Skint Britain Channel 4

Cina

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

Jesus don't use Ireland has an eg of doing it right. A country 3 quarters the size of London who spend 20 billion per yr on welfare. That doesn't help anyone better themselves either.

There's opportunities in Britain for those who push themselves and show drive and ambition.

Even at that their welfare system can still enable life long state dependency. There's generations of families living on council estates in the UK who've never worked a day in their lives. It's not as if they're out on the streets starving. Like here, children can be used as a meal ticket in the UK.

Our welfare budget is actually pretty average in the OECD, we sit somewhere in the middle. Reforms are definitely needed to combat long-term scroungers (who actually make up very little of the budget) and encourage people to get work, as well as implementing similar systems to Germany whereby you get a percentage of your wage which lowers the longer you remain unemployed, but overall it's not as insanely generous as people make out.

Let's not forget that our generous welfare was a godsend for many people during the recession and proved to be a big part of the recovery.

The real criminality here is the massive waste of funds that goes into other inept departments such as the HSE instead of actually doing something useful like lowering carbon emissions and building infrastructure to deal with our increasing population.

ancapailldorcha

Cina wrote: »

Our welfare budget is actually pretty average in the OECD, we sit somewhere in the middle. Reforms are definitely needed to combat long-term scroungers (who actually make up very little of the budget) and encourage people to get work, as well as implementing similar systems to Germany whereby you get a percentage of your wage which lowers the longer you remain unemployed, but overall it's not as insanely generous as people make out.

Let's not forget that our generous welfare was a godsend for many people during the recession and proved to be a big part of the recovery.

The real criminality here is the massive waste of funds that goes into other inept departments such as the HSE instead of actually doing something useful like lowering carbon emissions and building infrastructure to deal with our increasing population.

The problem with the "Encourage them to get jobs" approach is that it assumes that there are jobs for them to get. I used to live in the North of England and frankly, some of the poverty was shocking. Any ad for a job mopping floors or stacking shelves would elicit a flood of applications. A lot of these places have just been left to rot by successive Conservative and Labour governments.

LirW

Someone already said it, this is pure and simple poverty porn.
So easy to go film the poorest of the poor in the most miserable area of the country watching them barely or not even getting by.
What stands out with all the people on the show is that they're poorly educated (the guy hunting for critters was illiterate) and that they genuinely never learnt how to look after themselves. Look at that happens when they suddenly get their money paid once a month - they have no idea what to do with it or how to budget it because they're not capable of doing that.
In am area where the simplest of jobs have hundreds of applicants they're still the least favourable and they do not have the money to move or commute to an area with more jobs, it would still leave them hungry.

It's really sad seeing people literally left to rot.

Idbatterim

LirW wrote: »

Someone already said it, this is pure and simple poverty porn.
So easy to go film the poorest of the poor in the most miserable area of the country watching them barely or not even getting by.
What stands out with all the people on the show is that they're poorly educated (the guy hunting for critters was illiterate) and that they genuinely never learnt how to look after themselves. Look at that happens when they suddenly get their money paid once a month - they have no idea what to do with it or how to budget it because they're not capable of doing that.
In am area where the simplest of jobs have hundreds of applicants they're still the least favourable and they do not have the money to move or commute to an area with more jobs, it would still leave them hungry.

It's really sad seeing people literally left to rot.

It’s a chicken and egg scenario. They have been failed by their parents in a lot of cases and then the state too afaic! The state shouldn’t be rewarding poor life choices financially ...

They actually just make the situation worse. At least they can talk about and debate the situation over there. Over here? Could you imagine RTÉ doing a programme on the welfare state? L! O!L!

LirW

Idbatterim wrote: »

It’s a chicken and egg scenario. They have been failed by their parents in a lot of cases and then the state too afaic! The state shouldn’t be rewarding poor life choices financially ...

They actually just make the situation worse. At least they can talk about and debate the situation over there. Over here? Could you imagine RTÉ doing a programme on the welfare state? L! O!L!

