but one thing that stands out is the graph of full-time earnings from 1968-2008 (for men and for women). What that shows (and is mentioned in the narrative) is that earnings for the median, 10th and 90th percentile all rose pretty steadily to about 2000, but levelled off (or, in the case of the 10th percentile, dropped) after that. The certainly appears to show the gap in income between the rich (90%) and poor (10%) continuing to widen througout Labours time in government.

well London is a cosmopolitan city, you could say the same about any capital city

But is it because the locals don't want or aren't available to fill the jobs?

Hmmm, well my understanding is that the underclass is something that has been ingrained over several generations so 'twas happening before Thatcher.

Of course it EXISTED before Thatcher, but the huge increase in the long term unemployed numbers is something that resulted from her policies.
The people I know who would fall into the group who have never worked all had a grandparent who was employed in manufacturing during the seventies.
That big cultural shift took place post 1979

Labour have stopped the gap widening rapidly as it was when they came in, although they have failed to reverse it.

School education is free at the point-of-use in the UK

Just cause its free doesnt mean that those in more afluent areas dont get a better education.

But is it because the locals don't want or aren't available to fill the jobs?

Its a cosmopolitan city – locals/foreigners are the same thing – you were working there and you were form out of town.

The figures are hugely skewed. One faux-aristocratic ponce (CFH anyone) can individually widen the gap by a considerable margin.

The figures are hugely skewed. One faux-aristocratic ponce (CFH anyone) can individually widen the gap by a considerable margin.

Isnt that the point or am I being thick?