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First-World Problems

Grumpy Old Lemons Like You
UncleEbenezer
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First-World Problems

#181386

Postby UncleEbenezer » November 19th, 2018, 12:48 pm

Some woman on the radio today. An example of how Universal Benefit is causing extreme hardship. Referred to the journos by some womens' charity (first red flag: why so many charities for women, but nothing for men with the same troubles)? Done all the usual - food banks mentioned. Most shocking revelation: she had taken money for sex (another option some of us don't have).

Then rather late in the interview, we hear what she spent that money on: putting petrol in her car! Come on Journos, come on charities, how the **** can you present a woman who runs a bloomin' car as being in poverty? All we now know is that she's got more money than sense! Much, much more money - unless the whole story is a fabrication and she has no real troubles at all.

I can believe there are problems with Universal Benefit. I find it hard to believe they're any worse than - or even as bad as - back in 2002/3 when I was last in real poverty. When one tank of petrol for a small car would've been six months of my food budget!

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Re: First-World Problems

#181389

Postby Urbandreamer » November 19th, 2018, 1:18 pm

UncleEbenezer wrote:I can believe there are problems with Universal Benefit. I find it hard to believe they're any worse than - or even as bad as - back in 2002/3 when I was last in real poverty. When one tank of petrol for a small car would've been six months of my food budget!


I didn't listen to the article but totally accept your comments about the level of journalism involved. It seems almost universaly bad today. However I do sugest that you listen to the Money box podcast on the subject of Univeral Credit.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00013vb

It may indeed be worse than 2002/3.

In particular the idea of losing the benefit because your employer won't let you answer the phone, or because the employer pays a 5 week month or.....
Anyway, as I say, listen to the podcast and compare it to your own experiences.

UncleEbenezer
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Re: First-World Problems

#181409

Postby UncleEbenezer » November 19th, 2018, 2:42 pm

I think at least one aspect must be better since 2003. Or even 2010 - when I met some other poor bugger in a similar plight.

If all benefits are rolled into one, then you don't find that losing one benefit cascades to losing other benefits, which might come to a lot more than the trigger one.

My problem in 2003 was that being denied JSA (because my struggling company had made me more than JSA, by a tiny margin) lost me a bundle of other benefits for the workless. The main one being housing benefit - because there's no such thing as a rent that isn't quite a lot higher than JSA.

I was working hard for a very small income. If I'd been sitting at home doing nothing, I'd have had an income not far short of three times greater - most of it being housing benefit (all comfortably within the "local housing allowance" allowed for a single person).

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Re: First-World Problems

#181447

Postby Rhyd6 » November 19th, 2018, 6:46 pm

I worked in the civil service for nearly 40 years and in several different departments. The underlying problem is that not once did the people who come up with these ideas go to anyone on front line services and ask them to identify any likely problems. Remember Gordon Brown and his abolition of the 10% tax rate. I was in the tax office at the time and we listened in total disbelief to his smug announcement, we just couldn't believe our ears it was so obvious that the ones most adversely affected were the lower paid. Luckily some one swiftly pointed out to him what a boo boo he'd made. Multiply that by dozens of "well it seemed like a good idea at the time" and you can see why those who have to implement these ridiculous changes, which have been made with no input from those at the sharp end have no faith whatsoever in those in charge.

R6

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Re: First-World Problems

#181553

Postby didds » November 20th, 2018, 8:38 am

I woulnd't know for sure but a couple of things strike me

* if there are no charities for men the same as there are for women, assuming the problems are real etc., its probably because somebody - probably a man - hasn't started one. Why that may be I have no idea.

