Thread: Is poverty always bad? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.
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Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
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Here's an ironic quote from William Booth, Founder of The Salvation Army. I can't give the background, the context or the occasion but I just thought it interesting - especially in these days when the general opinion of many is that those on low incomes must be given a living wage in order for them to have what everyone else has.
quote:
While there is no doubt that extreme poverty is an evil...it is also evident that to be poor, when there is not actual want of the necessities of life, is not an unmixed evil."
An interesting thought.
Posted by StevHep (# 17198) on
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It's one of those for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so things. Anyone who has an overwhelming desire to have more possessions than they currently, have when that is sufficient for their needs, will be unhappier than one who is content with what they have. Poverty may teach somebody just how many mere things they can do without and so be a blessing. It rarely does have that effect however.
Poverty is only a positive good when it is voluntarily embraced out of love for God and neighbour. When society has enough abundance to relieve involuntary poverty but does not do so, chiefly in order to feed the greed of the few who appropriate great wealth for their exclusive personal use, then IMHO Christians have a moral obligation to work towards a fairer distribution of wealth.
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
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Depends on the terms and definitions being used.
I'd suggest that an income below the living wage (in the UK) is living in extreme poverty.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
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quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
Depends on the terms and definitions being used.
I'd suggest that an income below the living wage (in the UK) is living in extreme poverty.
extreme - the most poor you can be? Seriously?
What is wrong with having things you cannot afford?
Why is someone who can't afford non-essentials defined as extremely poor? It sounds like middle class patronising to me.
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
extreme - the most poor you can be? Seriously?
In our society, yes.
quote:
What is wrong with having things you cannot afford?
Why is someone who can't afford non-essentials defined as extremely poor? It sounds like middle class patronising to me.
Living below the living wage does not mean you go without a few things, but that you struggle to pay for the basics.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
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The difference between -
1) having a shower with warm water in a small flat with little money to spare at the end of the week
and
2)having a shower with warm water in a bathroom with gold taps in a huge mansion with oodles of money to spare at the end of the week
is tiny.
The difference between having no clean, available water and the above is HUGE.
I think I agree with Gen. Booth.
Posted by Firenze (# 619) on
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If you'd looked at my experience of poverty, it wouldn't have looked so bad; I had shelter, food and clothing. What made it uncomfortable was not things like the clothes being out of charity shops, or the food being the cheapest ingredients - it was the precariousness. The knowledge that any crisis - a bill for communal repairs say, or - as so many have found recently - a change in benefit rules, could tip you from having just enough to starting the slide, via debt, into losing that foothold from which you could hope to climb.
Impoverishment is not just material, but social: if you can't afford to out with friends, or entertain them in your home, or go to the match or the cinema. It's becoming steadily shabbier, more peripheral, less able to participate, more preoccupied with how to simply cope.
A secure poverty - a life chosen to live without much in the way of material goods - is one thing: an enforced poverty another.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
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When I was a kid, we were very poor, and basically, it was shit. My parents were insecure, living from hand to mouth, coming to the end of the week with hardly anything, struggling to pay the rent, no bathroom, no flush toilet. No thanks. Things got better, and we felt better.
Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
Depends on the terms and definitions being used.
I'd suggest that an income below the living wage (in the UK) is living in extreme poverty.
extreme - the most poor you can be? Seriously?
What is wrong with having things you cannot afford?
Why is someone who can't afford non-essentials defined as extremely poor? It sounds like middle class patronising to me.
I don't know why you assume only middle-class people would say that, plenty of working-class people would agree. I know you think that being left-wing means you're middle-class but that's just not true.
Not affording non-essentials means having no money to save, and that is a serious problem. It frequently means not eating enough (not just unhealthy food but just not enough food in total) because food is the first thing you spend less on when you have to choose between heating and eating. It means not doing as well at school/college/work because you are hungry and under-nourished, and getting ill from damp unheated housing. Poverty doesn't just mean not affording non-essentials, it literally takes years off one's life. That is surely something that Christians should oppose. Also, a living wage for all is a simple matter of fairness.
I suggest that Booth is doing the middle-class patronising here, and looking at poverty through rose-tinted spectacles. It is easy to romanticise poverty when you aren't living it. I have lived in poverty and it is horrendous. Nothing spiritually enriching about it, more like seriously spiritually draining.
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I suggest that Booth is doing the middle-class patronising here, and looking at poverty through rose-tinted spectacles. It is easy to romanticise poverty when you aren't living it. I have lived in poverty and it is horrendous. Nothing spiritually enriching about it, more like seriously spiritually draining.
Whilst I think you are right in a way, I also think you are being a bit unfair on Booth. It isn't obvious to me who Booth would describe as poor and extremely poor today.
I think there are some spiritual and societal benefits to being poor. I think wealth can often be a spiritual burden and corrodes the soul.
So I do think it depends on what the words here mean.
Posted by Majorminor (# 17967) on
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Mudfrog, what do you mean by 'ironic quote' from Booth? Do you mean that he was intending to be ironic? Surely we are called to tackle poverty in all its forms? Hence the colonies, etc, etc.
The people who use our food bank, whose numbers have doubled over the past year, see poverty as nothing but a grinding, humiliating awfulness.
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
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When there is plenty, why should there be poverty?
(btw, I'm not being ironic)
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on
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Poverty sucks. And yes, I've been poor, but I've never been impoverished.
The difference, it strikes me, is whether or not you're one bill away from disaster. When I was poor - shared, dingy accommodation, the cheapest food ingredients, no new clothes, no eating out, showering at work - I was still never in the position of being presented with a bill I couldn't pay, and thus have to make the decision as to whether I paid it, didn't eat, defaulted on my rent or walked everywhere for a month.
And there are plenty of people - plenty of parents - who face that, day in, day out. That's the kind of poverty that has no place in modern Britain, or for that matter, anywhere.
Posted by seekingsister (# 17707) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I suggest that Booth is doing the middle-class patronising here, and looking at poverty through rose-tinted spectacles. It is easy to romanticise poverty when you aren't living it. I have lived in poverty and it is horrendous. Nothing spiritually enriching about it, more like seriously spiritually draining.
William Booth, a middle-class patronizer? Really?
I have never lived in poverty, by the grace of God. But I have spent a lot of time working with the extreme poor of the world in African countries.
My observation is that one's experience of poverty is partially shaped by the experience of one's peers and neighbors. People who have the basics - enough food to eat (even if they have to grow it themselves) and shelter - tend not to behave as though poverty is demoralizing or miserable when their community is also poor.
But if you move those same people from their home village into the capital city, their experience of poverty changes. They see big buildings and nice cars and houses, and they start to feel that poverty is a really bad thing. Even if in many cases they are materially better off in the city than they were in the village.
In the West, the negative social and psychological impacts of poverty I believe are related to the presence of people who are not poor - on TV, in town, etc. You know how you could be living, so you feel worse about how you are living.
Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable
I suggest that Booth is doing the middle-class patronising here, and looking at poverty through rose-tinted spectacles. It is easy to romanticise poverty when you aren't living it. I have lived in poverty and it is horrendous. Nothing spiritually enriching about it, more like seriously spiritually draining.
I tend to agree with you, although I am not sure how true that is of William Booth.
Of course, as has been mentioned, we need to explain what we mean by 'poverty'. But, as has also been mentioned, poverty is not just about the basics of life, but about a constant struggle with the stress of anxiety. There is nothing noble about this, and those who lecture the poor about the need to "have faith" need to set an example by choosing poverty themselves , to show us all how it's done (and they must live with no hidden safety net - such as friends or relatives who can bail them out when the "faith experiment" all goes wrong).
I remember when I worked for a Christian publishing company and they published a book about how to overcome financial problems. This is just one of many Christian titles on this subject. After having looked at the manuscript, I remarked to the editor who commissioned the book that it seemed to be advice aimed at people who were already fairly well off. Surely authentic godly advice should be aimed at those who are in the greatest need, because, after all, if God's wisdom cannot help them, then it's pretty useless. I showed him an example in the book about a young couple who were forced to sell one of their two cars (oh dear! What a truly agonising decision!!). But what about people who have to sell their only vehicle, which they desperately need anyway, or what about those who can only dream about owning even an old banger?! I have to be honest and say that I generally regard books like that as just a load of crap. If "God's advice" doesn't work, well, they still have money to fall back on, and they can always spin a story to their fellow believers, that God is still blessing them, albeit 'pruning' them for his service etc etc... You know, the usual pious cant...
I am, however, somewhat loath to criticise a man who wrote the following words:
quote:
We talk about the brutalities of the dark ages, and we profess to shudder as we read in books of the shameful exaction of the rights of feudal superior. And yet here, beneath our very eyes, in our theatres, in our restaurants, and in many other places, unspeakable though it be but to name it, the same hideous abuse flourishes unchecked. A young penniless girl, if she be pretty, is often hunted from pillar to post by her employers, confronted always by the alternative—Starve or Sin. And when once the poor girl has consented to buy the right to earn her living by the sacrifice of her virtue, then she is treated as a slave and an outcast by the very men who have ruined her. Her word becomes unbelievable, her life an ignominy, and she is swept downward ever downward, into the bottomless perdition of prostitution. But there, even in the lowest depths, excommunicated by Humanity and outcast from God, she is far nearer the pitying heart of the One true Saviour than all the men who forced her down, aye, and than all the Pharisees and Scribes who stand silently by while these Fiendish wrongs are perpetrated before their very eyes.
The blood boils with impotent rage at the sight of these enormities, callously inflicted, and silently borne by these miserable victims.
From In Darkest England and the Way Out by General Booth.
I can't quite understand the contradiction between "outcast from God" and "she is far nearer the pitying heart of the One true Saviour". I can only assume that "outcast from God" is used in an ironic way ("God" being viewed here as "the religious establishment").
Posted by Erroneous Monk (# 10858) on
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If we believe what Jesus said about it being hard (how hard!) for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven then, yes, not to be rich must be a good thing.
The question is at what point does wealth become an obstacle to a relationship with Jesus (the point at which we go away sad if we're told we have to give something up, I guess)? And how much clear water is there between being in that position and being impoverished?
As far as I can see, there is a big difference between a secure but simple life (good) and the exigency that removes choice and dignity (bad).
[ 11. February 2014, 11:21: Message edited by: Erroneous Monk ]
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on
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I think Agur son of Jakeh nails it in Proverbs 30:7-9:
quote:
Two things I ask of you;
do not deny them to me before I die:
Remove far from me falsehood and lying;
give me neither poverty nor riches;
feed me with the food that I need,
or I shall be full, and deny you,
and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’
or I shall be poor, and steal,
and profane the name of my God.
A lot less popular than the prayer of Jabez for some reason...
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
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So much depends on the personalities involved. I know that I shall never be rich, because I'm one of those who would instantly put my trust in money-in-the-bank rather than in God. The temptation would be too much for me. I'm a hyper-anxious personality, and I would certainly take to comforting myself with the thought "Ah, well, we have the money to handle it" (whatever "it" is), rather than automatically turning to God.
I think most people are not like this. They may be able to safely handle what I can't.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
I can't give the background, the context or the occasion but I just thought it interesting - especially in these days when the general opinion of many is that those on low incomes must be given a living wage in order for them to have what everyone else has.
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
What is wrong with having things you cannot afford?
Why is someone who can't afford non-essentials defined as extremely poor?
Given that a "living wage" is, by definition, the smallest amount of money required to pay for all basic necessities you're not arguing about "non-essentials". You're claiming that it's okay (or possibly even beneficial) for people to not be able to afford what your Booth quote calls "the necessities of life".
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
I can't give the background, the context or the occasion but I just thought it interesting - especially in these days when the general opinion of many is that those on low incomes must be given a living wage in order for them to have what everyone else has.
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
What is wrong with having things you cannot afford?
Why is someone who can't afford non-essentials defined as extremely poor?
Given that a "living wage" is, by definition, the smallest amount of money required to pay for all basic necessities you're not arguing about "non-essentials". You're claiming that it's okay (or possibly even beneficial) for people to not be able to afford what your Booth quote calls "the necessities of life".
Yes.
While it's impossible to know what Booth intended w/o the the "background, the context or the occasion" Mudfrog explicitly leaves out, my guess is that Booth is talking about the spiritual discipline of "simplicity"-- eschewing rampant consumerism and being unencumbered by debt, excessive possessions, etc. I think there is some real truth to the notion that there is great joy in that life. What Booth clearly is NOT talking about-- both from the quote itself and from the evidence of the work Booth did-- is the anxious poverty others have described here, where there is food uncertainty, lack of shelter, etc.
There are a lot of problems with the OP, but perhaps the greatest one is Mudfrog's assumption that the goal of ensuring a living wage is "for them to have what everyone else has" rather than the desire to give everyone "the necessities of life"-- a goal Booth obviously endorsed.
[ 11. February 2014, 14:07: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
The question is at what point does wealth become an obstacle
At the point where what I have is deemed more important than what you need.
