Poverty in Oldham

[CoupeTeddy]

Moonhawk said:

Indeed £20k net income from benefits is only just below the take home pay of somebody on median wage.

That means he's getting given more in benefits than the take home pay of ~50% of the working population.

Whilst not wishing to sound uncompassionate, scrounging

[HTP99]

CoupeTeddy said:

Moonhawk said:

Indeed £20k net income from benefits is only just below the take home pay of somebody on median wage.

That means he's getting given more in benefits than the take home pay of ~50% of the working population.

Whilst not wishing to sound uncompassionate, scrounging

Had a young lady in trying to buy a car on finance, she was on benefits, we propped her (she was declined immediately), she said she received in total £30k a year in benefits (we have to put in an income amount), I should imagine that this includes housing benefit too.

[crankedup]

Moonhawk said:

paulrockliffe said:

He was getting 20k of benefits, if it's the same chap that was trailered on the radio earlier in the day, of course he gave up work. That's more money than most take home after tax.

Indeed £20k net income from benefits is only just below the take home pay of somebody on median wage.

That means he's getting given more in benefits than the take home pay of ~50% of the working population.

The minimum wage is far to low for a young family to be able to live to acceptable standards, hence the tax payer subsidy to boost that wage in certain circumstances. I have never supported such subsidies and believe that all employers need to pay a living wage.

[anonymous-user]

crankedup said:

fblm said:

My whole family is from Oldham. It's a fvcking miserable hole. Incredibly there are no travel restrictions on residents and they even have roads allowing anyone to leave and get a job elsewhere. Amazing!

My dad came from the Isle of Dogs, should have stayed his house would be worth a few extra quid now.

If only they'd built Canary Wharf in Oldham I'd be rich!

[sidicks]

crankedup said:

Indeed, taking this further it’s difficult to imagine that those fortunate / smart enough to receive massive salaries and huge bonus payments do not employ the services of brilliant accountants. On the basis that this is so it’s not to bigger step to consider that thier tax bill is minilmised to the absolute. All legal and fair under the current regulations of course, but it shoots holes in the argument about highly paid executives paying huge tax bills.

Once again, your ‘imagination’ is not based in reality. Your imagination can’t ‘shoot holes’ in anything. The claim that PAYE employees can simply pay an accountant to massively reduce their tax bills is nonsense. If only you’d focus more on basing your opinions on evidence, rather than prejudice.

Edited by sidicks on Friday 23 March 17:41

[crofty1984]

sas62 said:

Its important to note that the news item was referring to relative poverty.

Immediately before they switched to the video, the newsreader made a one line throwaway remark that the number of people in absolute poverty had actually dropped.

I've never really understood why we use the measurement of relative poverty. So what if you early less than some average income. That just means that you can't keep up with the Jonses'.

Whats important is that in absolute terms you have sufficient income to survive.

In a similar vein, the comparison with Europe made above - there is little supporting information so It's impossible to tell where the figures come from. For example, it is possible it is using relative poverty and that it is the disparity in the UK that makes it look the poorest. Whereas in absolute terms the picture may be completely different.

Agree - if you're choosing between food, clothes and heat you're in poverty. I've worked in places that would consider "relative poverty" in the UK like winning the lottery.

[Rovinghawk]

crankedup said:

The minimum wage is far to low for a young family to be able to live to acceptable standards,

So don't have a family until you're able to support it. Simple.

This sometimes means working hard but I don't see that as a problem.

[anonymous-user]

crofty1984 said:

Agree - if you're choosing between food, clothes and heat you're in poverty. I've worked in places that would consider "relative poverty" in the UK like winning the lottery.

IIRC the definition is less 60% of median household income... so any household bringing in less than 14.5k.

[skwdenyer]

Moonhawk said:

paulrockliffe said:

He was getting 20k of benefits, if it's the same chap that was trailered on the radio earlier in the day, of course he gave up work. That's more money than most take home after tax.

Indeed £20k net income from benefits is only just below the take home pay of somebody on median wage.

That means he's getting given more in benefits than the take home pay of ~50% of the working population.

That's not actually true, I'm sorry to say.

Per ONS, median household disposable income is projected to be £27k pa in 2018. Disposable income in this context is the amount of money that households have available for spending and saving after direct taxes (such as Income Tax and Council Tax) have been accounted for. It includes earnings from employment, private pensions and investments, as well as cash benefits provided by the state.

Estimates of median household salaries are in the £24k or so range. So you can already see the enormous redistributive effects of taxation and benefits.

Somebody on median wage with children will most likely be receiving a range of state benefits - tax credits, income support / housing benefit / universal credit, etc.

That chap with 4 children? The benefit cap has meant that he is something like £4500 per year worse off than he was before. His capped benefits are £20k pa.

Assuming his children are school-age, and that he pays the Local Housing Allowance maximum for housing (£450 pcm or so in Oldham - and bear in mind I can't find any houses at that rent on RightMove) then if he works, say, 30 hours a week at £7 per hour, his take-home income will rise to £2731.05 per month. Because of the way the benefits work, if he manages to earn £15 per hour instead he'll only be better off by a further £101.66. And so on - help tapers off.

So there are a bunch of issues here. First, nobody seems to have managed to communicate to him that working (even paying childcare) would see him *way* better off. Why is this?

Second, there's a bigger problem in that the government is in essence subsidising low-paying businesses to sort out the cost of living problems we have.

Third, why is the BBC not inviting somebody into the film to present a counterbalancing view?

