For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
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#1651715
Flyin'Dutch' wrote:EU Stats office

Here you go:

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistic ... _exclusion


Very interesting and thanks. Two things jump out at me (apart from the clear fact that all of Europe has a problem) - one is that it's interesting that the measure is "at risk of" rather than "in", and the other is that I'm a little surprised to see Belgium as the worst country in Europe, and the Czech Republic as the best. The reasons for that, if understood, might explain a great deal.

G
#1651717
Flyin'Dutch' wrote:FF for president!

You could include the need for landlords to provide habitable accommodation.


As a small, private landlord I do. And mostly at below what the market will bear. However, there's only so much punishment a small business person can take (and it is a business, whatever the guvmint and HMRC say) and I'm slowly getting out.
There are rules and laws about most things. The fact that these laws are not pursued is another part of the problem. More rules/laws don't make an iota of difference to the situation.
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#1651718
Genghis the Engineer wrote: I'm a little surprised to see Belgium as the worst country in Europe, and the Czech Republic as the best. The reasons for that, if understood, might explain a great deal.

Makes perfect sense; I dare say that, in a small population, the EU gravy train travellers lift the "mean" quite considerably, so "poverty" starts at a higher level than elsewhere. The Czech Republic, meanwhile, probably has a lot of, relatively, poorer people and fewer really rich so "poverty" is at a much lower level.
#1651721
Jim Jones wrote:
Lerk wrote:A full sky package can happily buy a weeks food.
.



One family trip to the cinema can pay for a month's Sky subscription.

Should the poor keep away from things that link to the world where we live?


If it means they can’t afford to buy food, then yes absolutely.

Are you seriously telling me you would go flying but then wait in line at a food bank?

It is demeaning to those in the world who are truly living in poverty* to discuss this report with any seriousness.

*many more than 14m people live with barely the basic requirements to sustain life...
#1651722
There are some expectations that I personally do have an issue with.

Sky Subscription: £25-£70/month
Netflix £6-£10/month
TV Licence £12.50/month

Job Seekers Allowance - about £315/month for over 25s I believe.


I can understand why somebody unemployed, or disabled would consider ~4% of their JSA on a TV licence would seem very reasonable as a way to pass time, as they can't be job-hunting all the time.

Frankly, I can't justify Sky or Netflix for myself - and as a young man lived quite happily without a TV, so I struggle to see why somebody on a restricted income can, but priorities vary. I also used public libraries!


BUT, I do think that there's such a thing as personal freedom. The only time we should criticise anybody in such a position is if either (a) they are inadequately providing for their children, or (b) They are simply trying to live off benefits with no effort to find any other means of income. Frankly if somebody wants to live of pasta and potatoes and watch Sky, ultimately that's their choice - even if I fail to understand it myself.

G
User avatar
By nallen
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1651748
Genghis the Engineer wrote:I also used public libraries!


Me too, but they are being closed down. (As of a year ago, 478 have closed since 2010.)
By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1651755
All these debates highlight that facile answers to complex problems simply don’t work. In many developed countries including this one there’s a sense of entitlement and failure to achieve that entitlement can be construed as poverty.

I think it’s necessary but difficult to consider the socio-economic context in which people live and try to assess on that basis and also try to encourage economic activity while providing a reasonable safety net.

However figuring out what that looks like is no trivial task and of course it changes over time.

At present I rather think the U.K. has neglected the poor and given the rich too much licence, frankly we need to look less to the USA for examples and more to Europe, but I fear the opposite is still occurring.
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By cockney steve
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1651769
I attempt to dispel the "greedy landlord myth.

The government has sold off loads of housing-stock (think Police, Armed forces MQ
and, of course LA social housing.....funded by ratepayers who owned their own, then, the tenants contributed rates as well. The council -tenant had the benefit of free maintenance and replacements and the rent was considerably lower than the private sector......It gave the low-income family a leg-up. But the system failed.....people considered it , not as a stepping-stone to self-sufficiency, but as a defined choice of lifestyle- newspaper and magazine classifieds were rife with ads for swaps of council house tenancies......then, the right to buy, at a generous discount, meant that those who's kids were grown and moved out, could buy, stay or sublet a room for a period, and trouser a profit.....this at the expense of families on the waiting-list.

Meanwhile, the private landlord has a higher minimum-deposit, a much higher interest rate (I tried! same lender, but a subsidiary)...found an ideal property for a homeless family I was close to.....Even putting another house up as security, valued at 150% of the loan- property, the costs and interest charges exceeded the market-rent value....and that's before the Government started taxing all rent!
Many private landlords are getting out of the market because they are literally subsidising the tenant (and some do bilk and run, others abuse and turn the place into dereliction, turn the house into a Cannabis-farm, a pop-up brothel, drugs-den).... Only profit *might* come from the increase in value,assuming good tenants...then the government taxes the capital gain.

Social housing needs sorting out.....Make tenants aware that it's not a permanent home....As singletons start a family...they move to bigger....as the "at home" family shrinks...they move to smaller....they have a choice...car/boat/TV/ foreign holidays/ pubs/clubs - or save for a deposit on their own home where they can choose freely .or the dwindling private-rental market,again, a free choice....they have no *right* to "the penny andthe toffee, but the current generation seem to think the world does, indeed owe them a living and they have no obligation to contribute.

It is, indeed, a complex problem and a post here only scratches the surface.
#1652278
Flyingfemme wrote:They don't define the poverty that they are reporting and I find it very hard to believe that half of UK children are in real poverty.

Equally the idea of digital delivery of Universal Credit, to people who cannot afford PCs and broadband or those who just cannot use a computer, is ridiculous. A five week wait for people who have no money is stupid. How does one get politicians an civil servants with actual brains?

This report seems to be concentrating on the delivery of UK benefits rather than the poverty they are supposed to be reporting.


It will be relative poverty. Children classed as in poverty today will be significantly better off than I was as an average working class, council estate oik.

The real "problem" is income distribution, and they would be better served just discussing that direct without sensationalist exaggeration of the "poverty" which is then politicised.
johnm, cockney steve liked this
#1652377
Statistics - is this not a bell curve distribution issue? A well off country with lots of VERY wealthy people will pull the %poverty baseline across and increase the number of people in technical poverty, but those increased number of people actually better off than people in a country without as many VERY wealthy people. Are these UN numbers adjusted?

Anyway, what's wrong with food banks - the world is a better place with them than without them.
By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1652387
Anyway, what's wrong with food banks - the world is a better place with them than without them.


The growth in use is what's wrong, they should be a place of last resort for the destitute. Inevitably a few will take advantage to grab free food they don't really need as they always do, but the growth should worry us all.

There's no doubt that poverty is relative to expectations and why not?

I was brought up in a terraced house with the loo at the end of the yard which needed a paraffin heater in winter so it didn't freeze up. Our only heating was coal fire in the sitting room and range in the kitchen.
We didn't think of ourselves as poor because we could buy all the necessities of life and even take a holiday in Auntie Annie's Blackpool boarding house.

Nowadays most people expect indoor plumbing, central heating, TV and mobile phone, internet, holidays and a car and will be considered poor if those expectations aren't met.
cockney steve liked this
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