Yes, I clipped Jesus out of the quote. This is encompasses more than Christians.
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Given that a "living wage" is, by definition, the smallest amount of money required to pay for all basic necessities you're not arguing about "non-essentials". You're claiming that it's okay (or possibly even beneficial) for people to not be able to afford what your Booth quote calls "the necessities of life".
Mudfrog, I'd be interested to know whether or not you approve of Newcastle City Council's decision to raise all of its minimum wage workers to the living wage, and whether or not you think that paying a living wage, which leads to "easier recruitment and retention of staff, better attendance and reduced sickness absence, better productivity, motivation and loyalty, better quality of service for customers" a general good, or morally neutral?
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
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It seems to me that until you have an agreed measure of what one expects everyone to have, it is not really possible to decide the point at which poverty is really grinding, absolute, poverty.
Obviously everyone in the UK has access to free healthcare and school education, clean water and proper sanitation - so in some sense we're all 'rich' compared to a majority of the population of the planet.
We also have a safety net which is (supposed to) prevent people from experiencing the kinds of slum conditions that Booth campaigned against. Again, on a world scale that makes everyone rich.
On the other side, though, our lifestyles involve certain costs that others may not have. In short, we have bills to pay, our food costs are far higher than others have and so on.
Having been on, and observed others on, the minimum wage, I do not believe that it is enough to support an individual living alone in a stable lifestyle - even if he/she economises.* It is possible, but with all the goodwill in the world, it is a perilous existence and liable to tip even the most organised person into a downward spiral. For many who lead chaotic and unorganised lifestyles, I believe the minimum wage is a killer. Of course their situation can be improved with support and education, but the simple reality is that even with such things, the minimum wage is not enough.
I support the living wage, not because it allows people to have Sky TV, to keep up their drug or drink habits or whatnot, but because I'm not prepared to live in a country where some people have to worry how to feed themselves and put school-shoes on their children.
*I accept that the Salvation Army and others pay wages which might well approximate the minimum wage, but at the very least SA officers get a large amount of support to enable them to live like this.
Posted by deano (# 12063) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Given that a "living wage" is, by definition, the smallest amount of money required to pay for all basic necessities you're not arguing about "non-essentials". You're claiming that it's okay (or possibly even beneficial) for people to not be able to afford what your Booth quote calls "the necessities of life".
Mudfrog, I'd be interested to know whether or not you approve of Newcastle City Council's decision to raise all of its minimum wage workers to the living wage, and whether or not you think that paying a living wage, which leads to "easier recruitment and retention of staff, better attendance and reduced sickness absence, better productivity, motivation and loyalty, better quality of service for customers" a general good, or morally neutral?
And what do you think about Newcastle City Council when they have only made that decision now when the economy is picking up and those workers will be able to find higher paid jobs?
Why didn't they do that in the middle of the recession? Because they didn't need to to retain staff.
Take the blinkers off - the council is paying the market rate to it's staff, but now they need to pay more to keep them. They are the same as any other employer.
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on
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quote:
Originally posted by deano:
And what do you think about Newcastle City Council when they have only made that decision now when the economy is picking up and those workers will be able to find higher paid jobs?
Economy picking up? Newcastle? ![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
You need to get out more.
Posted by deano (# 12063) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
And what do you think about Newcastle City Council when they have only made that decision now when the economy is picking up and those workers will be able to find higher paid jobs?
Economy picking up? Newcastle?
You need to get out more.
Yes. On trains and things. I believe they run to Newcastle... and out of it again.
Perhaps you are too localised in your thinking Doc, and don't realise that there are jobs outside of Newcastle.
Perhaps the council realises that their employees might decide to "get out more" if there are higher paying jobs out beyond Newcastle.
Posted by Angloid (# 159) on
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They might find it difficult to get in and out of Newcastle, since the government subsidises transport projects in the northeast to the tune of only £5 a head compared to over £2000 (yes, two thousand) per head in London.
Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on
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It's pretty cheap with an advanced purchase ticket on the nationalised railway line that runs to Newcastle. Quite a lot more if you pay on the day, though.
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on
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quote:
Originally posted by deano:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
And what do you think about Newcastle City Council when they have only made that decision now when the economy is picking up and those workers will be able to find higher paid jobs?
Economy picking up? Newcastle?
You need to get out more.
Yes. On trains and things. I believe they run to Newcastle... and out of it again.
Perhaps you are too localised in your thinking Doc, and don't realise that there are jobs outside of Newcastle.
Perhaps the council realises that their employees might decide to "get out more" if there are higher paying jobs out beyond Newcastle.
Okay, so I've completely holed your argument below the waterline, and this is the best you can come up with?
The North East has the highest regional unemployment in England, coupled with pretty much the lowest average house prices. Newcastle City Council didn't have to pay their workers the Living Wage, but did anyway because they thought it the right thing to do - nothing to do with retention of workers, because there are many more applicants per job than there are jobs.
C'mon Deano. Engage with the actual topic.
Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on
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quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I suggest that Booth is doing the middle-class patronising here, and looking at poverty through rose-tinted spectacles. It is easy to romanticise poverty when you aren't living it. I have lived in poverty and it is horrendous. Nothing spiritually enriching about it, more like seriously spiritually draining.
William Booth, a middle-class patronizer? Really?
I have never lived in poverty, by the grace of God. But I have spent a lot of time working with the extreme poor of the world in African countries.
My observation is that one's experience of poverty is partially shaped by the experience of one's peers and neighbors. People who have the basics - enough food to eat (even if they have to grow it themselves) and shelter - tend not to behave as though poverty is demoralizing or miserable when their community is also poor.
But if you move those same people from their home village into the capital city, their experience of poverty changes. They see big buildings and nice cars and houses, and they start to feel that poverty is a really bad thing. Even if in many cases they are materially better off in the city than they were in the village.
In the West, the negative social and psychological impacts of poverty I believe are related to the presence of people who are not poor - on TV, in town, etc. You know how you could be living, so you feel worse about how you are living.
Erm, no, the negative side effects of my poverty was not being able to heat my home and getting ill from the cold, and not having enough to eat.
Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I suggest that Booth is doing the middle-class patronising here, and looking at poverty through rose-tinted spectacles. It is easy to romanticise poverty when you aren't living it. I have lived in poverty and it is horrendous. Nothing spiritually enriching about it, more like seriously spiritually draining.
Whilst I think you are right in a way, I also think you are being a bit unfair on Booth. It isn't obvious to me who Booth would describe as poor and extremely poor today.
I think there are some spiritual and societal benefits to being poor. I think wealth can often be a spiritual burden and corrodes the soul.
So I do think it depends on what the words here mean.
Please explain how dying from cold because you are too poor to afford heating gives one spiritual benefits.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Please explain how dying from cold because you are too poor to afford heating gives one spiritual benefits.
Gets you to Heaven faster? Assuming that's your ultimate destination, of course. If not, at least you'll be warm again! ![[Devil]](graemlins/devil.gif)
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
It's pretty cheap with an advanced purchase ticket on the nationalised railway line that runs to Newcastle. Quite a lot more if you pay on the day, though.
If you've been paying attention to the thread, you'll have noticed that the difference between a minimum wage and a living wage is that on a minimum wage you cannot afford to advance purchase anything.
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on
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As ilustrated by Dafyd, the primary moral benefit to poverty is that , when you do get to a place that is comfortable, you at least have the experience to answer questions like that. And when you are on paycheck away from homelessness, you tend to be more inclined to look that homeless guy in the eye and give him a nod.
One thing that blew me away on mission trips to Mexico was how people in plywood houses scraped it together when someone's house burned down, or when visitors came. Even if the lady of the house had to go out in the yard and cut open an agave and smear the innards on a stale tortilla, visitors always got a snack when they visited a shack on the hills of Ensenada. That's the kind if attitude that comes from knowing you're probably next to be hit with something down the line.
Conversely, people who have never really "been there" can have striking tunnel vision. For instance:Preschool teachers have been living below the poverty level in the US since the 80's. It may be the only field in which you can get a degree and still be making minimum wage. The assumption seems to be that the field is dominated by married women or women who are going to be married.Even by people in it.
I had a director once-- well-married, decent director's salary-- who responded to a comment I made about suffering "baby blues" and regretting that time was running out by saying, "Oh, you could always adopt. Or go for artificial insemination."
To which i replied, "You're the one who signs my paychecks, do you really think I could do that?" (No to mention they could only afford to keep me half time, and I was uninsured.)
In other words, one benefit to me being stinking poor is that, if I ever become a director, you will never catch me making a dumb remark like that. And my teachers would get a living wage, if it killed me.
[ 12. February 2014, 00:22: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
Posted by dv (# 15714) on
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Anyone ever heard a sermon on
2 Thessalonians 3:10 ?
Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by dv:
Anyone ever heard a sermon on
2 Thessalonians 3:10 ?
Sure. It's about folks who are so worked up about the eschaton that they neglect the work of caring for the least among themselves.
Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on
:
Observations of poverty from the outside are one thing, experience of it is another entirely.
If:
-there is not enough to eat and maybe you don't for 4 days in a row,
-you must walk everywhere you go,
-you must turn down the heat at night because you can't afford it,
-you wear all the clothes you own because you're cold otherwise when you walk outside,
-if you go into fast food restaurants to steal ketchup, sugar and salt to make sandwiches out of when you have bread or just eat the packets when you don't have bread,
-when you go dumpster diving to find things people have half eaten.... I could go on and on. It's terrible and unimaginable.
They call it grinding. I call it terrible. And then you see the people even worse off than you, and they are having sex with strangers to, they hope, get $20 a throw, getting beaten and ripped off other times. Shivering in the cold, smoking the baccy from discarded butts. Many of them needing mental health care, basic education and simply some warmth, both human and practical.
So yes, poverty is bad. And people who say it isn't, well, I don't know what to think, except what they think is poverty isn't. The children particularly don't seem to experience what Mr. Booth considered unmixed.
[ 12. February 2014, 01:44: Message edited by: no prophet ]
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
So yes, poverty is bad. And people who say it isn't, well, I don't know what to think, except what they think is poverty isn't. The children particularly don't seem to experience what Mr. Booth considered unmixed.
Mr Booth was talking about a situation in which "there is not actual want of the necessities of life". I assume he means being able to feed oneself, heat one's house, and clothe one's children. This being Victorian England, I would guess, out of context, that what Booth means by 'poor' as opposed to 'extreme poverty' would be something like 'unable to pay a servant'.
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Mr Booth was talking about a situation in which "there is not actual want of the necessities of life". I assume he means being able to feed oneself, heat one's house, and clothe one's children. This being Victorian England, I would guess, out of context, that what Booth means by 'poor' as opposed to 'extreme poverty' would be something like 'unable to pay a servant'.
Having read biographies of Booth, I think that is highly unlikely.
There were obviously various degrees of poverty in Victorian England, I doubt very much that anyone who employed servants (at all) would be considered by Booth to be poor.
There was a pecular use of imprecise language at the time - referring to the 'worthy' and the 'unworthy' poor, the latter being widely held to be ferral/sub-human/criminal/incapable of anything good. It is striking that Booth broke through these popular divisions by insisting that the poor had some dignity and that people were not (necessarily) prostitutes because they were low and disgusting scum who deserved nothing better, but because they'd been crushed down by circumstance.
I suspect that Booth was referring to the poor as people above the 'criminal' classes who had regular employment, aspirations, perhaps a career and prospects but remained in what everyone else might consider 'substandard' housing (given that housing at the time was a measure of wealth and position in society).
Such people would still be offensive to the wealthy middle classes who would not sully themselves with interactions with these people who are considered below them. I think Booth is asserting that honourable, uptight and higher-status people would do well to experience a little more poverty in their lives.
Incidentally, I read a very interesting book about a particular slum in London a while ago, and it turned out that several Lords in Parliament who were keenest to clear the slum (to remove undesirable and criminal elements) turned out to be the very same slum-landlords whose extortion kept people in grinding poverty. It was all a scam designed to offer compensation to the rich for exploiting the poor.
Posted by seekingsister (# 17707) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Erm, no, the negative side effects of my poverty was not being able to heat my home and getting ill from the cold, and not having enough to eat.
My point was very clearly about having your basic needs met but feeling worse about poverty when others around you have more.
That has nothing to do with freezing to death or starving.
I was addressing the psychological impact of poverty when living in a poor community compared to living in a mixed community. If you wish to respond please address that specifically.
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
Charles Booth's interesting economic maps of London show 5 different levels of poverty in the mid 19 century.
I don't think these Booths were related.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
My point was very clearly about having your basic needs met but feeling worse about poverty when others around you have more.
That was indeed your point, but it's not one that many anti-poverty campaigners like to tackle directly. Even on threads like this, where the assumption that basic necessities such as heat and food are available and affordable is in the OP and has been repeated several times, the talk inevitably goes back to people starving or freezing to death.
The question implicit in the OP of this thread is about how much society/government should provide to the poor beyond the basic necessities. I think that is a very interesting question, and one worthy of discussion. I also predict that within a handful of posts we'll be back to talking about people starving or freezing to death...