In the UK there are still plenty of workers that can't make ends meet and rely on UC and food banks. In this debate I miss the good proportion of people that do work and still can't get by, yet leaving isn't an option because they wouldn't find another job.

Also it's so easy to say "get them to look for work" when there genuinely isn't any. To the poorest it doesn't matter if they don't get work in Hartlepool or London, nobody would be willing to hire them with the background and non-existent experience they have.

Grayson

mariaalice wrote: »

It is a very complex issue in the UK, part of the UK are unemployment blackspots and parts are massive powerhouse self-sustaining economies such as Manchester and London and even in those there is pockets of real poverty, there is more to it than just getting a job where do all the toothless people on the likes of Jeremy Kyle come from basic dental care is more or less free in the UK.

On the other hand, there are free school meal to those on low incomes genuinely free schooling as in at no cost to parents, The NHS is free, housing is much cheaper, there are free play schemes during the school holidays the local councils provide a lot more than here.

In one of the most fashionable areas of Manchester prices for a house start at 200k and the locals think this is a fortune, salaries can be lower but not always.

Basically, they have made a choice to give less cash but provide more services and we have made a choice to give cash and more or less let people sort it out themselves.

Monden society has become more complex there use to be a place for those who did have a disability but who function at the borderline level, but not in today society.

I was made redundant in a call centre here in 2008. The company that ran the call centre had other centres in the north of england. They said we could apply for jobs there and we'd be the first to be interviewed.

I was on €23k a year here. Over there the same job was £14k a year. Sure rent would be less, but really the pay cut I would be taking would be massive.

the Uk is a weird society, especially compared to us or another european country. 1 in 4 children in the Uk are in poverty. And the austerity cuts made it worse. Remember two thirds of children in poverty in the Uk live in a family that have at least one parent working.

http://www.cpag.org.uk/content/child-poverty-facts-and-figures

Newsbeat

I think this programme is really good because it shows how bad things have got in this country. I think the problem lies with Labour. Corbyn isnt going to be prime minister. So what are people left with? The tories and no plan B for the voter. It is a horrible state of affairs right now.

ancapailldorcha

Grayson wrote: »

I was made redundant in a call centre here in 2008. The company that ran the call centre had other centres in the north of england. They said we could apply for jobs there and we'd be the first to be interviewed.

I was on €23k a year here. Over there the same job was £14k a year. Sure rent would be less, but really the pay cut I would be taking would be massive.

This doesn't surprise me. I work in a highly specialised and technical role in central London. I saw a rare vacancy in Newcastle and the salary was 40% less. I know the cost of living is a lot lower but that's a lot of one's salary to lose. Same role is back up for a few thousand more now.

gmisk

Newsbeat wrote: »

I think this programme is really good because it shows how bad things have got in this country. I think the problem lies with Labour. Corbyn isnt going to be prime minister. So what are people left with? The tories and no plan B for the voter. It is a horrible state of affairs right now.

The problem lies with labour?..
That is an interesting conclusion considering there hasnt been a labour led government since what 2010.
Plus one of the big issues in the show is universal credit, which the Tories introduced to Hartlepool and looks like an absolute disaster.

On the actual show the guy out gathering scrap was an odd one, he clearly said he wouldn't work in Tesco, sainsburys etc as if it was beneath him ...then gets arrested for shoplifting in sainsburys....
Clearly there were deeper issues, it looked like alcoholism given the fact he always had a massive plastic bottle with him

ancapailldorcha

gmisk wrote: »

The problem lies with labour?..
That is an interesting conclusion considering there hasnt been a labour led government since what 2010.
Plus one of the big issues in the show is universal credit, which the Tories introduced to Hartlepool and looks like an absolute disaster.

