As long as it doesn’t result in real hunger or real ill health I see no problem with one sector of the society living substantially below the average in terms of what most people have as a part of their normal lives.

It motivates many and those that are not motivated provide the low skill workforce that any society needs.

Why should a family in which the earners put themselves out and make sacrifices in order to provide a good standard of living be penalised by having their wages skimmed in order to give to those who either won’t or can’t do the same?

Provision of a safety net and provision of essential services by taxing everybody equally is fine but to target those who earn more is simply immoral almost as much as the local taxation based on property value, and not the number of people IN a property.

In my opinion it’s way past time for a root and branch reform of just what the government delivers and how it is funded. It is also way past time that politicians continued to raise taxes and increase public spending when the thing that any family would do when faced with falling incomes would be to cut back on spending. But then any family could not simply go to the provider of their income and help themselves to more as governments, and this one in particular, does.
[Rep]

So child poverty occurs when the parent's income is below the average national earnings.
Does this take into account the fact that the average national earnings are subject to a wide range of taxes such as income tax, national insurance contributions, and expenses such as travel costs etc?
If we deduct these, how does the income of a parent who is `suffering from poverty' compare with the income of someone who is working?
[Rep]

No it doesn't. There are many families who don't qualify for any benefits who are much worse off in real terms than those who are supposedly on the breadline. You can't risk going on to benefits if you lose your job and you have a mortgage, for example, as the DWP will not pay a penny towards that mortgage for the first 9 months, IIRC. Work in the wrong industry at the wrong time (Rover, anybody?) and you have a nightmare in the making.

By the time a skilled mortgage-paying family on just above average earnings (and thus no entitlement to benefits) has deducted outgoings for increasing utility bills, council tax and mortgage costs, there's very little left for food and petrol these days. There are hundreds of thousands of hard-working families out there who can barely manage to have a camping holiday in the UK, let alone a holiday abroad. It's no coincidence that camping and caravanning holidays are extremely popular this year. It's all people can afford.

If UKIP can reach those families with policies that benefit them, they might just vote for the party.
[Rep]

Originally Posted by chikrodah:
No it doesn't. There are many families who don't qualify for any benefits who are much worse off in real terms than those who are supposedly on the breadline. You can't risk going on to benefits if you lose your job and you have a mortgage, for example, as the DWP will not pay a penny towards that mortgage for the first 9 months, IIRC. Work in the wrong industry at the wrong time (Rover, anybody?) and you have a nightmare in the making.

By the time a skilled mortgage-paying family on just above average earnings (and thus no entitlement to benefits) has deducted outgoings for increasing utility bills, council tax and mortgage costs, there's very little left for food and petrol these days. There are hundreds of thousands of hard-working families out there who can barely manage to have a camping holiday in the UK, let alone a holiday abroad. It's no coincidence that camping and caravanning holidays are extremely popular this year. It's all people can afford.

If UKIP can reach those families with policies that benefit them, they might just vote for the party.

Absolutely.

Although I would say that it's more likely in the millions. Unfortunately there's just a few more million in the various minority and special interest groups to appease.

And any politicians prepared to stand up and question the validity of 'relative poverty', or the 'economic benefits' of mass immigration gets vilified by the MSM. So I can't see the situation getting better, for me anyway, any time soon.
[Rep]

It isn't surprising that the working class, the real working class, those that actually work, complain that none of the political parties represent their interests.
In a TV discussion about the recent budget, a Labour politician challenged representatives of the other main political parties by saying that only Labour was tackling child poverty.
No-one responded to her challenge, no-one was outspoken enough to question whether there really is child poverty in Britain, as I have done, or outspoken enough to say that the (genuine) working class is paying an unfair price for this concept, as you have been.
[Rep]

If the inflation figure was correctly arrived at and benefits and wages were kept abreast of "real" inflation, poverty would be, if not irradicated, at least alleviated.
[Rep]

Originally Posted by Little Englander (sour):
If the inflation figure was correctly arrived at and benefits and wages were kept abreast of "real" inflation, poverty would be, if not irradicated, at least alleviated.

Which proves the real criminals are the banks printing money with no value.

If these left wing idiots understood that rather than bleeping on about raising taxes and public services then we might actually get some where.
[Rep]

We are heading for rationing of some things and the soup kitchens of yesteryear by the looks of it all.

Right on schedule for mid 2010,Gordon Broon will be pleased.
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The real poverty in this country is poverty of expectation and poverty of imagination brought about by this control freak government of ID10Ts

There are so many disincentives to work and to aspire to better yourself brought about by the nanny state and the apparatchiks who leach and grow fat off of our taxes

As as been pointed out the best selling "paper" is The Sun (wot won it) is it any wonder we're uo sheet creek without a paddel and people who want better are leaving and quickly

I can see in the near future that many eastern European immigrants will be heading onwards or back home especially as we hit the bust after Gordon the Morons boom years
[Rep]