Forum Home → Discussion → Other benefit issues → Thread
We’re all in it together. Aren’t we?
Child poverty falls according to the DWP.
But.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jun/14/child-poverty-above-2-million
Pay attention at the back.
I think this bloke was paying attention Paul.
So, Iain Duncan Smith has a simple solution to child poverty
Well of course there’s an easy answer. It’s because the benefit cap doesn’t apply to people in full time work because they deserve credit for trying, bless their little cotton socks.
I did a benefit cap calculation for a family with 5 kids on LHA living in Basingstoke, and one parent working 40 hrs at national minimum wage. Take-home pay is £214.12 and benefits are £619.35. This gives them a net income after all housing costs of £551.35.
Compare same family out of work who have a net income all benefits (but ignoring Council tax bnefit) pre-cap of £697.43. After housing costs income post-cap would be £265.44 - barealy more than half the first example.
And at the legendary median net £26,000 (gross £35,000)? They get benefits of £358.69 and are left with £582.48 after housing costs - only £30 a week more than on national minimum wage.
So it’s true: get a job (for in this case 40 hours) at the antional minimum wage and your income comes close to median. It’s only those who can’t be bothered to work who will still be seriously below median and of course that’s all their own fault.
Good article that Paul. Now Polly Toynbee wades in.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/14/duncan-smith-fact-free-dogma-children
And there’s more, with an interview in the Guardian with Christian Guy, the head of the Centre for Social Justice (the IDS think-tank who currently have great sway in the ongoing debates and policy approaches to poverty).
Christian Guy, the new head of the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), makes a surprising admission halfway through a discussion about the thinktank’s recent Rethinking Child Poverty report, a paper that argues for the abandonment of the current definition of poverty in favour of something less obsessed with income, and more focused on family stability and other indicators.
“I would say we have missed in-work poverty,” he concedes, when asked why the issue of low pay does not feature much in the centre’s analysis of the causes of poverty, even though 62% of children living in poverty, under the current definition, are in households where at least one of their parents is working but not earning enough to pull the family over the breadline. “We haven’t given it the attention it deserved, which is why I want to look at it.”
Organisations such as Child Poverty Action Group argue that for most children in the UK who are poor, the fact that their parents work as shop assistants, carers or cleaners on the minimum wage is the reason. The CSJ’s vision appears to be that they are poor because they have drug- or alcohol-addicted parents, which is relevant in under 4% of cases. There is a demonisation of the parents of children in poverty, and, with it, an apparent apportioning of blame.
For the full interview, click here ‘We have missed in-work poverty’
Blimey, found another article from Bob Holman, a community worker from Glasgow, who gives his opinion on IDS himself and his changed attitude towards those living in poverty.
Duncan Smith’s analysis is wrong. The majority of poor people are in work, not on benefits. Rises in unemployment are due to the recession, not laziness and addictions. Having lived in deprived areas for a quarter of a century, I know that most workless people are not workshy. Typical is a young friend who tramped around shops until he got an interview. As for families, I know of those cutting down on essentials to pay for their children to go on a camp with our project.
Duncan Smith is paradox personified. He wept at the plight of the poor yet now hands out punishments that must bring tears to their eyes. In 2005, at a fringe meeting at the Labour party conference, he called on Labour to promote a definition of lowest income that would allow all to have “sufficient resources to participate in the life of the community”. Now, the poorest families are in receipt of food parcels.
So, what should Duncan Smith’s next move be? He should resign and become a campaigner for the end of poverty.
Thanks to Iain Duncan Smith, now it’s is the poor who must cry
We are all in this together.
A recent Question for Lord Freud: “Do you think it is somewhat obscene and unfair that people who live in large houses with large under-occupied bedrooms should be telling people in two-bedroom bungalows that they are underoccupying.”
I have just finished reading this book. Its main thesis is that countries with greatest inequalities have more poverty, more social exclusion, more people with mental health problems and more social divisions. I highly recommend reading it. Also I‘ve included a brief interview with him for the New left project which summarize his views and a link to his Department at Sheffield University for further info’ about his work. My prescriptions would be far more radical than his but he makes a good start and his analysis is pretty sound.
http://www.policypress.co.uk/display.asp?k=9781847424266
http://www.shef.ac.uk/geography/staff/dorling_danny/books
http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/the_geography_of_injustice_part_2