Labour were in government from 1997-2010 and did very little if anything for the North of England, Wales or Scotland. NI possibly due to the GFA.

goat2

I watched the programme last night,
My conclusion
They never learned to budget, were chain smoking, ciggies cost a lot these days, a box would put dinner on the table for a couple people, it looked like alcohol was another factor,

They had not thought of the rainy day scenario,
Education is the key

El_Bee

Newsbeat wrote: »

I think this programme is really good because it shows how bad things have got in this country. I think the problem lies with Labour. Corbyn isnt going to be prime minister. So what are people left with? The tories and no plan B for the voter. It is a horrible state of affairs right now.

Which is weird, you would think poorer people would vote more to the left.

topper75

If nothing was done for Hartlepool et al WHILE they WERE in the trading bloc - you can see the logic of **** it lets give the alternative a shot.

There was a fair amount of commentary linking the Swindon car factory news with Brexit (even from some workers doing voxpop whilst leaving work).

But the big obvious question was never asked: What did BEING in the union do for those car plant workers who lost their job in the past? Answer: SFA.

gmisk

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Labour were in government from 1997-2010 and did very little if anything for the North of England, Wales or Scotland. NI possibly due to the GFA.

I agree, but I think things have got even worse since then, did you watch the programme? The biggest focus was on the disaster for Hartlepool which universal credit has been, which the tories brought in, and labour want to scrap/reform.

lalababa

LuasSimon wrote: »

For someone on the dole in England where only for foodbanks many would starve to death , coming to this country and been on the dole in rural Ireland would be like winning the lotto!

SSSHHHHHEEEESSSHHHTTT!!!:eek: That's all we need.

Yurt2

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.ft.com/content/b6dbf34e-c987-11e7-aa33-c63fdc9b8c6c

Sh*t life syndrome.

As other posters have said, parts of the UK have effectively been abandoned by the state. The NHS is the only thing keeping a veneer of dignity.

To any economically right-wing people reading this thread: if you were born into a poor family circumstance in a place like Blackpool, the odds are you'd be welfare dependant too.

fryup

El_Bee wrote: »

Which is weird, you would think poorer people would vote more to the left.

most do, but the seriously disillusioned/p!ssed off vote far right

ancapailldorcha

gmisk wrote: »

I agree, but I think things have got even worse since then, did you watch the programme? The biggest focus was on the disaster for Hartlepool which universal credit has been, which the tories brought in, and labour want to scrap/reform.

Haven't seen it. I tend to eschew programmes I think might fall into the "Poverty porn" category.

kowloon

LuasSimon wrote: »

Think the Birth rate for traveller women is 6.4 as against 1.8 for non traveller Irish so you they are the fastest growing part of the Irish population even if half of them are too lazy-refuse to fill in census forms.

You catch a number of them in the wild, put a mark on their shell and release them. Then when you catch another random group you can estimate their number from how many are marked. I think that must be how they do it.

Gimme A Pound

Remember reading 12 to 15 years ago about a house for sale in Middlesborough going for £1,000. Various formerly industrialised regions of the midlands and across the north of England are in such a bad way that we cannot comprehend over here. And how could we when we never had an industrial revolution.

Once those industries went to the wall, there was nothing to replace them. It wasn't just about a wage, it was about the local economy too, so the jobs just aren't there.

The north-east and the black country (between Birmingham and Wolverhampton) are particularly shocking. Folks with pretty much nothing. Ditto parts of Wales as mentioned.

A comparable region appears to be the US's "rust belt" - cities around the Great Lakes/not far from the Canadian border, including (among others) in Pennsylvania, New York state, Indiana, and particularly Ohio. Michigan too - the most famous rust belt city being Detroit. Places where there was once thriving industry (steel, automobiles) and now every bit of it and its legacy is gone, with nothing to replace it.

I've read that heroin blights those regions of the UK too. And a really sad outcome for rust belt regions is the way heroin dependency stemmed from over prescription of opiate based pain relievers for industrial injuries in the steel mills etc. Now there's no industry, no money and people who became addicted to the pills are injecting.

Idbatterim wrote: »

Sorry this is rich Britain with a powerhouse economy ? Shows this kip up for the banana republic it is. Watch those spineless rats further inflate the welfare spend again this budget!