* the "official" guidelines of what constitutes "poverty" may well include things most of us would consider "luxuries". ISTR the Joseph Rowntree Foundation or similar bin their threshold level of income to define poverty includes such things as a takeaway meal on occasion for example. It wouldn't surprise me that in some scenarios a tank of fuel for a vehicle could be included... those that live in a rural area may well need a vehicle for any normal 21st century activities - like getting to a shop other than the most limited and comparatively expensive "corner shop" or finding work outside of a distance that is feasibly walkable or cycleable (and in poverty wouldn't the ownership of a cycle be a luxury?). As a simple example of this, Ive a friend in this small market town in rural wiltshire where we live that has no vehicle and she relies on the bus to go anywhere outside of town. Last year the bus company changed timetables which now meant she couldn't get to work in a town 10 miles away on time. Fortunately her boss is very understanding - but at what level of timetable change, or job itself, does that now make that friend unemployable in that job? And to be frank for a rural town its actually quite close to other towns and the public transport service does (caveats aside!) work reasonably well. Ive visited far more rural towns west of here where PT is woefully inadequate for anything but the retired with leisure time.

didds

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Re: First-World Problems

#181569

Postby bungeejumper » November 20th, 2018, 9:27 am

didds wrote:It wouldn't surprise me that in some scenarios a tank of fuel for a vehicle could be included... those that live in a rural area may well need a vehicle for any normal 21st century activities - like getting to a shop other than the most limited and comparatively expensive "corner shop" or finding work outside of a distance that is feasibly walkable or cycleable (and in poverty wouldn't the ownership of a cycle be a luxury?). As a simple example of this, Ive a friend in this small market town in rural wiltshire where we live that has no vehicle and she relies on the bus to go anywhere outside of town. Last year the bus company changed timetables which now meant she couldn't get to work in a town 10 miles away on time.

Indeed. Around these rural parts, people need cars in ways that some people would find hard to understand, because if there ain't no buses then how are they going to get themselves to work?

By bike? Steep hills and winter snow. Motorbike? Fine (mostly) if you haven't got a family to ferry around. Taxi? Might work, but not reliable enough in rural areas for essential punctuality. Train? Well the return taxi fare to my nearest station is £48. :lol:

BJ

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Re: First-World Problems

#181583

Postby UncleEbenezer » November 20th, 2018, 10:11 am

didds wrote:I woulnd't know for sure but a couple of things strike me

* if there are no charities for men the same as there are for women, assuming the problems are real etc., its probably because somebody - probably a man - hasn't started one. Why that may be I have no idea.

That was an aside in my original post. What mainly infuriates me there is the BBC party line - men are villains and women victims, as kind-of an article of faith.
* the "official" guidelines of what constitutes "poverty" may well include things most of us would consider "luxuries". ISTR the Joseph Rowntree Foundation

Damn. Now you've provoked me to go off on one!

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation lives in a complete fantasy world, with rents that wouldn't even get you a student room in the real world[1], and "necessary" spending money that would require an income well above the UK average for those who have no income other than work.
or similar bin their threshold level of income to define poverty includes such things as a takeaway meal on occasion for example. It wouldn't surprise me that in some scenarios a tank of fuel for a vehicle could be included... those that live in a rural area may well need a vehicle for any normal 21st century activities - like getting to a shop other than the most limited and comparatively expensive "corner shop" or finding work outside of a distance that is feasibly walkable or cycleable (and in poverty wouldn't the ownership of a cycle be a luxury?).

For those too disabled (or old) to cycle there is an issue, and (AIUI) some benefits to help with that. For anyone else of working age there's no excuse.
As for bike ownership, can't you go to the police auctions and get something for the cost of a tank of petrol? I bought my first bike as a student to save money, as I couldn't've afforded bus fares on a regular basis. Sure, we live in a society that does its best to marginalise non-car-owners, but those of us without a huge Entitlement manage without cars. Or indeed various other things the Bleeding Hearts seem to consider basic necessities.

I could cite you my experience of 2003, when I was bike-less for an extended period, on the grounds that £3 for a new brake cable was better spent on two weeks worth of value-line pasta and dried pulses. That meant a long walk, mostly over Dartmoor, to get to Tesco for the basic foodstuffs. But the cost of bike maintenance would've been absolutely no problem on regular out-of-work benefits.

As a simple example of this, Ive a friend in this small market town in rural wiltshire where we live that has no vehicle and she relies on the bus to go anywhere outside of town. Last year the bus company changed timetables which now meant she couldn't get to work in a town 10 miles away on time.

