The Poverty Line

[merkin]

WHAT IS THE POVERTY LINE?

Single adult, no children: £165 per week
Couple, no children: £248 per week
Lone parent, 1 child: £215 per week
Lone parent, 2 children: £264 per week
Lone parent, 3 children: £314 per week
Couple, 1 child: £297 per week
Couple, 2 children: £347 per week
Couple, 3 children: £396 per week



You must be fucking joking. No wonder we are fucked when we don't even know what poverty is.

[brispie]

So you expect poverty in the modern world to be all about walking around in rags and sending the kids out to work up the chimneys?

Why don't you start the 4 Yorkshiremen sketch off?

[ab]

Is that before or after housing costs, council tax etc? If it is before it means that almost no-one is in poverty as benefits (other than for a single adults living in cheap areas) will always be higher.

A couple with 3 children would be above the poverty line even if benefits were to be capped at £20k - a proposal which led to so many howls of anguish. They'd only have a problem in those circumstances if they thought it a good idea to pop out another sprog despite costing more in tax to keep than is paid in by two or three hardworking brispie-type families.

[Bernie]

So you expect poverty in the modern world to be all about walking around in rags and sending the kids out to work up the chimneys?

The Guardianistas will tell you that poverty is relative - this is of course utter nonsense. Followed to its stupid logical conclusion, this means that Larry Ellison can plead poverty as he only has a couple of million dollar racing yachts while Abramovic has a fleet of massive private motorboats. Poverty is not having money for food, clothes, access to healthcare, education etc. And that is how poverty IS in the modern world for millions in Asia, Africa, South America and so on. It's not about worrying whether you can afford teh Sky subscription now you've spunked everything on scratch cards and White Lightning.

I'm afraid to say it, and the words taste like bitter ashes in my mouth, but Merkin is right here.

[popterriertastic]

My recollection is that council tax and housing costs are met by the state in rented accommodation. So the figures quoted are 'total cash in pocket' and not subject to deductions.

My other half's take home after deductions and living expenses is equal to the first figure quoted. She would be better off not working and claiming but she chooses to do the right thing. The problem is the many don't - choosing instead to toss it off and live off the state by playing the system. It's easily done (apparently) if you know how

[markelt]

Oct 12, 2011 10:11:12 GMT 1 Bernie said:

So you expect poverty in the modern world to be all about walking around in rags and sending the kids out to work up the chimneys?

The Guardianistas will tell you that poverty is relative - this is of course utter nonsense. Followed to its stupid logical conclusion, this means that Larry Ellison can plead poverty as he only has a couple of million dollar racing yachts while Abramovic has a fleet of massive private motorboats. Poverty is not having money for food, clothes, access to healthcare, education etc. And that is how poverty IS in the modern world for millions in Asia, Africa, South America and so on. It's not about worrying whether you can afford teh Sky subscription now you've spunked everything on scratch cards and White Lightning.

I'm afraid to say it, and the words taste like bitter ashes in my mouth, but Merkin is right here.

Like a broken clock

[merkin]

:handbags:

[Bernie]

Merkinder has broken his cock?!!

[ab]

Oct 12, 2011 10:28:19 GMT 1 popterriertastic said:

My recollection is that council tax and housing costs are met by the state in rented accommodation. So the figures quoted are 'total cash in pocket' and not subject to deductions.

I'm not sure that is right though. If it is a figure for discretionary spending power it would mean that someone on £60k with a large mortgage could be technically in poverty. When unemployed earlier in the year it would mean that my family was about £150 pw below the poverty threshold as we got no assistance with housing or council tax.

[brispie]

Surely this has to cover everything?

And surely poverty measurement has to be relative? Otherwise you end up with an even more extreme gap between the rich and poor than already exists in this country.

[ab]

Why does it matter how much money Elton John has got if you have enough for what you need?

If you have a home, enough to eat, enough clothes, free healthcare, free education for your children that allows them, if they can be bothered, to do whatever they want, what on earth does it matter what someone else has in addition to this?

As Arsene Wenger said (re Kanu, I think, moving for more money) - you can only drive one car and sleep in one bed.

By all means, decide that people who don't have the things I've set out above, perhaps including a list of "modern amenities" like a computer with internet access and a mobile phone, are in absolute poverty. But why having a pay as you go non-smartphone instead of a diamond-encrusted iPhone should make any difference at all above that escapes me.

Of course, if you want to bring your kids up with a chip on their shoulder and to think that they can't achieve because there are rich toffs out there who'll take everything however hard they try, knock yourself out. That's the real beef about relative poverty I think. And it is nuts. Self-exclusion ("not for the likes of us") is more real than the toffs excluding people.

[Bernie]

To put it another way, in country A , everybody makes about a tenner a week and consistently has to chose between food and a second hand pair of boots to walk 20 miles to work in.

In country B, the lowest paid get as much as they need to live in moderate comfort/security, while the highest paid can wipe their arses with gold leaf and light their fat, plutocrat cigars with 50 pound notes while driving their gold-encrusted Maybachs.