Fifty percent marginal rate on the working poor. Propping up the off the wall welfare state !

Huh? Do you even know what a banana republic is?

JupiterKid

You can thank the Conservative party for this state of affairs. They dismantled much off the industrial base of England and Wales and brought in cut after cut in welfare.

They truly despise the poor.

Gimme A Pound

I'd say it's more nuanced than they despise the poor. I don't like when that's said about the Conservative party - it's populist, and that party is made up of all kinds of people.

But yes, under Thatcher much of the industry went to the wall. It would have gone to the wall anyway though - it wasn't just down to Thatcher. But there did seem to be little or no strategy to replace it.

fritzelly

Problem with these types of programmes that C4 tend to navigagte towards is they choose those individuals who make the biggest impact on screen. Not the family who is managing to live on benefits. Take the previous show Benefits Britain - it was literally a farce.
Only guy I had any sympathy for was the near on blind fella, the rest were and have always been scroungers. The woman who did a trial of a few hours in the local shop but when it came around to actually working had the misfortune of having to look after someone elses kid - seriously!

Church on Tuesday

Shawn Lively Registration wrote: »

Remember reading 12 to 15 years ago about a house for sale in Middlesborough going for £1,000. Various formerly industrialised regions of the midlands and across the north of England are in such a bad way that we cannot comprehend over here. And how could we when we never had an industrial revolution.

Once those industries went to the wall, there was nothing to replace them. It wasn't just about a wage, it was about the local economy too, so the jobs just aren't there.

The north-east and the black country (between Birmingham and Wolverhampton) are particularly shocking. Folks with pretty much nothing. Ditto parts of Wales as mentioned.

A comparable region appears to be the US's "rust belt" - cities around the Great Lakes/not far from the Canadian border, including (among others) in Pennsylvania, New York state, Indiana, and particularly Ohio. Michigan too - the most famous rust belt city being Detroit. Places where there was once thriving industry (steel, automobiles) and now every bit of it and its legacy is gone, with nothing to replace it.

I've read that heroin blights those regions of the UK too. And a really sad outcome for rust belt regions is the way heroin dependency stemmed from over prescription of opiate based pain relievers for industrial injuries in the steel mills etc. Now there's no industry, no money and people who became addicted to the pills are injecting.

Huh? Do you even know what a banana republic is?

Just out of a kind of curiosity, a lad I went to college with had relatives there and moved there after college which I thought was a kind of an odd move, is there much industry there at all? quality of life? furthest midlands I was was Stoke and I found that pretty grim.

goat2

My thinking is, that if they really wanted to work, they or someone in the family would move to a place where there is a better chance of employment

They obviously do not know how to manage finances, since they had no backup plan in the event of no cash coming in for a period of time

James Brown

LuasSimon wrote: »

Anyone watching this tonight , about people on the dole in Hartlepool in England and the change in dole payments to monthly . Social welfare in England is less than half what’s paid here and there’s also heavy sanctions for those not making serious efforts to get work . Most of those on the dole are penniless in his programme . Mad stuff

As opposed to welfare Ireland where you can get 50-60000 on welfare if your from an Irish ethnic group with ten children !

Ah there it is
Keep voting for the FF/FG lads oversee the policies you don't like, sure it's all SF and PBP causing it all

20Cent

goat2 wrote: »

My thinking is, that if they really wanted to work, they or someone in the family would move to a place where there is a better chance of employment

They obviously do not know how to manage finances, since they had no backup plan in the event of no cash coming in for a period of time

Moving isn't easy when you're broke. Social mobility probably plays a large part in it.

end of the road

goat2 wrote: »

My thinking is, that if they really wanted to work, they or someone in the family would move to a place where there is a better chance of employment

the cash they get is tiny. they can barely afford to live never mind think about moving elsewhere. wherever they would move to already has competition for jobs which means the likely hood of them getting jobs elsewhere is quite small.

goat2 wrote: »

They obviously do not know how to manage finances, since they had no backup plan in the event of no cash coming in for a period of time

in some cases, however mostly, no viable backup plan is availible to them.

