[News] Food Poverty figures in Worthing

[BN41Albion]

This!

The idea that you could have a full time job and still qualify for benefits would have been considered ridiculous when I started working.
A minimum living wage should be the cornerstone of every one of the G8 countries.

What's the point of economic success if it doesn't improve the prosperity of the people?*


*Outdate socialist mumbo jumbo. Today's working classes seem to take pride in being ripped off by the overlords.. Strange times indeed.

Take pride, or feel powerless?

 

[beorhthelm]

it's the consequence of 40 years of Thatcherite policies, selling off social housing stock, not building enough new homes, selling off the country's assets and generally moving the country's social wealth to the private sector, all factors which have caused a housing shortage and cost of living crisis

Only way to solve it is siesmic political change and higher tax regime

selling social housing didnt remove any housing stock, and ownership of assets has no bearing at all on whether people can afford food. higher taxes dont address anything either, how about starting from solutions instead? yes, political change is required to enable large scale building and overhaul welfare provision to address needs more directly. give people food vouchers, energy vouchers as needed, housing as needed and core problems are solved. why dont we do that?

 

[Gwylan]

With hindsight it would have been much easier to buy jointly with a partner. But the catch 22 is that when you're young you probably don't have a lifetime partner yet.

This is a bit off-topic but that's something that's definitely changed. My mum was 26 when she had me and was classed as an 'older mother' by the hospital.

I can't find stats for the UK in the 50s, but the average age for women to get married in the US was 20. The ONS has figures for the 70s, 77% of women were married by the time they reached 25.

I'm not sure it has relevance to housing costs because, back in the day, most married women didn't work and when they did, most mortgage companies didn't take their income into account. My parents bought their first house when they were 36, so waiting that long to buy wasn't unusual.

 

[zefarelly]

Believe it or not but food is cheaper today that it was 20 years ago.

IMO it's technology that fuels poverty as everyone seems to have a phone,data and the other shite that comes with life today.

Totally agree sir. got my flat in '92, earning £10k a year! had a record player and a few guitars, a matress . no phone, mobile, sky etc . . mortgage aside, biggest bill was council tax! used to work in a clothes shop Saturdays, or fix scooters for extra beer money. Technology has leached into peoples income in a bad way.

 

[Uh_huh_him]

Take pride, or feel powerless?

It depends on your politics, of course.
But recent elections would suggest that the working classes vote for the party most responsible for the social divide.

 

[zefarelly]

This is a bit off-topic but that's something that's definitely changed. My mum was 26 when she had me and was classed as an 'older mother' by the hospital.

I can't find stats for the UK in the 50s, but the average age for women to get married in the US was 20. The ONS has figures for the 70s, 77% of women were married by the time they reached 25.

I'm not sure it has relevance to housing costs because, back in the day, most married women didn't work and when they did, most mortgage companies didn't take their income into account. My parents bought their first house when they were 36, so waiting that long to buy wasn't unusual.

my parents were 22 &21 . . with house/mortgage .. more to the point my father earnt a wage that would/could support a family.

 

[zefarelly]

It depends on your politics, of course.
But recent elections would suggest that the working classes vote for the party most responsible for the social divide.

It's almost as if the poorest parts of the population have been conditioned to accept being downtrodden and are voting to show their approval/acceptance of their place in society.

 

[Soton Seagull]

I think there is also an argument to be made around deliberate Government policy to stifle house building in order to push up prices; which in turn fuels growth. The obsession with Economic growth, with finite resources, as the measure of success has been hugely damaging to the lower paid and those on a reasonable wage for whom renting has become the only realistic prospect as property price oftne hit 10x the average wages for an area.

If you look back over the past 30-40 years, without stifled housing production against rising demand we'd have been in technical recession a few times. The erroneous 'powerhouse' of our economy has been rising house prices, often growing at 5-10% per year vs much lower wage rises. A Government delivering sufficient & affordable housing would've seen cost of living fall/flatline and inflation and growth stagnate - not good for the balance sheet.

 

[Uh_huh_him]

my parents were 22 &21 . . with house/mortgage .. more to the point my father earnt a wage that would/could support a family.

This.

Mum and dad were married in 66 at 19 & 23 years of age.
They had a mortgage on a terraced 3 bed house by the time I came along in 68.

Dad was a junior electrician at a small local firm.
Admittedly he worked every hour he could, but mum didn't have to work in order to pay the bills.

 

[zefarelly]

I think there is also an argument to be made around deliberate Government policy to stifle house building in order to push up prices; which in turn fuels growth. The obsession with Economic growth, with finite resources, as the measure of success has been hugely damaging to the lower paid and those on a reasonable wage for whom renting has become the only realistic prospect as property price oftne hit 10x the average wages for an area.

