The poor going hungry.

[Oakey]

fido said:

It would be 100% effective if they just spent their benefits for its intended purpose i.e. food. Some sort of vouchers are in order, though i suppose the feckless could sell them on to someone at a loss. Perhaps combine it with an ID system so that only the recipient can use the vouchers. F8ck it, just reduce the benefits so they are forced to choose between Sky and Food. If they still make the wrong choice then it's back to the soup kitchen.

Why make it overly complicated? A benefits credit card with the recipients mug plastered on it that can't be used to purchase fags or booze.

[Pothole]

turbobloke said:

Pothole said:

As with most of this kind of thing, the root cause is lack of education.

There's room for improvement but it would be on the harsh side to blame either teachers or the education system. The fact that people can go through compulsory schooling and still emerge capable of making bad life decisions is equally down to the lazy selfish instant gratification drive in some people which would survive anything short of electrodes.

You'll forgive me if I ask you to point out the place where I mentioned either teachers or the education system. Perhaps lack of knowledge might fit better, but I actually meant the fact that most of them are too ignorant/ill-educated to get a job which pays them enough to be able to eat properly and/or too ignorant/ill-educated to know how to eat well for less money. I would not suggest beans or pulses as an alternative to fish fingers as a source of protein, just try and educate people to cook from scratch. There's huge flavour and nutrition in very cheap meat and fish if you know what to do with it. Sadly, these are not the kind of people who will use their £5 a week brighthouse plasma telly to watch the likes of Jamie Oliver and Hugh F-W either.

[98elise]

TonyHetherington said:

I just knew exactly where your post was going.

It seems to me there are far fewer "poor" than there are who believe they are poor.

The problem is people believe they should have a certain standard of living and that is very different to what I believe should be the minimum.

I bet they don't watch Jeremy Kyle on a tv they got from Freecycle.

I believe poverty is defined as having an income lower than a set % of the average. This means "poor" is not related to your actual standard of living.

[BoRED S2upid]

ukwill said:

essayer said:

It was the fact they ate st like fish fingers as well which didn't help them.

The presenter even asked them "what about buying lentils, high in protein and cheap?"

"Oh we don't like those"

ffs

Leave fish fingers the fk alone.

Agree. Whats wrong with fish fingers?

[Justayellowbadge]

98elise said:

I believe poverty is defined as having an income lower than a set % of the average. This means "poor" is not related to your actual standard of living.

And also why the number in poverty has been reducing.

Because everyone else's earnings have dropped in real terms during the recession.

So without any extra income, and purely as a consequence of others becoming poorer, families are reclassified as no longer in poverty.

Genius.

Absolute fking genius.

Edited by Justayellowbadge on Thursday 19th July 12:39

[ukwill]

98elise said:

I believe poverty is defined as having an income lower than a set % of the average. This means "poor" is not related to your actual standard of living.

Yep. For instance, if the median income for a couple without children was £800 per week, then any couple earning under £480 pw would be classified as in poverty.

Which amuses me somewhat.

[ukwill]

Justayellowbadge said:

And also why the number in poverty has been reducing.

Because everyone else's earnings have dropped in real terms during the recession.

So without any extra income, and purely as a consequence of others becoming poorer, families are recalssified as no longer in poverty.

Genius.

Absolute fking genius.

Agreed. This was, I believe, similar to what St. Maggie was illustrating when she was busy bhslapping Simon Hughes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okHGCz6xxiw

[Deva Link]

ukwill said:

Yep. For instance, if the median income for a couple without children was £800 per week, then any couple earning under £480 pw would be classified as in poverty.

Which amuses me somewhat.

I guess that's bound to happen as there must be an element of goods and services being priced to suit people on average incomes.

[Johnnytheboy]

Justayellowbadge said:

And also why the number in poverty has been reducing.

Because everyone else's earnings have dropped in real terms during the recession.

So without any extra income, and purely as a consequence of others becoming poorer, families are reclassified as no longer in poverty.

Genius.

Absolute fking genius.

Which is why the consensus Left view is that the way to reduce poverty is to tax the rich more.

Not for complex redistributive reasons, but because making the rich poorer literally reduces poverty.

Apparently.

[TinyCappo]

I heard this this morning and my heart really did go out to the poor single mum who was missing meals so she could feed her kids and worked out she only had about 10-15 a week to feed them all after her benefits paid the bills.

To be in the same room as that fking oxygen thief who smoked and wouldnt consider cheap cooking from fresh food and didnt want to think about how much they both spent on ciggarettes really made my piss boil this morning.

People like that should not be allowed access to services like that it made me laugh how they thought it was ok for them to carry on smoking after their daughter died of cancer....If you ask me shes better off where she is than with them.