LuasSimon

Matt Barrett wrote: »

Ah there it is
Keep voting for the FF/FG lads oversee the policies you don't like, sure it's all SF and PBP causing it all

Think you’ll find Sinn Fein are the travellers party in this country .
More worried about new houses and stables for travellers who never worked a day in their life’s rather than the people who work to pay their way .

Idbatterim

LuasSimon wrote: »

Think you’ll find Sinn Fein are the travellers party in this country .
More worried about new houses and stables for travellers who never worked a day in their life’s rather than the people who work to pay their way .

yeah true. But in fairness FG arent too interested in those that pay their way either... or FF for that matter...

Boggles

LuasSimon wrote: »

Think you’ll find Sinn Fein are the travellers party in this country .
More worried about new houses and stables for travellers who never worked a day in their life’s rather than the people who work to pay their way .

Seems ligit.

As Taoiseach I wish to now formally recognise Travellers as a distinct ethnic group within the Irish nation.

It is a historic day for our Travellers and a proud day for Ireland.

- Enda Kenny

fin12

Watched this show and the way they treat people over there on welfare is actually sick, that poor blind man on the phone, it was actually horrible watching, imagine sending someone a letter saying your payment is €5 for the month, what kind of sick f*ckers are they? And that opera music they play when they put u on hold is definitely some sort of sick joke.

I might give out about Ireland sometimes cause of the housing crisis but I am so glad and lucky to be born here than that horrible f*cked up country, I can’t even imagine what the f*cks going to happen there after brexit.

Idbatterim

“Watched this show and the way they treat people over there on welfare is actually sick, that poor blind man on the phone, it was actually horrible watching, imagine sending someone a letter saying your payment is €5 for the month, what kind of sick f*ckers are they? And that opera music they play when they put u on hold is definitely some sort of sick joke.

I might give out about Ireland sometimes cause of the housing crisis but I am so glad and lucky to be born here than that horrible f*cked up country, I can’t even imagine what the f*cks going to happen there after Brexit “

yeah it’s possibly a bit over the top over there. It’s the other extreme here. Sick of hearing all the left wing media here banging on about the poor unfortunates on welfare here. The spineless government throwing more at them every budget. The ignorance of those here who think the government aren’t robbing the tax payer blind to pay for this farce is pathetic. Any one care to guess what my German dad gets for his state pension ( based on what you pay in over there , a proper system) come on the apologists, make your guess ...

2011abc

fin12 wrote: »

Watched this show and the way they treat people over there on welfare is actually sick, that poor blind man on the phone, it was actually horrible watching, imagine sending someone a letter saying your payment is €5 for the month, what kind of sick f*ckers are they? And that opera music they play when they put u on hold is definitely some sort of sick joke.

I might give out about Ireland sometimes cause of the housing crisis but I am so glad and lucky to be born here than that horrible f*cked up country, I can’t even imagine what the f*cks going to happen there after brexit.

Haven’t seen this.Sounds like a real life ‘I ,Daniel Blake ‘ which was grim enough as ‘fiction’ .Sad ...

Gimme A Pound

People use some right hyperbole about the UK. It's got problems but it's hardly a horrible ****ed up country. That's more a description of e.g. Venezuela.

LuasSimon

Idbatterim wrote: »

“Watched this show and the way they treat people over there on welfare is actually sick, that poor blind man on the phone, it was actually horrible watching, imagine sending someone a letter saying your payment is €5 for the month, what kind of sick f*ckers are they? And that opera music they play when they put u on hold is definitely some sort of sick joke.