If you look back over the past 30-40 years, without stifled housing production against rising demand we'd have been in technical recession a few times. The erroneous 'powerhouse' of our economy has been rising house prices, often growing at 5-10% per year vs much lower wage rises. A Government delivering sufficient & affordable housing would've seen cost of living fall/flatline and inflation and growth stagnate - not good for the balance sheet.

and would make the borrowing look even worse?

for me, flat in 92 @ 4x salary, house in 99 at 4 x, and 2003 4x combined . . . now nearly 10 times combined . . . my salary has effectively gone down in 20 years whilst the house has more than doubled. Whilst I earn a bit more now than I did in 2003 . . .my salary, according to the BoE inflation calculator suggests its gone down 25%.

 

[beorhthelm]

It's almost as if the poorest parts of the population have been conditioned to accept being downtrodden and are voting to show their approval/acceptance of their place in society.

there's another view, that population is conditioned to be or naturally aspirational, they want "more" and will take any offer promising that. ties to your point about technology, much of its because it satisfies those desires. people dont want to live simply.

 

[zefarelly]

there's another view, that population is conditioned to be or naturally aspirational, they want "more" and will take any offer promising that. ties to your point about technology, much of its because it satisfies those desires. people dont want to live simply.

Good point . . . I think I was aspirational in my youth, I wanted a home and to eat well, nothing ostentatious. Now I find myself in a battle to maintain some kind of status quo . . . . definitely not as comfortable as we were, when at 50 I'd hoped I would be, at least not going backwards . . . . and no sight or even a whiff of retirement on the horizon.

 

[Fitzcarraldo]

This is nothing to be proud of; Id rather a nation doesn’t need to rely on charity to look after its own.

Totally agree.

Lots of food banks even in those days . A couple of suppliers pulled out of food bank sponsorship in the early 80’s because of the level of gun crime in some of these areas.

A perfect example of the problems of charity. The people in need suffered due to personal whims of those doling out the money. People need to pay taxes, with non-payment properly enforced by the state, and the state will be able to afford a proper social safety net.

 

[Swansman]

Nurses used to be trained in house (on low wages) but training was free. Now, even with a bursary, they owe £69K when they’ve qualified.

This is made up of 3 years tuition of approx £9250 yearly and maintenance loans.

I also visited a food banks 3 Times in my training and currently have bailiffs attend my address.

One day they attended, Im driving into work, working under the emergency standards

The bit in bold is a direct quote from a newly qualified nurse. The NHS is 40,000 nurses short because people can’t afford to be trained.

Madness. Education should be free.

 

[Lenny Rider]

As someone in his 30's I can say with absolute certainty that the struggles people my age and younger are experiencing is almost exclusively down to the cost of living in a home.

Cost of actually buying a property is insane and unreachable for many... so these many are stuck with renting which bizarrely is even worse, both in the long and short term.

If people are spending 70% of their wages on rent, or the fortunate few spend £40k of their life savings and then £700pm on a shitty studio flat at their late 20's... it's not surprising that so many find themselves below the food poverty threshold at some time.

Your generation went wrong by seeing property as an investment rather than a necessity... and voting in the politicians that not only allowed it to happen, but encouraged it.

My generation could have all but eradicated poverty and racism, in 200 years time they will look back on the 50 or so years between 1980 and 2030 as the Sodom and Gomarrah of its time.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Ouch, that happened to someone I knew. He tried to make a go of it but sadly, the increased payments were too much for him and the flat was re-possessed. They were grim days

Yes, that was a hiatus. It happened to me. Bought first house (in which I still live) in 1989. They were asking 57K, down from 63K a few months earlier (they needed to move quickly). Initial interest rate was around 11%. In two years the rate went up to 13 or 14% (Lawson boom/bust) and I was paying £800 out of my £1000 take home to the building society. I was soon 5K in debt and I had three consecutive months where my bank refused to transfer the mortgage money, so the building society called me in for a chat....

Meanwhile a drug company with whom I had a collaboration accused me of breaking the terms of a contract; I was so enraged (they were wrong) I sent them six sides of hand written (what I now know to be) autistic ranting. They got back to me to say 'we can see we have upset you. Here is £3K'. By pure dumb luck that saved my house.

Back to Lenny's post, and I am certainly in the yoghurt-knitting contingent, in his view, I would imagine, yet I would be disinclined to say that things are geting generally worse (even though I could blame ten years of tory misrule for it, were it true, in a heartbeat). I suspect things have got worse in the last 2 years but this a blip in a generally upward direction.

The trajectory of poverty over time is reflected by human height. There is a clear pattern. Whether the present blip causes a reversal won't be known for some years.


There are two other factors here. One is that some (most?) measures of poverty are based on averages rather than absolutes. For example the UK definition of poverty is: "if their income is 60% below the median household income after housing costs for that year". If income increased for everyone by 10% or an amount in £, this calculation of poverty would see the same people still defined as in poverty. On average it is undeniable that we have got richer over the decades. My ex wife used to claim the opposite, so I have seen at close hand how easily one's confirmation bias influences one's stance.