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
That was indeed your point, but it's not one that many anti-poverty campaigners like to tackle directly. Even on threads like this, where the assumption that basic necessities such as heat and food are available and affordable is in the OP and has been repeated several times, the talk inevitably goes back to people starving or freezing to death.
I'm not sure that is inevitable. And I'm not sure that I agree that heat and food are available easily to someone supporting themselves on minimum wage. Possibly not enough in itself to kill an individual, but certainly a major factor in the unpleasantness of poverty that often leads to death.
quote:
The question implicit in the OP of this thread is about how much society/government should provide to the poor beyond the basic necessities. I think that is a very interesting question, and one worthy of discussion. I also predict that within a handful of posts we'll be back to talking about people starving or freezing to death...
No, the question is fundamentally what are considered to be bare necessities - given that we are rich on world standards with access to free healthcare, schooling etc.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
Oh dear, I've probably left it too long to resond and I shan't answer the points that have been raised.
My comment about General Booth's opinion that not all poverty is an unmixed evil, is irony was due to the fact that he worked so much for and with those who suffered the types of poverty that the Nineteenth Century world was subject to...
As far as the living wage is concerned, I don't support it; not because I don't believe that people should have enough to live on, but because I don't believe that it is the state's job to ensure, as the living wage proposes, that people can afford 32" televisions and a holiday in a holiday cottage in the country.
It is the state's job to create a thriving economy, to keep law and order, maintain health, education, defence, etc, etc, etc so that in a prosperous economy people can work for a living. It is the task of the state also to protect those who cannot work with emergency basic relief.
I was a teenage in the 1970s and we were, by the government's standards, 'poor'. I remember Christmases when our presents were all provided by the grandparents; I remember being given an evidently second hand bike for my birthday - having been told in advance it was in fact going to be such, I remember walking to my public school (yes I had a privileged education via a direct grant scheme) in the rain without a coat because we couldn't afford one. I remember not being able to afford to join the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme ... I had free school meals.
Oh, I could go on.
Were we 'poor'? Well we never went without food, we never were cold (apart from the fact there was no central heating in the house - but that was quite normal even for richer people at the time). We had a television (black and white) and a telephone. We had no car.
I went to the pictures occasionally, went swimming a lot, had richer friends, did loads of stuff that kids did together
We didn't have family holidays and the only time my sister and me went away was Sunday School camp.
So were we 'poor'?
NO. Not really - there were things we could not afford; and that, I think is the problem.
We now have such a consumerist, materialistic society, that the middle classes feel guilty if the poorer people can't afford to do the things they themselves enjoy. Oh, the poor dears can't afford to dine out at posh restaurants, let's raise their wages artificially so they can come and sit with us!
Fine. I can't afford to go to posh restaurants on Newcastle's quayside even now - the Toby Carvery at £5.99 is an expensive meal out for us! But I don't winge and say I need a higher wage so I can go to eat at Hester Blumenthal!!
There is a difference between poverty (cold, hungry and naked) and being on a low wage where luxuries are few.
The problem is that they say that poverty is not a state of being unable to feed your kids, poverty is the state of saying to your kids, 'sorry we can't afford that'.
My view is that there is no shame and no degradation in living on a low wage. Just because you can't afford everything you want does not make you poor.
Talk to most people my age and above and they'll all tell you the same.
Oh, and another thing.
One of Booth's remedies for poverty was to get people off the drink.
A lot of poverty is caused by bad and selfish spending choices.
My advice to some people would be this:
Stop smoking (£50 a week for a 20 a day habit) and feed your kids!!
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
I'm not sure you should rant like this based solely on your own experiences, Mudfrog.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
quote:
The question implicit in the OP of this thread is about how much society/government should provide to the poor beyond the basic necessities. I think that is a very interesting question, and one worthy of discussion. I also predict that within a handful of posts we'll be back to talking about people starving or freezing to death...
No, the question is fundamentally what are considered to be bare necessities - given that we are rich on world standards with access to free healthcare, schooling etc.
Yes, that too. Some of the things that are considered basic necessities these days would have been seen as extravagant luxuries a few centuries ago.
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
As far as the living wage is concerned, I don't support it; not because I don't believe that people should have enough to live on, but because I don't believe that it is the state's job to ensure, as the living wage proposes, that people can afford 32" televisions and a holiday in a holiday cottage in the country.
Frankly, I'm ashamed to share a conurbation with you.
£7.65 an hour for a 45 hour week works out at a shade under £18k a year. It's enough to live on. It's enough to put something aside to cover when the washing machine blows up. It's enough, God forbid, for a week's holiday self-catering with the family.
We keep on being told that work should pay. And here it is, paying. At £18k a year, wages are still being subsidised by taxes, but it's just about okay. It's enough to give people some dignity.
Whereas you, apparently, want to keep people earning poverty wages and see them sick, worried, and continually battling the system in order to survive. Is that really what the Salvation Army stands for these days?
Posted by seekingsister (# 17707) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Whereas you, apparently, want to keep people earning poverty wages and see them sick, worried, and continually battling the system in order to survive.
Well the living wage campaigners aren't helping themselves by publishing stuff like this on their website:
quote:
Lacey Green, said: “This has made a big difference to me and my 5 year old son Tyler. I can now send Tyler to karate and football after school. We couldn’t afford to do that before.”
Living Wage Foundation
Meanwhile I know middle class families who have to limit their children's activities to one sport each because of cost.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Mr Booth was talking about a situation in which "there is not actual want of the necessities of life". I assume he means being able to feed oneself, heat one's house, and clothe one's children. This being Victorian England, I would guess, out of context, that what Booth means by 'poor' as opposed to 'extreme poverty' would be something like 'unable to pay a servant'.
Having read biographies of Booth, I think that is highly unlikely.
There were obviously various degrees of poverty in Victorian England, I doubt very much that anyone who employed servants (at all) would be considered by Booth to be poor.
Perhaps I should have punctuated more clearly. I wasn't saying he considered people who employed servants to be poor. Rather the reverse: being able to employ a servant meant you're not poor. But I would suppose that there's a range of income levels between people who can afford servants and people who had to routinely worry where their next meal was coming from.
Posted by Jane R (# 331) on
:
Marvin: quote:
Some of the things that are considered basic necessities these days would have been seen as extravagant luxuries a few centuries ago.
Many of the things considered necessities nowadays did not exist a few centuries ago. Take computers, for example; it is still just about possible to get by without a computer at the moment, but with the advent of Internet banking and "e-government" it is becoming increasingly difficult. A lot of employers expect you to submit job applications by email, so if you're unemployed and looking for a job you need access to a computer and the Internet. Online banking is cheaper than traditional banking. Many self-employed tradespeople are asking for payment by bank transfer and refusing to accept cheques, because their banks make a charge for processing them. Schools expect children to do homework online.
Thirty years ago hardly anyone had a home computer and those who did were regarded as geeks. I remember watching a TV programme about home computers as a teenager and wondering why anyone would want such a thing.
[ 12. February 2014, 11:29: Message edited by: Jane R ]
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
I'm sorry, you sounded there like you were saying that someone who has enough money to chose how to spend it is somehow too wealthy - on the basis that they are able to choose to spend it in a way that even more wealthy people cannot or would not spend it.
Posted by seekingsister (# 17707) on
:
I wanted to add - I think that as a society and especially as Christians, we should help the poor.
I do think, however, that the definition of "basic needs" being used by many anti-poverty campaigns in this country is overly generous.
And going back to my point about the psychology of poverty - I do not think people who feel unhappy about their financial situation because they observe others doing much better than them, will be helped in any way by having slightly more money through a living wage. They will still want the big TV, a pet or two, enough money for booze and cigarettes, a holiday, etc. Because it's unfortunately human nature. Even well-off people go into debt they don't need to because they want to have as nice a car or house as their friends do.
I do not want the government passing policies to address these feelings of inadequacy that are related solely to material wants, not needs. But I get the feeling some people think that's totally acceptable.
Posted by Jane R (# 331) on
:
seekingsister: quote:
Meanwhile I know middle class families who have to limit their children's activities to one sport each because of cost.
Yes, but are you sure you're comparing like with like here?
My daughter is attending a martial arts class at school this term which is being provided free of charge - or at least, free to the children. If this kid's karate and football lessons are after-school clubs then they probably aren't very expensive; certainly nowhere near as expensive as riding or ballet or swimming lessons.
I know working-class families who can't afford to pay for school trips, never mind extracurricular activities.
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Whereas you, apparently, want to keep people earning poverty wages and see them sick, worried, and continually battling the system in order to survive.
Well the living wage campaigners aren't helping themselves by publishing stuff like this on their website:
quote:
Lacey Green, said: “This has made a big difference to me and my 5 year old son Tyler. I can now send Tyler to karate and football after school. We couldn’t afford to do that before.”
Living Wage Foundation
Meanwhile I know middle class families who have to limit their children's activities to one sport each because of cost.
Lacey Green's quote is one of many, including one from Boris Johnson praising the concept of the Living Wage and others from employers, such as KPMG and Barclays, those well-known paternalists, pointing out the advantages of it. Rather like the proponents of manual labour, those who seek to minimise the undesirability and extent of poverty seem to be those who aren't on the receiving end.
As for those who were poor as children - you may have been happy but how content were your parents? Did their trust in God sustain them or was there a safety net beyond the welfare state to help?
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Whereas you, apparently, want to keep people earning poverty wages and see them sick, worried, and continually battling the system in order to survive.
Well the living wage campaigners aren't helping themselves by publishing stuff like this on their website:
quote:
Lacey Green, said: “This has made a big difference to me and my 5 year old son Tyler. I can now send Tyler to karate and football after school. We couldn’t afford to do that before.”
Living Wage Foundation
Meanwhile I know middle class families who have to limit their children's activities to one sport each because of cost.
My son's judo lessons are £3 a week. Are you seriously suggesting that someone paying £3 a week out of their meagre wages for their child to attend an after-school sports club is a bad advert for the Living Wage?
Fuck me, I'm on the verge of saying ITTWACW...
Posted by seekingsister (# 17707) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
My son's judo lessons are £3 a week. Are you seriously suggesting that someone paying £3 a week out of their meagre wages for their child to attend an after-school sports club is a bad advert for the Living Wage?
Fuck me, I'm on the verge of saying ITTWACW...
I'm saying, again, that the way living wage is being described by its campaigners does not to me mean "wage I require to live (i.e. eat, sleep, clothe myself)." It means "wage I require to have a good quality of life as defined by comparison to wider society."
The latter is a moving target and that's my problem with it. It's based on what other people get to do, like judo and karate. Not on what anyone NEEDS.
[ 12. February 2014, 12:34: Message edited by: seekingsister ]
Posted by Jane R (# 331) on
:
What everyone NEEDS to maintain a good quality of life varies from person to person.
I don't NEED cigarettes, because I have never smoked. I don't buy much alcohol either. But if I had no money to buy books I would consider myself seriously deprived, because reading is one of my main pleasures and the library does not stock everything that I want to read.
And that's the point for some people, isn't it. Poor people shouldn't be allowed to spend money on having fun. Their children should not be allowed any fun either; it's their own fault for being born into a poor family.
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
My son's judo lessons are £3 a week. Are you seriously suggesting that someone paying £3 a week out of their meagre wages for their child to attend an after-school sports club is a bad advert for the Living Wage?
Fuck me, I'm on the verge of saying ITTWACW...
I'm saying, again, that the way living wage is being described by its campaigners does not to me mean "wage I require to live (i.e. eat, sleep, clothe myself)." It means "wage I require to have a good quality of life as defined by comparison to wider society."
The latter is a moving target and that's my problem with it. It's based on what other people get to do, like judo and karate. Not on what anyone NEEDS.
I think you're confusing the state of "existing" with that of "living". The minimum wage is barely, and sometimes not then, enough to exist on. A living wage is set at a value to provide people with at least the possibility of having some control over their lives - something that richer people simply take for granted.
If you have a problem with giving working people a measure of dignity in their labour, then I genuinely don't know what else I can say to you here.
Posted by seekingsister (# 17707) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
I don't NEED cigarettes, because I have never smoked. I don't buy much alcohol either. But if I had no money to buy books I would consider myself seriously deprived, because reading is one of my main pleasures and the library does not stock everything that I want to read.
And that's the point for some people, isn't it. Poor people shouldn't be allowed to spend money on having fun. Their children should not be allowed any fun either; it's their own fault for being born into a poor family.
And it is a bad feeling to not be able to afford something that you enjoy. But is it something that needs to be addressed through policy? Is it inherently wrong (going back to the Booth quote) for there to be a society in which some people just can't afford all of the things that they want?
Posted by Jane R (# 331) on
:
If the argument about allowing people some dignity won't sway you, perhaps this might.
It is generally accepted that children from poor backgrounds tend to do less well in education. This guy is doing some research to try and find out whether giving their families more money will help.