I might give out about Ireland sometimes cause of the housing crisis but I am so glad and lucky to be born here than that horrible f*cked up country, I can’t even imagine what the f*cks going to happen there after Brexit “

yeah it’s possibly a bit over the top over there. It’s the other extreme here. Sick of hearing all the left wing media here banging on about the poor unfortunates on welfare here. The spineless government throwing more at them every budget. The ignorance of those here who think the government aren’t robbing the tax payer blind to pay for this farce is pathetic. Any one care to guess what my German dad gets for his state pension ( based on what you pay in over there , a proper system) come on the apologists, make your guess ...

I agree social welfare in UK is awfully low compared to Ireland where there is endless uncapped benefits no matter how many children you have and especially for those who never did a days work .
Re your fathers german pension , assuming it’s 65 years of age I’ll guess 300 euro per week for one person ?

Cee-Jay-Cee

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

The poverty is so much worse than over here even in our worst areas

Don't understand why they are not arriving here by the boatload to claim

They can’t afford to pay for the boat. It’s a vicious circle.

Idbatterim

LuasSimon wrote: »

I agree social welfare in UK is awfully low compared to Ireland where there is endless uncapped benefits no matter how many children you have and especially for those who never did a days work .
Re your fathers german pension , assuming it’s 65 years of age I’ll guess 300 euro per week for one person ?

Eighty euro a week. It’s based on what you pay into the system. He moved over here in the early seventies, so had very little German contributions. It’s a fair system though in my opinion, you know where you stand from the start ...

Kermit.de.frog

Nothing like a bit of poverty porn to get the juices flowing of a Monday morning.

Solomon Pleasant

Lefty Bicek wrote: »

Hartlepool was about 2:1 for leaving.

They're disillusioned, they're impoverished, they don't see a future, they resent the perceived levels of immigration, and they took it out on their 'betters'.

Calling people Hartlefools because they voted as they did, is condescending ignorance.

They're not fools, and maybe if the EU had done a better job of convincing them that their lives were in any significant way better within it... the outcome might have been different.

I can't understand why people here can't get it into their thick skulls - Brexit, for ordinary 'Leave' voters was never about +/- jobs.

Jobs did play a role - it was a contributing factor. You are correct in that they're impoverished and don't see a future - a huge reason for that is their lack of employment opportunities.

That, and racism.

Grayson

Shawn Lively Registration wrote: »

People use some right hyperbole about the UK. It's got problems but it's hardly a horrible ****ed up country. That's more a description of e.g. Venezuela.

If venezuela is the benchmark than most countries are pretty good.

I posted this a few pages back but it's worth posting again
http://www.cpag.org.uk/content/child-poverty-facts-and-figures

There were 4.1 million children living in poverty in the UK in 2016-17. That’s 30 per cent of children, or 9 in a classroom of 30

Work does not provide a guaranteed route out of poverty in the UK. Two-thirds (67 per cent) of children growing up in poverty live in a family where at least one person works

Child poverty has long-lasting effects. By GCSE, there is a 28 per cent gap between children receiving free school meals and their wealthier peers in terms of the number achieving at least 5 A*-C GCSE grades

30% of children in the Uk are in poverty. That's fcuking horrible for a developed country. Imagine if nearly 1 in 3 children here were in poverty.

Tchaikovsky

The poor blind guy crying in the phone booth while waiting for someone to answer his call was particularly bleak. Heartless bastards

LirW

Idbatterim wrote: »

Eighty euro a week. It’s based on what you pay into the system. He moved over here in the early seventies, so had very little German contributions. It’s a fair system though in my opinion, you know where you stand from the start ...

I think it's worth to mention though that while the sum of your working years matters, the last few before you retire are a lot more significant to the pension you receive.

Germany has a serious problem with qualified people being laid off on their early 50s since they're very expensive to employ and many won't be hired again, with no fault of their own, which results them spending their final, crucial years to work up a nice pension on SW or work in retail or hospitality.

Geuze

Grayson wrote: »

If venezuela is the benchmark than most countries are pretty good.

I posted this a few pages back but it's worth posting again
http://www.cpag.org.uk/content/child-poverty-facts-and-figures



30% of children in the Uk are in poverty. That's fcuking horrible for a developed country. Imagine if nearly 1 in 3 children here were in poverty.