I had the same problem in my 'teens.

It was a problem of mindset. Going up to Cambridge cured it: Cambridge encourages all of us onto bikes, and once I had a bike and a cycling mindset, the 14+ miles from the parental home to the market town where I had gone to school had shrunk and no longer seemed too far. Big regret that I hadn't realised that at age about 13, when teenage boredom at my isolation set in!

[1] £52.80/week in a JRF report I looked up.

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Re: First-World Problems

#181597

Postby didds » November 20th, 2018, 10:49 am

UncleEbenezer wrote:The Joseph Rowntree Foundation lives in a complete fantasy world, with rents that wouldn't even get you a student room in the real world[1],


[1] £52.80/week in a JRF report I looked up.



Blimey! Totally agree with you UE! My son went to uni very recently in Pontypridd, which I read a couple of years ago was the 2nd cheapest place to live as a student after Wrexham... and that was more than £52.80 a week! Not much more to be fair ... but that's the whole point. even in ponty you cant get a rent that low.

Though that would suggest that the reality of liofe is actually harder than the JRF believes it is!

didds

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Re: First-World Problems

#181606

Postby UncleEbenezer » November 20th, 2018, 11:06 am

didds wrote:
UncleEbenezer wrote:The Joseph Rowntree Foundation lives in a complete fantasy world, with rents that wouldn't even get you a student room in the real world[1],


[1] £52.80/week in a JRF report I looked up.



Blimey! Totally agree with you UE! My son went to uni very recently in Pontypridd, which I read a couple of years ago was the 2nd cheapest place to live as a student after Wrexham... and that was more than £52.80 a week! Not much more to be fair ... but that's the whole point. even in ponty you cant get a rent that low.

Though that would suggest that the reality of liofe is actually harder than the JRF believes it is!

didds

Well, erm ...
That number I did look up in JRF's own report, when I blogged on the subject. Which was some years ago, though not so long ago as to make a significant difference to rents (unless perhaps in hot-spot London).

I couldn't cite the source for the other number, but I think it was probably Radio 4's nonsense-debunking programme "more or less" who looked at JRF's minimum requirements for a basic but decent life, and worked out that it required an income somewhere above the UK household average. Conclusion from that: we're not a rich country at all, and most of us are "poor"!

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Re: First-World Problems

#181622

Postby didds » November 20th, 2018, 11:46 am

UncleEbenezer wrote:I couldn't cite the source for the other number, but I think it was probably Radio 4's nonsense-debunking programme "more or less" who looked at JRF's minimum requirements for a basic but decent life, and worked out that it required an income somewhere above the UK household average. Conclusion from that: we're not a rich country at all, and most of us are "poor"!



that rings a bell with me too UE. I certainly seem to recall a few years ago something on the radio (so for me it HAS to have been R4!) that the JRF report highlighted that in terms of "day to day poverty" or somesuch indeed a large number of households fell below it.


Here - I just found this


https://www.jrf.org.uk/our-work/what-is-poverty

* JRF’s Minimum Income Standard (MIS) – MIS itself is not a measure of poverty, but is what the public has told us is sufficient income to afford a minimum acceptable standard of living

* relative income poverty, where households have less than 60% of contemporary median income

* absolute income poverty, where households have less than 60% of the median income in 2010/11, uprated by inflation

The UK median income for 2017 (ONS source online) was £27,300 pa. So relative poverty then is a household with < £16380 income pa. Over a 52 week year. That level diveided by 365.25 days (per day earning), multiplied by 7 (per week earning), divided by 37.5 (per working hour. is that a rweasonable stab at a working week?) gives an hourly rate of £8.37. NMW is £7.83 for those aged over 25.

So a household with a single earner (for example) won;t make the poverty line based on a 37.5 hour week. A 40 hour week would bring that required income down to £7.84 an hour - hey presto - the NMW.

So the NMW CAN support the very edge of the poverty line IF working a 40 hour week and the wage level is that of a 25 year old or older.

Of course many households may well support two earners to some level etc. Maybe. The single person however...

didds


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