The other is that we are more aware of disadvantage now. If someone had set up food bank collection at supermarkets in the 70s people would have been bemused, possibly angry, and the goods would have been half-inched in a flash. I did a bit of sociology at uni in the late 70s and studied poverty. I found it profoundly shocking to see how some people lived in the nation's slums. That was in the present day. And there were no food banks. Orwell wrote about charity in 'Down and out in Paris and London'. Charity from the Salvation Army in the 30s, was sanctimoniously given in the hope of saving souls (not bodies).

I am not saying poverty doesn't exists (I'm not bonkers or a Trumper) or that it isn't getting worse. I'd like to see proper measurement based on things other than % deviation from the median, governmental intervention and, of course, the reason for the current situation (Boris and Brexit - of course it is) mitigated as soon as elections allow.

I worry, however, that mischief makers will be able to argue that poverty isn't real (see comments about its measurement above) and that the 'wrong' people use food banks and that 'there are thousands of job vacancies - people should get off their arses and work like our generation did'.

It takes very little excuse for most of us to ignore poverty, and sadly instead it becomes one of many issues that are used for political purposes. I am sure Boris could trot out a range of statistics to 'prove' that we have the finest anti poverty measures in Europe, and a world-beating set of improvements in poverty which, in truth, no longer exists as it did when Dickens was alive. Under Corbyn we would all be eating rats (etc.).

 

[Bry Nylon]

Not a direct cause of food poverty, obvs, but an illustration of the inequality in our society: (story below from the BBC website today)

"Mike Ashley's Frasers Group has offered the retail tycoon's future son-in-law a £100m bonus - but only if he can more than double the share price. The Sports Direct owner has put forward the bonus plan for Michael Murray when he becomes chief executive in May 2022. However, he will only collect if its share price reaches £15 for 30 trading days in a row before October 2025, up from its current level of £6.50. The company described the target as "challenging but achievable". Mr Murray, 31, engaged to be married to Mr Ashley's daughter Anna, is currently "head of elevation" at Frasers and is in charge of modernising stores and transforming the business. The board of Frasers Group, which owns Sports Direct and House of Fraser, said it had also recommended £1m a year salary for Mr Murray."

Now, I'm not sure exactly how Mr Murray will be looking to double the share price for a minimum of 30-days and trigger his £100m windfall but I imagine the army of minimum wage workers on zero hours contracts in the retail outlets and the fulfillment centre will be instrumental in the strategy. The £100m bounty on offer is actually pretty distasteful but why I should be surprised at that? Out of laziness, I usually hold my nose and buy my son's football boots and astro boots for training from Sports Direct as he gets through about 2 to 3 pairs a season. I won't be doing this anymore. He can frig his share price without the help of my hard-earned.

 

[Lenny Rider]

Genuine question, what does that actually mean? How is this measured, what is it measures against etc? Sounds awful as you say but would like some context to not only understand the issue but in order to possibly form an opinion as to possible solutions.

Thanks

I don't really know, my daughter Amy does one day a week at the Food Bank in Worthing, and it was her that came back with hose figures yesterday, she also told me there are 221 children under the age of 18 in Worthing currently on the 'at risk' register, another shocking stat.

 

[Lenny Rider]

Not a direct cause of food poverty, obvs, but an illustration of the inequality in our society: (story below form the BBC website today)

"Mike Ashley's Frasers Group has offered the retail tycoon's future son-in-law a £100m bonus - but only if he can more than double the share price. The Sports Direct owner has put forward the bonus plan for Michael Murray when he becomes chief executive in May 2022. However, he will only collect if its share price reaches £15 for 30 trading days in a row before October 2025, up from its current level of £6.50. The company described the target as "challenging but achievable". Mr Murray, 31, engaged to be married to Mr Ashley's daughter Anna, is currently "head of elevation" at Frasers and is in charge of modernising stores and transforming the business. The board of Frasers Group, which owns Sports Direct and House of Fraser, said it had also recommended £1m a year salary for Mr Murray."

Now, I'm not sure exactly how Mr Murray will be looking to double the share price for a minimum of 30-days and trigger his £100m windfall but I imagine the army of minimum wage workers on zero hours contracts in the retail outlets and the fulfillment centre will be instrumental in the strategy. The £100m bounty on offer is actually pretty distasteful but why I should be surprised at that? Out of laziness, I usually hold my nose and buy my son's football boots and astro boots for training from Sports Direct as he gets through about 2 to 3 pairs a season. I won't be doing this anymore. He can frig his share price without the help of my hard-earned.

One paragraph that makes Gordon Gekko look like Mother Teresa, and indicates how fractured our society is.

 

[schmunk]

Totally agree sir. got my flat in '92, earning £10k a year!

£10k in 1992 is equivalent to £21k now.

With a (let's say) 10% deposit paid by BOMAD, that gives a budget of £93k for your flat today. It just about buys a flat - just about.

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/propert...aredOwnership,newHome&furnishTypes=&keywords=

had a record player and a few guitars, a matress . no phone, mobile, sky etc . .

Presumably you bought the record player, and also some records to play? The guitar(s!) and maybe an amp or two, some effects / cables / cases / strings / picks...?

mortgage aside, biggest bill was council tax!

That's true for me today. What would be higher - perhaps a car loan?