The child poverty rates here are as follows:

AROP - low incomes, i.e. relative income poverty

18.4% of children vs. 15.7% overall rate

Deprivation

23.0% of children vs. 18.8% overall rate

Consistent poverty

8.8% of children vs. 6.7% overall rate

https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-silc/surveyonincomeandlivingconditionssilc2017/

Grayson

Geuze wrote: »

The child poverty rates here are as follows:

AROP - low incomes, i.e. relative income poverty

18.4% of children vs. 15.7% overall rate

Deprivation

23.0% of children vs. 18.8% overall rate

Consistent poverty

8.8% of children vs. 6.7% overall rate

https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-silc/surveyonincomeandlivingconditionssilc2017/

I've mentioned this before. A few years ago I was doing my masters in business management. My dissertation was on prepaid utilities (I didn't get to choose my own topic, there's no way i would have chosen that).
Part of my research was looking into the market for prepaid utilities including electricity. I read a load of studies done by MABS. It was heartbreaking reading about women trying to scrape together a fiver to keep the lights on at home or stop their children getting cold.

Grayson

Grayson wrote: »

If venezuela is the benchmark than most countries are pretty good.

I posted this a few pages back but it's worth posting again
http://www.cpag.org.uk/content/child-poverty-facts-and-figures



30% of children in the Uk are in poverty. That's fcuking horrible for a developed country. Imagine if nearly 1 in 3 children here were in poverty.

CHild poverty is measured thus https://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/what-we-do/our-work/ending-child-poverty/what-is-child-poverty

The reality of living in poverty
A couple with two children living in poverty has less than £58 per day – that’s £15 each - after housing costs to pay for food, bills, childcare, transport, household items, clothes and other expenses like school trips or children’s activities.

The same family on average income in the UK has about £96 per day – that’s £24 each - to cover these things.

A child is said to be living in poverty when they are living in a family with an income below 60% of the UK's average after adjusting for family size.

So when you have some exceptionally high earners, like the UK does, it brings the average disproportionately higher. If you said to a lot of people that as they only have £1740 per month to pay for food and bills etc. therefore they are living in poverty, they would probably laugh.

LuasSimon

Final episode on at 9PM tonight .
Anyone on social welfare long term in this country should be made watch it and see how good they have it compared to the poor bxxtards on the dole in England .

The dole here is 3-4 times what it is England and uncapped ie have as many kids as you want compared to max children allowance for 2 in England .

Idbatterim

LuasSimon wrote: »

Final episode on at 9PM tonight .
Anyone on social welfare long term in this country should be made watch it and see how good they have it compared to the poor bxxtards on the dole in England .

The dole here is 3-4 times what it is England and uncapped ie have as many kids as you want compared to max children allowance for 2 in England .

Spot on. The world class welfare paid out here is staggering. As if the lifers would watch anything that would educate them though. No other country in the world bends over backwards more to facilitate these wasters and their excuses. Paid for by the working poor amongst others , paying a marginal tax rate of 50%! You couldn’t make it up, but you don’t need to! It’s ireland !

klaaaz

LuasSimon wrote: »

The dole here is 3-4 times what it is England and uncapped ie have as many kids as you want compared to max children allowance for 2 in England .

You're directing your anger at the wrong benefit, those on the dole are subject to activation schemes. Those on OPFP are not subject to activation schemes and can pop out as many kids as they like to continue payment. Of course, we need those kids to pay for our pensions assuming they work when they are adults, I reckon most do work.

Wibbs

I've paid a shit ton of tax in my life and a chunk of that went towards social welfare payments of all kinds("dole heads" are a minority of such payments) and yes while I have major issues in how government and public service types spend/waste that money in quite a few areas and yes there are lifetime scroungers, I would still prefer all that than the UK setup, or god forbid the American one. It might impact me as an individual at times, but it's far better for the society.