However, it is also fairly well established that some things that are not part of the core school curriculum help cognitive development. Learning a musical instrument, for example - many if not most poor families can't afford the tuition fees and instrument hire.
Think of all the talent we're wasting by not giving poor children access to after-school activities.
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
Not being in absolute poverty means that you have enough money to choose how to spend it.
At a very basic level, that appears to be the point of a living wage. Which I totally support.
Posted by Jane R (# 331) on
:
seekingsister: quote:
Is it inherently wrong (going back to the Booth quote) for there to be a society in which some people just can't afford all of the things that they want?
Did I say that? I want a grand piano, but I can't afford it - and I have a digital piano that does well enough. What you seem to be saying is that poor people shouldn't be able to afford ANYTHING that they want unless they can prove to a committee of Daily Mail readers that they will die without it.
[ 12. February 2014, 13:16: Message edited by: Jane R ]
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
What everyone NEEDS to maintain a good quality of life varies from person to person.
I don't NEED cigarettes, because I have never smoked. I don't buy much alcohol either. But if I had no money to buy books I would consider myself seriously deprived, because reading is one of my main pleasures and the library does not stock everything that I want to read.
And that's the point for some people, isn't it. Poor people shouldn't be allowed to spend money on having fun. Their children should not be allowed any fun either; it's their own fault for being born into a poor family.
Be very careful when using this argument, because it hits both ways. If you're allowed to say you need books then am I allowed to say I need at least one overseas holiday a year? Is someone considerably richer than us allowed to say they need a yacht?
Where does the need to have "fun things" (as opposed to real necessities) stop being something the state should guarantee? Who gets to make that decision?
Posted by Jane R (# 331) on
:
Well, that's a good question Marvin. But if you think you need an overseas holiday every year, I would expect you to have some sympathy for people who can't afford a weekend's camping in Bognor.
Posted by seekingsister (# 17707) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
If the argument about allowing people some dignity won't sway you, perhaps this might.
It is generally accepted that children from poor backgrounds tend to do less well in education. This guy is doing some research to try and find out whether giving their families more money will help.
I totally agree with this - it's obvious that poverty affects children's educational achievement.
However I would like to know how in your mind paying a slightly higher minimum wage - a level at which families would still have to rely on benefits - will make these children significantly improve in school. As a start, it requires believing that families will spend the additional income in a responsible way.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
And going back to my point about the psychology of poverty - I do not think people who feel unhappy about their financial situation because they observe others doing much better than them, will be helped in any way by having slightly more money through a living wage. They will still want the big TV, a pet or two, enough money for booze and cigarettes, a holiday, etc. Because it's unfortunately human nature. Even well-off people go into debt they don't need to because they want to have as nice a car or house as their friends do.
You don't think that people who are working, giving over most of their waking hours, most days, through their most vigorous years, have earned at least that? Because I do.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
If the argument about allowing people some dignity won't sway you, perhaps this might.
It is generally accepted that children from poor backgrounds tend to do less well in education. This guy is doing some research to try and find out whether giving their families more money will help.
I totally agree with this - it's obvious that poverty affects children's educational achievement.
However I would like to know how in your mind paying a slightly higher minimum wage - a level at which families would still have to rely on benefits - will make these children significantly improve in school. As a start, it requires believing that families will spend the additional income in a responsible way.
Of course, they'll all spend it all on booze, fags and scratchcards, don't they? Have you been reading the Daily Heil and thinking it's real?
Posted by seekingsister (# 17707) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
Did I say that? I want a grand piano, but I can't afford it - and I have a digital piano that does well enough. What you seem to be saying is that poor people shouldn't be able to afford ANYTHING that they want unless they can prove to a committee of Daily Mail readers that they will die without it.
:sigh:
We are discussing the topic raised in the original post, are we not?
Which is: should society provide beyond what people need to live, is it a moral imperative, yes or no.
By saying no, I am not saying poor people should starve and suffer and die and never have fun.
My work happens to be around private sector approaches to poverty reduction - so I speak from a particular perspective that perhaps rubs you the wrong way. But it's not an uninformed one and it's not even remotely as emotional and hyperbolic as yours.
Posted by Jane R (# 331) on
:
So why were you criticising that woman for spending her extra income on after-school clubs for her son, then?
It will be interesting to see the result of this research project. I think the rationale behind it is that even if some parents choose to spend the money on themselves rather than on extra things for their children, they won't be so badly stressed as people on lower incomes and will be better parents as a result.
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
As a start, it requires believing that families will spend the additional income in a responsible way.
Why does it? Why do the poor have more responsibility to spend their money in a certain defined way (money which the living wage implies is earned as a wage) when the rich have no obligations to do the same.
If this was a benefit, you might have a point. But claiming that people shouldn't be paid more because they might not spend it in sensible ways is.. bizarre.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
Well, that's a good question Marvin. But if you think you need an overseas holiday every year, I would expect you to have some sympathy for people who can't afford a weekend's camping in Bognor.
I do have sympathy for them, assuming that an annual holiday is something they have on their personal list of "needs". Just as I can sympathise with your desire to own a grand piano. But in neither case am I obliged to provide for those needs in any way, any more than my desire for an overseas holiday obliges you to help me pay for it.
Posted by seekingsister (# 17707) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Of course, they'll all spend it all on booze, fags and scratchcards, don't they? Have you been reading the Daily Heil and thinking it's real?
The money could easily, for example, go back to an immigrant family's home country as a remittance, which would not benefit the children in the UK in the slightest.
I don't even click on links to the Daily Mail let alone read the articles. Nice try though.
Posted by seekingsister (# 17707) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
As a start, it requires believing that families will spend the additional income in a responsible way.
Why does it? Why do the poor have more responsibility to spend their money in a certain defined way (money which the living wage implies is earned as a wage) when the rich have no obligations to do the same.
If this was a benefit, you might have a point. But claiming that people shouldn't be paid more because they might not spend it in sensible ways is.. bizarre.
This is a response to Jane's point that children in poor families do worse in school.
You would have to make the case that the additional income is used in a way that reduces poverty in the household and therefore will improve the children's performance in school.
I do not in general think a living wage has anything to do with responsible spending.
Thanks.
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Of course, they'll all spend it all on booze, fags and scratchcards, don't they? Have you been reading the Daily Heil and thinking it's real?
The money could easily, for example, go back to an immigrant family's home country as a remittance, which would not benefit the children in the UK in the slightest.
I don't even click on links to the Daily Mail let alone read the articles. Nice try though.
You might not read the Daily Mail, but that's a lot like something one might read in the Mail. Was it deliberately inflammatory?
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Of course, they'll all spend it all on booze, fags and scratchcards, don't they? Have you been reading the Daily Heil and thinking it's real?
The money could easily, for example, go back to an immigrant family's home country as a remittance, which would not benefit the children in the UK in the slightest.
Or it could go to pay for a valuable extra-curricular activity for the child - but I forget, you don't approve of that either.
quote:
I don't even click on links to the Daily Mail let alone read the articles. Nice try though.
You don't need to. You're already echoing their line.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
As a start, it requires believing that families will spend the additional income in a responsible way.
Why does it? Why do the poor have more responsibility to spend their money in a certain defined way (money which the living wage implies is earned as a wage) when the rich have no obligations to do the same.
If this was a benefit, you might have a point. But claiming that people shouldn't be paid more because they might not spend it in sensible ways is.. bizarre.
This is a response to Jane's point that children in poor families do worse in school.
You would have to make the case that the additional income is used in a way that reduces poverty in the household and therefore will improve the children's performance in school.
I do not in general think a living wage has anything to do with responsible spending.
Thanks.
Translation - Keep the buggers poor; you can't trust them with their own money.
Funnily enough, that's a really good argument for extremely high taxes on the well off. What makes you think they know how to spend their money either?
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
Well, that's a good question Marvin. But if you think you need an overseas holiday every year, I would expect you to have some sympathy for people who can't afford a weekend's camping in Bognor.
I do have sympathy for them, assuming that an annual holiday is something they have on their personal list of "needs". Just as I can sympathise with your desire to own a grand piano. But in neither case am I obliged to provide for those needs in any way, any more than my desire for an overseas holiday obliges you to help me pay for it.
We're talking about the living wage at the moment, so you're not being asked to pay for it. Their employer is, which seems reasonable given that as I said earlier he takes most of the waking time, most days of the week, most weeks of the year.
Posted by seekingsister (# 17707) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
You might not read the Daily Mail, but that's a lot like something one might read in the Mail. Was it deliberately inflammatory?
No, but if someone is going to claim that increasing hourly wages by £1-2/hr is going to improve children's performance in school, I'm going to respond by addressing the rather obvious point that:
A) the families will still be poor on that wage level
B) the additional income has to be spent on something that benefits the household, in order for it to improve the household's material well-being
There was actually a radio program on NPR I heard not long ago - will search to find it - that said a lottery given to a poor community in the US South in the 20th century had no impact at all on the educational or career outcomes of the children of those families. Who knows that the parents spent it on but the children didn't get more education, or better quality education, and the next generation was largely unchanged from the first.
Here it is: Fighting Poverty with Actual Evidence
quote:
Here’s Hoyt Bleakley, one of the economists who studied the Georgia land lottery:
Hoyt BLEAKLEY: We see a really huge change in the wealth of the individuals, but we don’t see any difference in human capital. We don’t see that the children are going to school more. If you father won the lottery or lost the lottery the school attendance rates are pretty much the same, the literacy rates are pretty much the same. As we follow those sons into adulthood, their wealth looks the same, you know, in a statistical sense. Whether their father won the lottery, lost the lottery, their occupation looks the same. The grandchildren aren’t going to school more, the grandchildren aren’t more literate.
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
No, but if someone is going to claim that increasing hourly wages by £1-2/hr is going to improve children's performance in school, I'm going to respond by addressing the rather obvious point that:
A) the families will still be poor on that wage level
B) the additional income has to be spent on something that benefits the household, in order for it to improve the household's material well-being
There was actually a radio program on NPR I heard not long ago - will search to find it - that said a lottery given to a poor community in the US South in the 20th century had no impact at all on the educational or career outcomes of the children of those families. Who knows that the parents spent it on but the children didn't get more education, or better quality education, and the next generation was largely unchanged from the first.
There is plenty of contradictory evidence from around the world of the effect of additional income on the education of children. In general it appears to have most effect when given to women.
But this is all besides the point. If people only ever got things because we knew they'd exclusively use them in their own long-term best interest, nobody would ever get anything.
Posted by seekingsister (# 17707) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Translation - Keep the buggers poor; you can't trust them with their own money.
Actually it's more like - people who don't understand social science shouldn't quote it when engaging in debate.
I have no wish for poor people to stay poor at all. However I'm again baffled at the view being taken by you and others, that a small increase in hourly wages, is going to transform a poor family into a not poor family.
And if they still are upset that they don't have the TV/judo lessons/holidays that other people have - we haven't solved the problem. We've just kicked the ball down the road.
[ 12. February 2014, 13:46: Message edited by: seekingsister ]
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
Aha. The "you don't understand this, I do, so listen to me" gambit - typically deployed just before proving that black is white and that screwing people is good for them really and being nicer to them would actually be cruel.
I do know that if you pay people a bit more, they're less poor than they were if you didn't pay them that bit more. Seems rather obvious.
[ 12. February 2014, 13:49: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
Posted by seekingsister (# 17707) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Aha. The "you don't understand this, I do, so listen to me" gambit.
As opposed to the "You don't agree with me on the appropriate way to reduce poverty, so you hate poor people and read the Daily Mail" gambit, which is a lot better.
[ 12. February 2014, 13:49: Message edited by: seekingsister ]
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Aha. The "you don't understand this, I do, so listen to me" gambit.
As opposed to the "You don't agree with me on the appropriate way to reduce poverty, so you hate poor people and read the Daily Mail" gambit, which is a lot better.
I'm responding to what you're posting, nothing more. You're arguing against paying low paid people more, and basing that apparently on your lack of trust that they'd know what to do with the additional income. All from your own keyboard.
Posted by seekingsister (# 17707) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Aha. The "you don't understand this, I do, so listen to me" gambit.
As opposed to the "You don't agree with me on the appropriate way to reduce poverty, so you hate poor people and read the Daily Mail" gambit, which is a lot better.
I'm responding to what you're posting, nothing more. You're arguing against paying low paid people more, and basing that apparently on your lack of trust that they'd know what to do with the additional income. All from your own keyboard.
For the second time - the use of additional income is only related to the point on improving education for poor children, which Jane R brought up - not me. It is not related to the living wage debate.
I do not care what people do with money that they earn, even if they earn it from the state. But commenting on the potential outcomes of their spending choices is not the same as judgement and I hope that people are capable of understanding the difference. Based on the way this thread has gone I suspect I already know the answer.
Anyway - I would be interested in hearing from people on whether they think society is obliged to meet needs beyond the basic, going back to the OP. I'm not going to discuss what newspaper I read anymore.