In which country are people experiencing poverty?

Never has the phrase "the politics of envy" seemed more appropriate. And he was wrong about a LOT of stuff.

[Wizaard]

And there was I thinking it was the District Line going away from South Kensington towards Barking

[brispie]

It is relative though isn't it? In country A nobosy think they are in poverty, because it's the norms.

In country B, those at the top end skew aspirations which is the answer to ABs question.

[Bernie]

It is relative though isn't it? In country A nobosy think they are in poverty, because it's the norms.

Only if you redefine poverty to mean "not having the same as everybody else", rather than "not having enough to reliably live on" which is, I believe the generally accepted definition.
Of absolute poverty at least - for reasons already stated, "relative poverty" is a bit of a daft and meaningless concept, really.

In country B, those at the top end skew aspirations which is the answer to ABs question.

That doesn't actually make any sense. Can you spell it out for a simpleton like me? What's automatically wrong with "skewing people's aspirations" anyway?

[ab]

I tihnk how much money really rich people have makes little difference. When brispie was growing up and knocking around with his mates on the estate inequality between the top and bottom was rather less than today. They didn't think that the high life was open to them then. His equivalents in 2011 aren't any further away or have any less aspiration due to the greater inequality around today. It makes no difference.

Similarly, getting to be super-rich is as out of the reach of well-off kids as it is poor kids (or, more evenly, equally hard and exceptional).

The inequality itself isn't the problem, it is the fact that the ladders up have been kicked away largely by the last government. If you make it so that there are barely any jobs, let alone jobs worth having that people without degrees can go for when they are 16-25 because you've shoved so many people into getting A levels and degrees of course it is going to look like ordinary people who didn't buy into education have little chance. Making that route also a very expensive one makes it worse as does then requiring the excess number of graduates to fight it out for unpaid internships before they get a decent job.

Life was much better in 1997 before brispie's chums came in to bugger it all up. Dave isn't making it better unfortunately, but there's a lot to undo.

[biggershoe]

Wow, we've got no poor people in this country now and life's not as good as it was in 1997, it must have been incredible then, I really had no idea.

[merkin]

I don't think we do have too many people that are poor in the fiscal sense, just a bunch of deluded c****.

There are eskimos that live in giant ice cubes, eat fish and drink seal jizz.

A few huskies and a sled and they are the fucking Rockafellas of the Arctic circle.

..I've never seen a sad eskimo either!

[Bernie]

I certainly wouldn't say there are NO poor people in Britain, just that we do, perhaps, have an odd view of what poverty is in global terms. Mostly I was railing against the idea of income equality being renamed "relative poverty".

Merkin - The streets of Copenhagen are paved with sad innuit. Or at least extremely pissed and homeless ones who don't seem all that cheerful. Just saying.

[merkin]

They should never have moved.

[denby]

Oct 13, 2011 8:01:53 GMT 1 Bernie said:

Merkin - The streets of Copenhagen are paved with sad innuit. Or at least extremely pissed and homeless ones who don't seem all that cheerful. Just saying.

and all they want is some fish and seal jizz

[merkin]

indeed, you can't be in poverty if your pissed, you're just misdirecting your funds.

[denby]

i dunno, a 2 litre bottle of 9% seal jizz will only cost a few krone

[brispie]

If there was a global measure of poverty we would certainly be very well off. And those at the top of the tree would look obscenely rich even if they don't already.

However, as for anything, global measures are usually useless. That's why we usually measure within a country or a region.

And AB finally shows his full tory colours. That's rubbish and you know it. This is something that started way back in the Thatcher era. Labour did not do enough to eradicate inequality and this government certainly won't, so the poor will get poorer and the rich richer, although not quite as rich as they would hope.

[merkin]

Everyone will get poorer

The comments about global measures couldn't be more wrong IMHO.

It's only looking at our fellow neighbour is what has fucked us over with so much debt.

[brispie]

That's rubbish as well merkin. It's access to cheap debt that caused the problem. And this being peddled like some cheap drug.

Global measures are on the whole rubbish, because we all do so things so differently. You can only compare like for like.

[turtle]

A white man does have certain standards of living he expects that someone in Umbogumbo land would never understand.

[daleylama]

A single adult working 40 hours per week on the minimum wage of £6.08 p/h will take home £210.80 per week.

That's £45 above the UK poverty line, i.e. £1 per hour worked.

I can't understand why so many people live on benefits myself.

[merkin]

Get a grip brispo, I have access to women but I don't rape them.

This access to cheap debt bollocks is a fucking cop out for people that made shit decisions.

Global measures are only rubbish because you don't want live in the real world....you want to live in a Labour fantasy land where money grows on trees.

[brispie]

1. Raping women is not culturally acceptable, getting into debt certainly was.
2. I'm sure that a lot of people did not make shit decisions, however, they wouldn't have if the opportunity wasn't there.
3. What the fuck has global measures got anything to do with labour and finances?