Really harsh thing to say i agree and would happily say it to their faces when their are people genuinely struggling and they dont want to cut the fags out....

[0a]

TinyCappo said:

I heard this this morning and my heart really did go out to the poor single mum who was missing meals so she could feed her kids and worked out she only had about 10-15 a week to feed them all after her benefits paid the bills.

If she is claiming all her benefits and not wasting money on fags and booze she will have far more money available than this.

I still remember the BBC piece "Family Life On Benefits" that indicated some people will always 'struggle to chose between eating and heating' no matter how much money they are given.

Her money will be going somewhere.

[0a]

Justayellowbadge said:

Absolute fking genius.
[/footnote]

It amuses me to point out that if Polly Toynbee went to write her £115,000/year Guardian column abroad 'poverty' would immediately go down a bit.

I have suggested on Guardian.co.uk that it is her duty to do her bit in fighting poverty, but they just ignored it.

[Justayellowbadge]

0a said:

TinyCappo said:

I heard this this morning and my heart really did go out to the poor single mum who was missing meals so she could feed her kids and worked out she only had about 10-15 a week to feed them all after her benefits paid the bills.

If she is claiming all her benefits and not wasting money on fags and booze she will have far more money available than this.

I still remember the BBC piece "Family Life On Benefits" that indicated some people will always 'struggle to chose between eating and heating' no matter how much money they are given.

Her money will be going somewhere.

She was very well spoken, a complete anti-chav. It was mentioned she was recently divorced.

I suspect hubby not doing his bit and she hanging on to family home by her fingernails, tbh.

[TinyCappo]

exactly my thought someone who is not used tothe system and therefore wouldnt know how to exploit/use it properly...

[turbobloke]

Pothole said:

turbobloke said:

Pothole said:

As with most of this kind of thing, the root cause is lack of education.

There's room for improvement but it would be on the harsh side to blame either teachers or the education system. The fact that people can go through compulsory schooling and still emerge capable of making bad life decisions is equally down to the lazy selfish instant gratification drive in some people which would survive anything short of electrodes.

You'll forgive me if I ask you to point out the place where I mentioned either teachers or the education system. Perhaps lack of knowledge might fit better, but I actually meant the fact that most of them are too ignorant/ill-educated to get a job which pays them enough to be able to eat properly and/or too ignorant/ill-educated to know how to eat well for less money.

OK I didn't realise your use of 'education' really meant something else or that you weren't referring to the only education such people have had - which was at the hands of teachers in schools - or are ever likely to get (or indeed make any, if minimal, use of).

Clearly it's all my fault for not reading your mind and thinking that education referred to the education these people have had rather than some other education whatever the heck that might be.

BTW is this the five minute argument or the full half hour?

[mattnunn]

ukwill said:

essayer said:

It was the fact they ate st like fish fingers as well which didn't help them.

The presenter even asked them "what about buying lentils, high in protein and cheap?"

"Oh we don't like those"

ffs

Leave fish fingers the fk alone.

+1

[0a]

TinyCappo said:

exactly my thought someone who is not used tothe system and therefore wouldnt know how to exploit/use it properly...

An excellent point. I have have also heard that there can be major issues for the recently divorced, women that have left relationships due to domestic abuse and so on. I didn't realise this caller fell into that category.

[Deva Link]

0a said:

TinyCappo said:

exactly my thought someone who is not used tothe system and therefore wouldnt know how to exploit/use it properly...

An excellent point. I have have also heard that there can be major issues for the recently divorced, women that have left relationships due to domestic abuse and so on. I didn't realise this caller fell into that category.

It's always puzzled me that some people seem to do pretty well out of life on benefits, and we see such people regularly thanks to features in the Daily Mail etc, yet others are genuinely struggling to the extent that they're missing meals to feed their kids.

I think it must be that there's a minimum number of kids needed to make it worthwhile, and ideally several of them need to qualify for additional assistance due to their ADHD, asthma or whatever.

[superkartracer]

BoRED S2upid said:

ukwill said:

essayer said:

It was the fact they ate st like fish fingers as well which didn't help them.

The presenter even asked them "what about buying lentils, high in protein and cheap?"

"Oh we don't like those"

ffs

Leave fish fingers the fk alone.

Agree. Whats wrong with fish fingers?

Nothing, he's talking bks, in-fact good for you.

[Derek Smith]

Justayellowbadge said:

Even as a smoker (well, now ex) it raises my blood pressure a tad...

Smoking raises your blood pressure. It is one of the few things, along with lung capacity, that doesn't revert to normal once you give up.