(BTW The Guardian and the New York Times, those right-wing rags)
[ 12. February 2014, 13:57: Message edited by: seekingsister ]
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
:
The hard question is how to define what is basic. What size TV is non-basic, or should we expect people on public aid to not have TVs or perhaps even sell TVs they bought earlier/are given? Is internet basic? What about a phone or a smartphone? Does it make a difference whether or not the phone is used for work? And are we willing to count how much people's dignity is worth when we're taking that by telling them what they're allowed to have or even allowed to want/save for?
[ 12. February 2014, 14:04: Message edited by: Gwai ]
Posted by justlooking (# 12079) on
:
I don't think there's been any mention so far of the Minimum Income Standard as defined by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
quote:
Since 2008, JRF has published annual updates of the minimum income standard (MIS) for the UK, to reflect changes in costs and living standards. The standard is based on asking members of the public to identify the items and services a household would require to reach a minimum acceptable standard of living, covering essential needs and allowing household members to participate in society.
Minimum Income Standard 2013
There's a link to a calculator which shows what is considered a minimum standard and what typical households need to be able to afford this standard.
Do you earn enough for a basic standard of living?
e.g. Family of two adults, two children (one at primary school, one at secondary school)need a weekly income of £588.30 to reach minimum income standard.
quote:
outgoings breakdown - £588.30
Food 119.34
Alcohol 7.02
Clothing 42.63
Water rates 9.40
Council Tax 22.50
Household Insurances 2.32
Gas, electricity, etc 23.67
Other housing costs 9.98
Household goods 27.86
Household services 10.10
Childcare 0.00
Personal goods and services 45.68
Travel costs and motoring 78.34
Social and cultural activities 102.58
Rent 86.88
Mortgage 0.00
The calculator allows people to adjust the figures to reflect their own circumstances.
Being able to participate in society is regarded as a minimum standard. Whether that means sports activities, social clubs, outings and holidays, entertaining or whatever will depend on personal choice. Being able to make choices is what matters. Choice itself is the need.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
We're talking about the living wage at the moment, so you're not being asked to pay for it. Their employer is,
If, say, Sainsbury's has to increase the wage of all its staff to a new minimum*, then it will simply put food prices up to make up the difference. So as a customer of that store, I will end up paying for it - and probably at a higher individual rate than if it was just funded out of general taxation.
One way or another, whether it's through taxation, tuition fees, ticket prices or just buying stuff at a shop, we are all paying each other's wages.
.
*= I have no idea if it would have to or not - for all I know that company already pays the living wage to its staff.
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
Not necessarily, Martin. Entirely possible that Sainsburys could increase the minimum staff wages without increasing prices (I have no idea what their profit margins are, but it is at least conceivable).
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
We're talking about the living wage at the moment, so you're not being asked to pay for it. Their employer is,
If, say, Sainsbury's has to increase the wage of all its staff to a new minimum*, then it will simply put food prices up to make up the difference. So as a customer of that store, I will end up paying for it - and probably at a higher individual rate than if it was just funded out of general taxation.
One way or another, whether it's through taxation, tuition fees, ticket prices or just buying stuff at a shop, we are all paying each other's wages.
.
*= I have no idea if it would have to or not - for all I know that company already pays the living wage to its staff.
Yeah, I know. Including me paying for your foreign holidays, presuming that somewhere along the line I'm buying something you're involved in. You know what I mean though.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
Not necessarily, Martin. Entirely possible that Sainsburys could increase the minimum staff wages without increasing prices (I have no idea what their profit margins are, but it is at least conceivable).
This is of course true - Sainsburys' prices are probably more supply/demand equilibrium derived than cost plus, so their costs (e.g. wages) aren't what define their prices. So the effect would mostly (probably) be a decrease in their profits. The problem with topping up low pay with benefits is that Sainsburys gets subsidised to employ people on shit pay and leave their profits untouched.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
If the argument about allowing people some dignity won't sway you, perhaps this might.
It is generally accepted that children from poor backgrounds tend to do less well in education. This guy is doing some research to try and find out whether giving their families more money will help.
I totally agree with this - it's obvious that poverty affects children's educational achievement.
However I would like to know how in your mind paying a slightly higher minimum wage - a level at which families would still have to rely on benefits - will make these children significantly improve in school. As a start, it requires believing that families will spend the additional income in a responsible way.
Of course, they'll all spend it all on booze, fags and scratchcards, don't they? Have you been reading the Daily Heil and thinking it's real?
Actually, in Victorian England an awful lot of poverty was caused or made worse by the drunkenness of parents. The remedy for such poverty was indeed seen in the Temperance Movement
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Actually, in Victorian England an awful lot of poverty was caused or made worse by the drunkenness of parents. The remedy for such poverty was indeed seen in the Temperance Movement
Actually, the Temperance Movement was widely seen as being too self-righteous to be much earthly good, hence why sailors missions, the Salvation Army, Wilson Carlile and others sought to build alternative ways to reach the working poor outside of the structures of church.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by justlooking:
Social and cultural activities 102.58
Sorry? I had to do a double-look at this...
£102.58 a week??
£410 a month??
If you took that amount of spending off these people would they suddenly be unable to feed themselves, heat the house, clothes themselves, get to work?
My goodness, if you have to spend that much a week!!! on having fun then I question your choice of recreational activity.
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
I'm with Mudfrog on this - I think we spend around £20 a week on entertainment - including a couple of cafe coffees a week which we could easily live without. Who really spends £100 a week and what are they spending it on?
I suspect the real answer is lottery tickets. ![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by justlooking:
Social and cultural activities 102.58
Sorry? I had to do a double-look at this...
£102.58 a week??
£410 a month??
If you took that amount of spending off these people would they suddenly be unable to feed themselves, heat the house, clothes themselves, get to work?
My goodness, if you have to spend that much a week!!! on having fun then I question your choice of recreational activity.
From the report:
"MIS is relevant to the discussion of poverty, but does not claim to be a poverty threshold. This is because participants in the research were not specifically asked to talk about what defines poverty"
This 400 odd a month sounds a lot to me as well, but it's based on what participants in the survey said they thought you needed to spend to participate fully in society. It's not meant to mean "if you have less than this to spend on social and cultural activities you're poor".
I suspect the number is high because some respondents would consider that expensive theatre trips and opera and whatnot are necessary to participate culturally ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
I doubt anyone responded that they thought they needed hundreds of lottery tickets.
[ 12. February 2014, 14:54: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
Maybe then the problem is with society and expectations.
Or maybe I'm not a fully paid-up member of society.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
I do know that if you pay people a bit more, they're less poor than they were if you didn't pay them that bit more. Seems rather obvious.
If we're talking about a family on minimum wage, this really isn't true. When you include the withdrawl rate of the various state benefits, a minimum-wage earning parent faces an effective marginal tax rate of more than 90%. (From memory - I'll try to hunt out a real reference later).
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
Maybe then the problem is with society and expectations.
Or maybe I'm not a fully paid-up member of society.
Well, nor am I. I remember I felt this particularly as a scholarship lad at a public school - what everyone else considered normal participation in society was beyond our wildest dreams. That didn't make us poor, and the MIS isn't meant to imply that either, AIUI.
Posted by seekingsister (# 17707) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
Not necessarily, Martin. Entirely possible that Sainsburys could increase the minimum staff wages without increasing prices (I have no idea what their profit margins are, but it is at least conceivable).
Or replace everyone except for the bare minimum of staff with self checkout machines. It's already happened to a degree.
We either need to invest in people with more education and skills training, so that minimum wage retail jobs are temporary, or we need to force employers to spend a certain % of profits on staff salaries and benefits so that they can't play these types of games.
Simply raising the wage, given what the market currently allows, will likely raise prices for consumers and cause the employers to hire less. This doesn't necessarily mean they start sacking people. It might mean closing down London city center locations because they will have the highest rents and labor costs. It might expanding in overseas markets instead of opening new stores here.
I do think a living wage "feels right" but most Brits would balk at paying the types of prices for goods and services that people in Scandinavia, where wages in these types of jobs are high. And compared to the UK most people in those countries live in flats, many rented and never owned. Britain has one of the highest rates in the EU of people living in semi-detached homes and one of the higher global rates of home ownership. So we're talking about a totally different social structure if we want to support a good quality of life for lower wage workers, and I wonder if people in the UK really want that.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
I do know that if you pay people a bit more, they're less poor than they were if you didn't pay them that bit more. Seems rather obvious.
If we're talking about a family on minimum wage, this really isn't true. When you include the withdrawl rate of the various state benefits, a minimum-wage earning parent faces an effective marginal tax rate of more than 90%. (From memory - I'll try to hunt out a real reference later).
We have that problem here as well. But even the 10% they're left with there makes you better off than without the additional income. The biggest killer here actually is childcare; you can earn another £50 and pay another £100 in childminder fees.
But we're not talking here about going from benefits to minimum wage; we're talking about the uplift from minimum wage to living wage.
Posted by justlooking (# 12079) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by justlooking:
Social and cultural activities 102.58
Sorry? I had to do a double-look at this...
£102.58 a week??
£410 a month??
If you took that amount of spending off these people would they suddenly be unable to feed themselves, heat the house, clothes themselves, get to work?
My goodness, if you have to spend that much a week!!! on having fun then I question your choice of recreational activity.
I think that's the weekly amount to cover the cost of an annual holiday and other family outings plus celebrations of birthdays, Christmas etc and whatever else counts as social and cultural activities such as participating in sports.
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
Or replace everyone except for the bare minimum of staff with self checkout machines. It's already happened to a degree.
We either need to invest in people with more education and skills training, so that minimum wage retail jobs are temporary, or we need to force employers to spend a certain % of profits on staff salaries and benefits so that they can't play these types of games.
Not sure it is possible to tell companies in a capitalist system how to use their profits - only how much is the minimum they have to pay.
Of course, in an ideal system everyone would be working in a co-operative and any profits gained by a large company would be shared by everyone who earned it.
quote:
Simply raising the wage, given what the market currently allows, will likely raise prices for consumers and cause the employers to hire less. This doesn't necessarily mean they start sacking people. It might mean closing down London city center locations because they will have the highest rents and labor costs. It might expanding in overseas markets instead of opening new stores here.
Is there any basis behind this assertion? As we have already discussed, it is entirely possible that prices are driven by demand rather than cost. In fact, having been a buyer for business, I know for a fact that retail prices bear very little relation to cost.
quote:
I do think a living wage "feels right" but most Brits would balk at paying the types of prices for goods and services that people in Scandinavia, where wages in these types of jobs are high. And compared to the UK most people in those countries live in flats, many rented and never owned. Britain has one of the highest rates in the EU of people living in semi-detached homes and one of the higher global rates of home ownership. So we're talking about a totally different social structure if we want to support a good quality of life for lower wage workers, and I wonder if people in the UK really want that.
This is just scaremongering. And the type of talk that insists poor people must remain poor because the wealth of others depends upon it.
No, actually.
[ 12. February 2014, 15:08: Message edited by: pydseybare ]
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
There was actually a radio program on NPR I heard not long ago - will search to find it - that said a lottery given to a poor community in the US South in the 20th century had no impact at all on the educational or career outcomes of the children of those families.
I feel that the effect a lottery would have on people's spending habits is not comparable to the effect of a sustained smaller rise in income. Knowing that I will have an extra £200 a month is quite a different thing from having a windfall of £24000 now.
Posted by seekingsister (# 17707) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
Is there any basis behind this assertion? As we have already discussed, it is entirely possible that prices are driven by demand rather than cost. In fact, having been a buyer for business, I know for a fact that retail prices bear very little relation to cost.
When someone uses the words "likely" and "might", it's not an assertion.
My basis for this theoretical position - not assertion - is basic (by which I mean low level) economics. Which of course doesn't fully represent reality, but is at least a reasonable basis against which to assess a proposed new policy.
I just read an article about McDonald's and Burger King wanting to move into Africa, following a campaign in the US last year for living wages for fast food employees. Perhaps I'm cynical but I'm not sure that's a simple coincidence.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
I'm with Mudfrog on this - I think we spend around £20 a week on entertainment - including a couple of cafe coffees a week which we could easily live without. Who really spends £100 a week and what are they spending it on?
Let's see:
Bear in mind we have two adults and two children here.
Mobile phone?
Landline phone?
Landline phone bills? Doesn't seem listed anywhere else.
And do you not spend anything on books? CDs? DVDs? Computer games? Do you have a computer? A television? A DVD player? That's not weekly spending, but it needs to be included.
Posted by justlooking (# 12079) on
:
Most of the spending will be on an annual holiday. What does it cost for a family of four to have at least a week away together in the summer? £3,000?
Then there's spending on birthdays and Christmas - £1,000?
That would leave around £20 a week for other things.
[ 12. February 2014, 15:34: Message edited by: justlooking ]
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
I'm with Mudfrog on this
Is this a first?
So we can be friends after all! ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Angel]](graemlins/angel.gif)
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
I just read an article about McDonald's and Burger King wanting to move into Africa, following a campaign in the US last year for living wages for fast food employees. Perhaps I'm cynical but I'm not sure that's a simple coincidence.