[anonymous-user]

sidicks said:

crankedup said:

Indeed, taking this further it’s difficult to imagine that those fortunate / smart enough to receive massive salaries and huge bonus payments do not employ the services of brilliant accountants. On the basis that this is so it’s not to bigger step to consider that thier tax bill is minilmised to the absolute. All legal and fair under the current regulations of course, but it shoots holes in the argument about highly paid executives paying huge tax bills.

Once again, your ‘imagination’ is not based in reality. Your imagination can’t ‘shoot holes’ in anything. The claim that PAYE employees can simply pay an accountant to massively reduce their tax bills is nonsense. If only you’d focus more on basing your opinions on evidence, rather than prejudice.

Edited by sidicks on Friday 23 March 17:41

Much to the displeasure of a quite a few high paid people I've dealt with, sidicks is correct. These include people taking multiple millions in share based LTIPs (Long Term Incentive Plans) over several years, they paid tax at their marginal rate. The plans are very rarely EMI or JSOP which have favourable tax treatments, and can often require the employee to cover employer NI - as an example an additional rate tax payer who gained £100 would have to pay nearly £55 in tax.

[Saleen836]

I always thought a person/family was in poverty if the kids didn't have an ipad each, the parents didn't have the latest iphone each along with the top sky package

[anonymous-user]

Hoofy said:

jjlynn27 said:

Grim. 21st century.



Not sure what the solution is.

I bet that matches with the Brexit votes.

The only way to spread the wealth out is by encouraging big business to stop focusing on the south east and create jobs elsewhere.

Of course, this will probably screw up house prices in the south east so decision makers aren't going to jump on that idea very quickly.

Strangely no Scottish regions mentioned.

We are a very different nation to the Western European continentals. I'd say we are more materialistic, short-termist but perhaps in some ways more dynamic. From time spent in Europe I've worked with some large manufacturing organisations that are still privately owned, where there are jobs for life and quality jobs too. There's a kind of family or community thing in those businesses. They export across the world towards the premium end of the market. They work to standards, they innovate and they work hard to keep that up. I am not denying this type of organisation does not exist over here but I can say that my experience here has been more of short-termist, entrepreneurial companies that are sometimes in a race towards the bottom. They don't provide the long term solidity that is needed to help communities thrive around them. The areas in the UK that are the most impoverished need these large scale manufacturing companies that export products around the world, employing more people in reasonably paid roles with good development schemes, help spread money by allowing the regions to create the wealth.
The other thing is London is so heavily subsidised and unfairly so at the expense of the rest of the county.

[sidicks]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

What? How on earth do you come to that conclusion?

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/may/23/u...

Headline says: said:

London economy subsidises rest of UK, ONS figures show

Edited by sidicks on Friday 23 March 20:58

[jjlynn27]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

I'd agree with most things about working on 'the continent'. I'm not sure that London is heavily subsidised at all. On the contrary, I'd say that London is subsidising the rest of the UK.

[sidicks]

jjlynn27 said:

I'd agree with most things about working on 'the continent'. I'm not sure that London is heavily subsidised at all. On the contrary, I'd say that London is subsidising the rest of the UK.

Now you are just copying what I'm saying!

[jjlynn27]

garyhun said:

Where does that data come from and what’s the measurement.

Grim if true!

From the email sent to me with the graph;

This data was produced by Eurostat, the data agency of the European Union. They
measured GDP per head in regions across the EU, taking into account the different prices
in different regions. The full data is available from http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/
cache/ITY_PUBLIC/1-27022014-AP/EN/1-27022014-AP-EN.PDF

[nelly1]

Poverty...



Not poverty...

[2xChevrons]

sidicks said:

anonymous said:

[redacted]

What? How on earth do you come to that conclusion?

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/may/23/u...

Headline says: said:

London economy subsidises rest of UK, ONS figures show

Edited by sidicks on Friday 23 March 20:58

I think VK meant that London gets more investment (government and private sector) per capita than nearly anywhere else in England (subsidised is the wrong word). It's a rather cyclic issue (like relative poverty), because time and time again it has been shown that every £ spent in London will earn a greater return than a £ spent almost anywhere else, plus London's population density means that something like, say, Crossrail, not only benefits far more individual people but produces much more economic activity than if £14.8 billion was spent rebuilding the Woodhead rail line or expanding the Manchester Ship Canal. And because London has that infrastructure it becomes even more economically efficient, making it even more attractive to choose as a site for more investment if you're looking to maximize the benefit of every £ invested.

Turning around the post-industrial cities of the North of England is the work of hundreds of billions of pounds and decades of steady, uninterrupted and focused national planning. Look at how much money and effort Germany has poured into the former DDR, and that still lags behind the West in all sorts of economic and social metrics.

[anonymous-user]

sidicks said:

anonymous said:

[redacted]

What? How on earth do you come to that conclusion?

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/may/23/u...

Headline says: said:

London economy subsidises rest of UK, ONS figures show

Edited by sidicks on Friday 23 March 20:58

I was merely speaking in terms of transport and infrastructure. I feel spending in those fundamental areas is one way public money does help nurture or promote industry and business by providing the environment in which industry can create wealth more efficiently . I am not sure that public money is always otherwise spent in ways that hit the cause of issues, more in ways that act as a sticking plaster to cover the symptoms.

[Tim2k9]

Being from the north east I can actually see the argument.

The majority of advertised salaries are low. They’re low because the majority of the time these are subsidies by government hand outs, tax credits, however if you don’t hit the criteria for these you will struggle to live on a lot of the salaries offered.

Leaves the alternative solution of popping kids out...probably bringing home more money as well.

The solution would be to stop all these payments and let the market settle after a few years of pain, won’t happen because house prices would crash if the benefits weren’t there to pay the rents.