I defy McD and BK to serve burgers to the residents of the US from Nairobi or Mombasa.
There's a world of difference between moving into and moving to, and a world of difference between a living wage in Denver and in Dafur.
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by justlooking:
Most of the spending will be on an annual holiday. What does it cost for a family of four to have at least a week away together in the summer? £3,000?
I think we (family of 3) have only once ever paid more than £1000 for a holiday. This year we hired a cottage at Christmas for the first time ever, I still think the total annual cost this year was less than £1500.
quote:
Then there's spending on birthdays and Christmas - £1,000?
Yeah, I hadn't thought of that.
We don't have Sky TV, don't go very often to sport, theatre, opera or ballet. All of which we like.. in moderation.
I guess those must all add up if you feel that you must have them every week.
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
That said, we have recently bought a rather extravagant, fairly large ticket item which we don't really need and can only afford because we have saved up for it.
Posted by justlooking (# 12079) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
quote:
Originally posted by justlooking:
Most of the spending will be on an annual holiday. What does it cost for a family of four to have at least a week away together in the summer? £3,000?
I think we (family of 3) have only once ever paid more than £1000 for a holiday. This year we hired a cottage at Christmas for the first time ever, I still think the total annual cost this year was less than £1500.
quote:
Then there's spending on birthdays and Christmas - £1,000?
Yeah, I hadn't thought of that.
We don't have Sky TV, don't go very often to sport, theatre, opera or ballet. All of which we like.. in moderation.
I guess those must all add up if you feel that you must have them every week.
I don't think the weekly figure means that anything is spent as a weekly amount. I take it as annual figure split into a weekly amount.
£5,000 a year for social and cultural activities for a family seems to cover the cost of a holiday plus a few family outings, celebrations and being able to join in with whatever's going on locally - amateur sports, Cubs and Brownies, church activities etc.
I looked at a Centre Parcs site to check out a week for a family of four. A basic 2 bedroom chalet for a week in August is around £1,500. Add on the cost of self-catering, some restaurant meals and some of the activities on offer and I can't see it being much less than £2,500.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by justlooking:
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
quote:
Originally posted by justlooking:
Most of the spending will be on an annual holiday. What does it cost for a family of four to have at least a week away together in the summer? £3,000?
I think we (family of 3) have only once ever paid more than £1000 for a holiday. This year we hired a cottage at Christmas for the first time ever, I still think the total annual cost this year was less than £1500.
quote:
Then there's spending on birthdays and Christmas - £1,000?
Yeah, I hadn't thought of that.
We don't have Sky TV, don't go very often to sport, theatre, opera or ballet. All of which we like.. in moderation.
I guess those must all add up if you feel that you must have them every week.
I don't think the weekly figure means that anything is spent as a weekly amount. I take it as annual figure split into a weekly amount.
£5,000 a year for social and cultural activities for a family seems to cover the cost of a holiday plus a few family outings, celebrations and being able to join in with whatever's going on locally - amateur sports, Cubs and Brownies, church activities etc.
I looked at a Centre Parcs site to check out a week for a family of four. A basic 2 bedroom chalet for a week in August is around £1,500. Add on the cost of self-catering, some restaurant meals and some of the activities on offer and I can't see it being much less than £2,500.
Indeed, and as someone who works with the poor, I can tell you that the absence of the money to pay for such spending does not make one poor.
[ 12. February 2014, 16:25: Message edited by: Mudfrog ]
Posted by justlooking (# 12079) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Indeed, and as someone who works with the poor, I can tell you that the absence of the money to pay for such spending does not make one poor.
If children grow up without having family holidays and outings then they are missing out on what for most people is a basic essential. They may have an impoverished experience of childhood.
The Joseph Rowntree research is based on what is generally understood in UK society as a minimum acceptable standard of living rather than was is judged to be poverty. It shows that single parent families and single people on low incomes are the most likely to be living below the minimum standard.
[ 12. February 2014, 16:36: Message edited by: justlooking ]
Posted by seekingsister (# 17707) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
[I defy McD and BK to serve burgers to the residents of the US from Nairobi or Mombasa.
There's a world of difference between moving into and moving to, and a world of difference between a living wage in Denver and in Dafur.
Oh I think it's ridiculous and they will struggle.
But I do think there's at least a PR effect of announcing that you plan to expand into the lowest wage labor market in the world, 6 months after fast food employees in the US started demanding $15/hr and going on strike. They are concerned and their shareholders are concerned.
Which is why I think wage increases without any other action to control corporate behavior or deal with the reality of globalization is unlikely to generate the type of poverty reduction that people are campaigning for - with the best of intentions.
Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
If the argument about allowing people some dignity won't sway you, perhaps this might.
It is generally accepted that children from poor backgrounds tend to do less well in education. This guy is doing some research to try and find out whether giving their families more money will help.
I totally agree with this - it's obvious that poverty affects children's educational achievement.
However I would like to know how in your mind paying a slightly higher minimum wage - a level at which families would still have to rely on benefits - will make these children significantly improve in school. As a start, it requires believing that families will spend the additional income in a responsible way.
Of course, they'll all spend it all on booze, fags and scratchcards, don't they? Have you been reading the Daily Heil and thinking it's real?
Actually, in Victorian England an awful lot of poverty was caused or made worse by the drunkenness of parents. The remedy for such poverty was indeed seen in the Temperance Movement
It was made worse by drunkenness, it wasn't caused by it - poverty was caused by the lack of a safety net and trickle-down capitalism (which didn't trickle down so much as stagnate).
And the solution to modern poverty isn't to become a po-faced joyless Temperence-er.
Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Erm, no, the negative side effects of my poverty was not being able to heat my home and getting ill from the cold, and not having enough to eat.
My point was very clearly about having your basic needs met but feeling worse about poverty when others around you have more.
That has nothing to do with freezing to death or starving.
I was addressing the psychological impact of poverty when living in a poor community compared to living in a mixed community. If you wish to respond please address that specifically.
If you wish to respond without rudeness, please address that specifically.
Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
As far as the living wage is concerned, I don't support it; not because I don't believe that people should have enough to live on, but because I don't believe that it is the state's job to ensure, as the living wage proposes, that people can afford 32" televisions and a holiday in a holiday cottage in the country.
Frankly, I'm ashamed to share a conurbation with you.
£7.65 an hour for a 45 hour week works out at a shade under £18k a year. It's enough to live on. It's enough to put something aside to cover when the washing machine blows up. It's enough, God forbid, for a week's holiday self-catering with the family.
We keep on being told that work should pay. And here it is, paying. At £18k a year, wages are still being subsidised by taxes, but it's just about okay. It's enough to give people some dignity.
Whereas you, apparently, want to keep people earning poverty wages and see them sick, worried, and continually battling the system in order to survive. Is that really what the Salvation Army stands for these days?
Well duh, if people stop being poor, Mudfrog is out of a job. It's in his interest that people are kept in poverty.
Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on
:
The biggest help out of poverty for working parents would be affordable childcare. I'm not even a parent and I find the costs involved incredible.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
]Well duh, if people stop being poor, Mudfrog is out of a job. It's in his interest that people are kept in poverty.
That's not fair.
The SA is committed to getting people out of poverty and work very hard to that end.
Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
]Well duh, if people stop being poor, Mudfrog is out of a job. It's in his interest that people are kept in poverty.
That's not fair.
The SA is committed to getting people out of poverty and work very hard to that end.
So why aren't their members committed to tackling the root causes of poverty, hmm? Why are they only interested in sticking plasters for the symptoms?
Getting rid of the symptoms does not get rid of poverty. As long as the SA are only interested in the symptoms, I can only surmise that they are not interested in ending poverty completely. As I said, what would they do for a living if that happened?
Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
The biggest help out of poverty for working parents would be affordable childcare. I'm not even a parent and I find the costs involved incredible.
And yet some of the worst paid work available is... caring for other people's children. The better option, surely, would be to increase wages sufficiently that one parent can support the family while the other looks after young children.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
The biggest help out of poverty for working parents would be affordable childcare. I'm not even a parent and I find the costs involved incredible.
The costs are perfectly credible. For small children (under 2-3s, say), you need at least an adult per 4 children. So if the average parent of young children has two children, he has to pay for half a childcare person in order to enable him to work. But on top of the childcare person, he also has to pay overheads for that person's tax and NI, for a holiday / sick pay allowance for that person, for rent, heat and light for a suitable building, for insurance of the facility, for the legal and administrative costs of operating a childcare facility in compliance with the law, for maintenance/replacement of equipment and so on.
The short argument is that reasonable childcare is indeed really expensive, because it requires a lot of people, and people are expensive. It does not make economic sense for a parent to have his children in childcare while he works at a minimum-wage job.
It seems to me that it makes more sense to take a fraction of the childcare subsidy and use it to help support parents to stay home with their pre-school age children.
(For school-age children, the numbers change. There, you need fewer adults per child, and you need fewer hours, because the children are in school most of the time, so it makes far more sense to subsidize things like after-school clubs.)
[ 12. February 2014, 17:48: Message edited by: Leorning Cniht ]
Posted by Majorminor (# 17967) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
]Well duh, if people stop being poor, Mudfrog is out of a job. It's in his interest that people are kept in poverty.
That's not fair.
The SA is committed to getting people out of poverty and work very hard to that end.
So why aren't their members committed to tackling the root causes of poverty, hmm? Why are they only interested in sticking plasters for the symptoms?
Getting rid of the symptoms does not get rid of poverty. As long as the SA are only interested in the symptoms, I can only surmise that they are not interested in ending poverty completely. As I said, what would they do for a living if that happened?
Posted by Majorminor (# 17967) on
:
We (SA officers) don't only work with the poor, and when we do, we work at different levels- helping people directly, and lobbying parliament and local politicians re social issues, including food poverty.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Getting rid of the symptoms does not get rid of poverty. As long as the SA are only interested in the symptoms, I can only surmise that they are not interested in ending poverty completely. As I said, what would they do for a living if that happened?
We're not only interested in the symptoms but we can't do everything!
As far as what else we would do? we would continue to do our main task which is to preach the Gospel.
The clue is in the name Salvation Army
Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
The biggest help out of poverty for working parents would be affordable childcare. I'm not even a parent and I find the costs involved incredible.
And yet some of the worst paid work available is... caring for other people's children. The better option, surely, would be to increase wages sufficiently that one parent can support the family while the other looks after young children.
Oh absolutely - childcare should be better-paid. I was thinking more along the lines of more government-subsidised childcare. They seem to manage it in Scandinavia.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Majorminor:
We (SA officers) don't only work with the poor, and when we do, we work at different levels- helping people directly, and lobbying parliament and local politicians re social issues, including food poverty.
Indeed we do
Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Oh absolutely - childcare should be better-paid. I was thinking more along the lines of more government-subsidised childcare. They seem to manage it in Scandinavia.
Yeah, but they're willing to pay more tax in Scandinavia.
Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Majorminor:
We (SA officers) don't only work with the poor, and when we do, we work at different levels- helping people directly, and lobbying parliament and local politicians re social issues, including food poverty.
Mudfrog has not talked about lobbying parliament before - I am interested in that. Do you join up with any other anti-poverty Christian groups, Churches Against Poverty (distinct from Christians Against Poverty) or Christian Aid for instance?
I am struck by how quiet the SA is as a group on the underlying causes of poverty, such as low wages, unemployment, tax avoidance by big companies, aggressive and unfair public sector cuts which disproportionately affect low-income families and especially women, etc etc. Why are they so shy about getting political? You cannot divorce the politics from the reality of poverty.
Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Getting rid of the symptoms does not get rid of poverty. As long as the SA are only interested in the symptoms, I can only surmise that they are not interested in ending poverty completely. As I said, what would they do for a living if that happened?
We're not only interested in the symptoms but we can't do everything!
As far as what else we would do? we would continue to do our main task which is to preach the Gospel.
The clue is in the name Salvation Army
You could at least cause a stink about the causes of poverty, as opposed to staying silent and acting like you don't care. I never said you could do everything, but it's your Christian duty to do something.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
or we need to force employers to spend a certain % of profits on staff salaries and benefits so that they can't play these types of games.
Not sure it is possible to tell companies in a capitalist system how to use their profits - only how much is the minimum they have to pay.
I don't think seekingsister's statement even makes sense. "Profits" are what you have left when you deduct expenses from income. If you are an employer, your employee's wages are an expense. Whilst you can certainly take some fraction of your putative profits and turn it into a bonus or a pay rise for your employees, "spending x% of profits on wages" doesn't make sense.
Also note that the ratio of wages to income is a strong function of the kind of business you have. If you are, let's say, a domestic cleaning service, then you are selling labour. The vast majority of your costs are the wages of your employees. If, on the other hand, your business is renting out high-end electronics, or art, or something, then your employee costs are rather small - your dominant cost is the capital purchase of the art/electronics/whatever.
Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Oh absolutely - childcare should be better-paid. I was thinking more along the lines of more government-subsidised childcare. They seem to manage it in Scandinavia.
Yeah, but they're willing to pay more tax in Scandinavia.
Well then raise taxes? Or more specifically, ditch flat-rate tax like VAT (which is deeply unfair since the poor always spend more on it), get in mansion tax and also make tax payable on private school fees - won't affect scholarship kids but will make the poshos do their bit for once.
Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I am struck by how quiet the SA is as a group on the underlying causes of poverty, such as low wages, unemployment, tax avoidance by big companies, aggressive and unfair public sector cuts which disproportionately affect low-income families and especially women, etc etc. Why are they so shy about getting political? You cannot divorce the politics from the reality of poverty.
If these are your criteria, then any organisation that doesn't embrace your particular brand of socialist politics is going to fall short in your eyes.
Posted by Majorminor (# 17967) on
:
I'm very deficient at links, etc, but we have a public policy unit at Territorial HQ- www.salvationarmy.org.uk, search for 'politics and policy.'
[Edited to fix link - Eliab]
[ 12. February 2014, 19:16: Message edited by: Eliab ]
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by justlooking:
]If children grow up without having family holidays and outings then they are missing out on what for most people is a basic essential. They may have an impoverished experience of childhood.
That's just ridiculous. Going on holiday as a basic essential? Give me a break.
Posted by seekingsister (# 17707) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
or we need to force employers to spend a certain % of profits on staff salaries and benefits so that they can't play these types of games.
Not sure it is possible to tell companies in a capitalist system how to use their profits - only how much is the minimum they have to pay.
I don't think seekingsister's statement even makes sense. "Profits" are what you have left when you deduct expenses from income. If you are an employer, your employee's wages are an expense. Whilst you can certainly take some fraction of your putative profits and turn it into a bonus or a pay rise for your employees, "spending x% of profits on wages" doesn't make sense.
Also note that the ratio of wages to income is a strong function of the kind of business you have. If you are, let's say, a domestic cleaning service, then you are selling labour. The vast majority of your costs are the wages of your employees. If, on the other hand, your business is renting out high-end electronics, or art, or something, then your employee costs are rather small - your dominant cost is the capital purchase of the art/electronics/whatever.
I'm talking about post bottom line distribution to employees. You say it doesn't make sense because it doesn't exist as far as I'm aware unless employees own shares in the company. I'm trying to think about an alternative corporate structure that might more effectively address wage inequality.
Posted by seekingsister (# 17707) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Erm, no, the negative side effects of my poverty was not being able to heat my home and getting ill from the cold, and not having enough to eat.
My point was very clearly about having your basic needs met but feeling worse about poverty when others around you have more.
That has nothing to do with freezing to death or starving.
I was addressing the psychological impact of poverty when living in a poor community compared to living in a mixed community. If you wish to respond please address that specifically.
If you wish to respond without rudeness, please address that specifically.
You may wish to pretend your reply which began "erm, no" is the height of politeness but most would disagree.
Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on
:
posted by Jade Constable quote:
...make tax payable on private school fees - won't affect scholarship kids but will make the poshos do their bit for once.
You seem to forget that 'poshos' already pay tax on school fees since they have to pay fees out of income that has already been taxed.
Furthermore, they are already contributing to state education through income tax and council tax, in effect paying something towards school places their children don't use.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Majorminor:
I'm very deficient at links, etc, but we have a public policy unit at Territorial HQ- www.salvationarmy.org.uk, search for 'politics and policy.'
Here you go...
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
You seem to forget that 'poshos' already pay tax on school fees since they have to pay fees out of income that has already been taxed.
[tangent] The inherent dishonesty of this argument always infuriates me, though it seems to be a common one. The premise is that you shouldn't have to pay [property / value added / sales / whatever] tax because the money you're paying with has "already been taxed" when (you were paid / your employer earned it / whoever paid it to your employer earned it / whatever degree of removal you feel necessary]. We've established rules that transactions are taxed every time money changes hands. Arguing that your money was taxed last time around (or the time before that, or whenever) is special pleading. [/tangent]
Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on
:
Croesos
OK, fine, tax private school fees.
But if you carry your argument to logical conclusion then university fees should also be taxed.
So, those of you (us) with children at university, brace yourselves for another £1,800 p.a. on the fees - and if the entirety of school fees are to be taxed, since much of them refer to boarding fees (food & lodging) then you need to tax student grants as well - so add 20% to that as well.
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
]Well duh, if people stop being poor, Mudfrog is out of a job. It's in his interest that people are kept in poverty.
That's not fair.
The SA is committed to getting people out of poverty and work very hard to that end.
This is what I always thought. I've known Salvationists throughout my life, and I've never come across one before that is quite so cavalier about poverty as Mudfrog.
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
OK, fine, tax private school fees.
Or at least remove the lie that they're a "charitable donation" and have HMRC add 25% to their value.
Posted by Majorminor (# 17967) on
:
Thanks, Mudfrog. You'll have to teach me how to do the linking thing. ![[Help]](graemlins/help.gif)
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Croesos
OK, fine, tax private school fees.
But if you carry your argument to logical conclusion then university fees should also be taxed.
So, those of you (us) with children at university, brace yourselves for another £1,800 p.a. on the fees - and if the entirety of school fees are to be taxed, since much of them refer to boarding fees (food & lodging) then you need to tax student grants as well - so add 20% to that as well.
Run that by me more slowly..
Most school fees are day fees, as far as I understand the only tax not paid would be because the school is a charity.
Some universities are also charities. Explain to me how ensuring universities do not have charitable status would add £1800 to the fees. Maybe I have missed some nuance in what you are saying.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
]Well duh, if people stop being poor, Mudfrog is out of a job. It's in his interest that people are kept in poverty.
That's not fair.
The SA is committed to getting people out of poverty and work very hard to that end.
This is what I always thought. I've known Salvationists throughout my life, and I've never come across one before that is quite so cavalier about poverty as Mudfrog.
Same thought struck me.
Posted by Timothy the Obscure (# 292) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
As a start, it requires believing that families will spend the additional income in a responsible way.
Why does it? Why do the poor have more responsibility to spend their money in a certain defined way (money which the living wage implies is earned as a wage) when the rich have no obligations to do the same.
If this was a benefit, you might have a point. But claiming that people shouldn't be paid more because they might not spend it in sensible ways is.. bizarre.
This is a response to Jane's point that children in poor families do worse in school.
You would have to make the case that the additional income is used in a way that reduces poverty in the household and therefore will improve the children's performance in school.
I do not in general think a living wage has anything to do with responsible spending.
Thanks.
Actually, the research suggests it does--when people are in a condition of scarcity, their problem-solving and decision-making deteriorate, especially with regard to long-term thinking. Simply removing some of the pressure of figuring out how to pay the rent or repair the car would enable parents to figure out better solutions. And contrary to what you're implying, the research tends to show that it's poverty that causes poor decisions, not vice versa (though once you are poor and stuck in the scarcity frame, poor decisions perpetuate poverty).
You can read a bit about it here.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
But if you carry your argument to logical conclusion then university fees should also be taxed.
Given that universities shouldn't have fees, I'll concede that under those circumstances their fees should be taxed.
That said, in the UK most universities are partly government funded or subsidised. They're public bodies, and therefore taxing their income is really a matter of accounting. I.e. the government could tax the fees and increase the subsidy by the amount of tax paid, and we'd be approximately where we are now. That might actually be a positive measure, in that people in lower tax brackets would end up paying lower fees.
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
That said, in the UK most universities are partly government funded or subsidised. They're public bodies, and therefore taxing their income is really a matter of accounting. I.e. the government could tax the fees and increase the subsidy by the amount of tax paid, and we'd be approximately where we are now. That might actually be a positive measure, in that people in lower tax brackets would end up paying lower fees.
Exactly. Almost all universities in the UK are public institutions, unlike private schools. As such, the former get an income from various sources - including direct grants from government, research and fees.
In contrast private schools only get income from fee payment.
I'd still like to hear how private fees should be taxed and how university fees would also be taxed. Either of you?
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Croesos
OK, fine, tax private school fees.
But if you carry your argument to logical conclusion then university fees should also be taxed.
Not "should also be taxed", "could also be taxed". There's a distinction. My objection isn't to whether taxing certain transactions is good or bad policy, it's to the idea that applying a tax to money when it was held by someone else entitles all future holders of that money to claim a tax exemption.
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
My objection isn't to whether taxing certain transactions is good or bad policy, it's to the idea that applying a tax to money when it was held by someone else entitles all future holders of that money to claim a tax exemption.
But I don't think that is the case with private schools. They've charitable status because they claim to have some public charitable benefit, not because someone somewhere along the line paid tax on the money which was used to pay the fees.
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
My objection isn't to whether taxing certain transactions is good or bad policy, it's to the idea that applying a tax to money when it was held by someone else entitles all future holders of that money to claim a tax exemption.
Why should money be taxed beyond the first instance? What is wrong with open sewers, dirt roads and 10 miles being a good days travel?
Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I am struck by how quiet the SA is as a group on the underlying causes of poverty, such as low wages, unemployment, tax avoidance by big companies, aggressive and unfair public sector cuts which disproportionately affect low-income families and especially women, etc etc. Why are they so shy about getting political? You cannot divorce the politics from the reality of poverty.
If these are your criteria, then any organisation that doesn't embrace your particular brand of socialist politics is going to fall short in your eyes.
But that's bollocks, and obviously bollocks. It's got nothing to do with my personal politics, but Christian organisations actually acting like Christians.
Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Erm, no, the negative side effects of my poverty was not being able to heat my home and getting ill from the cold, and not having enough to eat.
My point was very clearly about having your basic needs met but feeling worse about poverty when others around you have more.
That has nothing to do with freezing to death or starving.
I was addressing the psychological impact of poverty when living in a poor community compared to living in a mixed community. If you wish to respond please address that specifically.
If you wish to respond without rudeness, please address that specifically.
You may wish to pretend your reply which began "erm, no" is the height of politeness but most would disagree.
Please explain how my imagined rudeness justifies your obvious rudeness. Nothing I said justified your response.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
The biggest help out of poverty for working parents would be affordable childcare. I'm not even a parent and I find the costs involved incredible.
Bear in mind that each carer is looking after no more than three babies. (Michael Gove proposed changing the law so that a qualified carer could look after more than three babies. Consider the source of the proposal.) So in an egalitarian society where the carer receives the same income as one of the parents, the parent is contributing one sixth of their income to the carer. (That's not factoring in tax, second children, etc.) Then somebody has to pay for the overheads. So, it's not surprising that childcare is expensive.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
But I don't think that is the case with private schools. They've charitable status because they claim to have some public charitable benefit, not because someone somewhere along the line paid tax on the money which was used to pay the fees.
That's not the argument L'organist advanced, which was that it would be unjust to impose a tax on private school fees because the money used to pay those fees had already been subjected to the income tax. The problem with this argument is that it would make it impossible to tax anything, since all money was taxed at some point in its history.
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Why should money be taxed beyond the first instance? What is wrong with open sewers, dirt roads and 10 miles being a good days travel?
Well, aside from the practical problems you outline, there's the difficulty of determining which is the "first instance".
Here's an example. Alice gets a paycheck from her employer, Giant Amalgamated Corporation. Alice argues that she doesn't have to pay income tax on her wages, since it was "already taxed" when it entered G-A Corp.'s coffers. She uses some of this money at her local grocer's. Bob the Grocer argues that he doesn't have to apply the [value added / sales / whatever point-of-purchase tax is applicable in Bob's jurisdiction] because the money was already taxed when it was paid to Alice. Bob then uses the proceeds of the sale to buy vegetables from SaladCo, a subsidiary of Giant Amalgamated Corporation. G-A Corp. then argues that it shouldn't have to pay tax on the profits from its veggie sales because the money was "already taxed" when Bob had it.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
I would just like to make a short comment in my defence against the personal accusation that I am 'cavalier' about poverty.
Yesterday I spent the morning with 2 people.
One is a man on Jobseekers who is ill with high bloodpressure and very restricted because his first language is Russian. His age - 54 - is also against him as far as employment in this country is concerned. He came to this country having been literally saved in a salvation Army rehab centre overseas. I spent time with him because he has started to drink again. He has hardly any food in the flat. His phone, an old Nokia held together with masking tape, has no credit.
This man is POOR.
The other person I spent some time with is an asylum seeker who, though she lives rent-free in a flat and has her fuel costs paid for, is living on £35 a week. We support her by buying for her a monthly bus pass so she can get from her out-of-town high rise flat into the town centre where she volunteers for another charity and to go shopping, etc, etc. She also has a heart condition and has left her sons in Africa; she fears not only for her safety if she is deported but for her sons who are in danger and are being pursued in Africa. Her phone is broken so she had to phone me on her friend's phone.
This woman is POOR.
I am damned if I am going to accept your accusation that I am 'cavalier' about the circumstances these people (and many others I have tried to help) are enduring.
What I am against is the use of the word 'poverty' and 'extreme poverty' in regard to people who have enough food, enough clothing, decent education for their kids, good health care, enough money to heat their homes, watch television and buy a takeaway or two. No, they might not own a car, they might not have a holiday in centreparcs, their kids might occasionally wear something a sibling has grown out of. They might be on a low income but they are as sure as hell not 'poor' in the sense of numerous people I have dealt with are poor.
These are the people who might not be able to afford many luxuries in life - as my family couldn't when I was growing up - but poverty is not the right word for them.
I reject the accusation.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
Mudfrog,
First, on my part it was not an accusation, more an impression.
Second to say X is not poor because Y has it worse; or that X has something that is not strictly necessary therefore is not poor is ridiculous. Just as it would be to say your examples of poor are not truly poor because there are resources to help them whilst other people do not have those resources. By your logic, the poor you help are not poor because you help them.
There are certainly gradations of poor. There is certainly room for argument where the line between poor and not poor is. What, I think, most people here are arguing is that your definition of what is poor is lower than ours.
[ 12. February 2014, 20:59: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on
:
And my point is that in order to lift people out of poverty, a full-time job ought to pay enough to lift that person - and potentially their dependents - out of poverty. Like the woman who can suddenly afford to send their boy to an after-school sports club. You have explicitly rejected this.
The minimum wage keeps people in poverty. The living wage raises them out of it, something you bizarrely seem to resent.
The accusation stands.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
:
It should also be noted that the argument for a living wage is not dependent upon one's definition of poverty, or the kinds of comparisons Mudfrog wants to make. Much of the argument for a living wage has to do with it's impact on the economy. It sounds like in the UK there are a large number of workers are kept at a-- let's say "bare minimum"-- wage, where they are able to afford the things needed to survive-- food, heat, shelter-- but not a lot more (note that in the US, even this is not true. Many minimum wage earners are homeless, and until recently, pretty much all were w/o any sort of medical care). But keeping workers at that minimum level-- even a level that is able to supply basic needs-- keeps the economy stagnant. A relatively small increase in that minimum wage (such as happened today in the US by executive order) means that a whole segment of the working class who were before merely survivors have now become consumers-- they are able to choose some small "extras". Most have very modest dreams-- as has been noted, an afterschool program for their kids, an outing or a movie, that sort of thing. But it is the sort of thing that fuels the economy and will help improve our sluggish unemployment.
Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I am struck by how quiet the SA is as a group on the underlying causes of poverty, such as low wages, unemployment, tax avoidance by big companies, aggressive and unfair public sector cuts which disproportionately affect low-income families and especially women, etc etc. Why are they so shy about getting political? You cannot divorce the politics from the reality of poverty.
If these are your criteria, then any organisation that doesn't embrace your particular brand of socialist politics is going to fall short in your eyes.
But that's bollocks, and obviously bollocks. It's got nothing to do with my personal politics, but Christian organisations actually acting like Christians.
But it isn't. It appears (if I've understood you correctly) that your Christian beliefs and your political beliefs are deeply intertwined. That's fine, I don't have a problem with that. But your political beliefs are anathema to me and also to lots of good Christians.
From what I understand from your posts, there is no distinction in your book between 'acting like a Christian' and 'acting like one holds a certain set of left-wing views' - they seem to go hand-in-hand with one another. Which (again, if I've understood you correctly) means that whenever any individual or group says 'these left-wing views are nonsense' they automatically become un-Christian.
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
:
'Fraid I've got to agree with Anglican't. Too many Christians assume that their political views are consistent with Christ's teachings while the political views of their opponents are inconsistent.
FWIW I reckon this is yet another example of the way man's priorities get in the way of the Gospel message. I don't think any of us can take much joy from this, except to put the Gospel first.
(btw, a fundy friend also asserts that to allow political allegiance to affect our interpretation of scripture is Satanic. He uses the term Satanic rather too much for my liking, but on this matter I can't help thinking he's got a point!)
Posted by Leaf (# 14169) on
:
Doc Tor: Cavalier is not the right word, and is not fair to Mudfrog. Now, if you'd said judgmental ... I recognize this in myself as well. Fortunately the Lord will judge the poor with righteousness, which is good because I and others don't seem to be able to do this with righteousness. In any event, that's probably a bit too personal for this venue.
Jade Constable: The charge that the SA perpetuates poverty in order to keep itself in business strikes me as both unfair and paranoid, rather like those who accuse charities of perpetuating an illness in order to keep their charity going. The accusations of "unChristianity" are beyond the pale; I seem to recall a saying that even offering a cup of cold water was a blessed activity. No doubt it is better to both offer cold water AND advocate for universal access to cold water ![[Cool]](cool.gif)
but I can't condemn someone who has only done one or the other. Mudfrog has done more than me, and very likely you, to alleviate real poverty in the world, and for that has my respect.
What if the OP had said: A respected oncologist says, "Cancer - when the patient is not suffering atrociously - is not an unmixed evil." Would anyone be able to see the wisdom in that? A friend once talked to me about the gifts cancer had brought him, ie how much more he appreciated life because of it.
That said, it still utterly and horrendously sucks. Both cancer and poverty can return to their father the devil; a "mixed" evil is still evil.
So I can see the value of the quote in the OP... However, I refuse to use it as an ideological axe to sharpen against the poor. As with the value of any suffering, I don't think it can be dictated from the outside.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
'Fraid I've got to agree with Anglican't. Too many Christians assume that their political views are consistent with Christ's teachings while the political views of their opponents are inconsistent.
If any one of us is truly assuming such-- i.e. w/o reflection, thought, or prayer-- than yes, that is atrocious. But I'm not sure you can jump to such a conclusion about others easily.
If our faith is to have integrity, it needs to be integrated into every area of life. That means it will, indeed, impact our political views, the way we vote or advocate for this or that cause. And there's simply no way of doing that reasonably w/o believing at the same time that the opposite pov is wrong and somehow inconsistent with your faith. I just don't see any way to avoid that if you're really being honest and reflective about your faith and how that gets worked out in the political sphere.
Now, certainly we can strive to be more charitable, to try to avoid judging those with whom we have disagreement or suggesting they're gonna make baby Jesus cry or whatever. But I don't see how you're going to engage the issues in a thoughtful way that integrates your faith w/o considering the opposite perspective at the same time.
In many ways you seem to be arguing for the "false equivalence" one sees so much on news shows (at least American news shows) these days. Where we have ceased any attempt to do research or investigative reporting and instead simply "report the controversy" by bringing on two people w/ opposite perspectives w/ the implicit suggestion that these are two equally valid ideas (Ham vs. Nye, for example).
Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
If you wish to respond without rudeness, please address that specifically.
You may wish to pretend your reply which began "erm, no" is the height of politeness but most would disagree.
Please explain how my imagined rudeness justifies your obvious rudeness. Nothing I said justified your response.
Jade Constable and seekingsister,
Three posts accusing one another of rudeness without any reference to the matter under discussion suggest that this is getting too personal. If you want to continue, you know where to take it.
Eliab
Purgatory Host
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
One of the interesting things that often comes up in discussions like this is the way some people take offense at the idea that the poor aren't absolutely destitute. This usually takes the form of hostility towards the idea that any poor person could own a particular piece of technology. American bloviator Rush Limbaugh has been known to criticize the poor for owning microwave ovens. Others fixate on mobile/cellular phones. Mudfrog seems to take umbrage at televisions. (Or maybe just televisions above a certain size.) This actually tells us more about the critic than the poor, since whatever's being billed as "too good for poor people" was usually an unalloyed luxury good during the critic's teen years/twenties.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
Yes, it sounds almost like retrospective envy - I couldn't have a telly, when I was poor, so why the bloody hell should you? Outrageous, actually, the poor should just be poor, with no airs and graces.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
:
It reminds me of the quip attributed to CS Lewis, who, when he gave some money to a beggar, was reprimanded by a friend who opined that the beggar would just use the money to buy alcohol. Lewis replied, "well, that's all I was going to do with it."
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
But we're not talking here about going from benefits to minimum wage; we're talking about the uplift from minimum wage to living wage.
Here is a tax benefit model that the UK DWP used to publish. So note that the numbers are 13 years out of date. From that document, a single parent in private housing faces an 89.1% effective marginal tax rate on gross wages up to GBP 342 per week. That's about double a full-time minimum wage job in 2001 numbers.
For a couple, the figures are similar.
The picture is slightly rosier for council tenants, as the withdrawal rate of housing benefit is pretty significant for private tenants. Similar council tenants stop paying an effective 90%+ at a modest GBP 135 per week, and are taxed at a mere 70% of gross income up to GBP 400 per week.
Again, this is all 2001 numbers.
Some of the details have been massaged over the last decade or so, but not significantly, I think.
Posted by justlooking (# 12079) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by justlooking:
]If children grow up without having family holidays and outings then they are missing out on what for most people is a basic essential. They may have an impoverished experience of childhood.
That's just ridiculous. Going on holiday as a basic essential? Give me a break.
Yes, a holiday away from home for one week at least once a year is a basic essential for children according to the majority of adults who contributed to this original research : Poverty and Social Exclusion in Britain (pdf full report 102 pages )
pdf summary 4 pages)
Toys and books are also basic essentials, along with games, hobbies and leisure activities.
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
It seems to me that Mudfrog is working from a measure which others are not - crudely that there are 'worthy' and 'unworthy' descriptors of poverty, notably that people who have Sky tv cannot be in the second category (because they can't be poor if they can afford the subscription).
And I go some distance along the road with him - I'm not sure I'm working for a world where everyone has a massive TV and can go on a foreign holiday every year.
I suppose my position boils down to that we're all a mix of things happening to us and good/bad choices. Some people can survive on low incomes because they're extremely clever with their choices. Some people are relatively wealthy simply because they've randomly had things happen to them which are extremely adventageous, and their good or bad choices have not had much overall effect on their prosperity.
In this context I think it means that having Sky TV does not necessarily make you not-poor. Clearly having Sky or a serious cigarette habit might be a very bad choice on some incomes.
I think poverty is more than how much you earn and what stuff you have.
Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on
:
posted by Croesos (speaking about private school fees quote:
Or at least remove the lie that they're a "charitable donation" and have HMRC add 25% to their value.
It is obvious you haven't paid school fees - or at least not lately.
Fees are just that - payment for tuition and, if the pupil lives at the school, board and lodging.
Fees are paid against an invoice.
They are not a donation, therefore HMRC doesn't add anything to them or their notional value.
In fact, fees accounts for schools have to be kept absolutely separate from charitable accounts and, as a money-making entity, there is tax payable on any profit made on the fees.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
One of the interesting things that often comes up in discussions like this is the way some people take offense at the idea that the poor aren't absolutely destitute.
It's more like arguing against the idea that if someone can't afford to have a big TV/fancy phone/week in a Mediterranean resort/etc they're so destitute that society is obliged to do something about it.
I'm not overly bothered about having less so that others can have food, warmth and healthcare. Having less so that others can swan off to Magaluf is a bit different.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
Surely, TVs should be apportioned according to moral worth? I would think a 20" model would be suitable for no-good lazy bastards, who don't draw their curtains in the morning, and probably smoke in bed; maybe a 32" TV would be OK for the deserving poor. Sky? Out of the question, they'll only watch the racing on it, and gamble their benefits away.
You could do the same with holidays, maybe a week in a caravan in Skegness for the deserving poor, as long as they don't start getting delusional about having ice-creams and other luxuries; but for the stay-in-beds - no way.
[ 13. February 2014, 08:39: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Surely, TVs should be apportioned according to moral worth?
If someone can afford to buy a big TV then good luck to them, regardless of moral worth.
The question is about whether society should be obliged to step in in circumstances where someone can't afford to buy a big TV in the same way that it would be obliged to step in in circumstances where they can't afford to buy food. A further question concerns those who can afford to buy food, but choose to spend the money on a big TV instead. To what extent is society obliged to provide people with luxuries rather than just essentials?
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
It is obvious you haven't paid school fees - or at least not lately.
Fees are just that - payment for tuition and, if the pupil lives at the school, board and lodging.
Fees are paid against an invoice.
They are not a donation, therefore HMRC doesn't add anything to them or their notional value.
In fact, fees accounts for schools have to be kept absolutely separate from charitable accounts and, as a money-making entity, there is tax payable on any profit made on the fees.
Yes, but there are obvious tax benefits to a school having charitable status, and there is a debate about whether they have any real charitable benefit outwith of the children who attend.
I did occur to me that people yesterday were talking about VAT, which is only taxed once but has a cumulative effect down the chain of consumption. Private school fees could be have 20% VAT added, maybe that is what you were referring to above.
As a footnote, I don't have a moral problem with people choosing to pay private school fees. In fact, I've met some very poor people who have prioritised paying school fees for their children, and I think that is a very honorable thing to do.
Even in the UK the thing with school fees does not necessarily indicate your level of prosperity.
For example, to live in a catchment of a good state comprehensive school, the chances are that you will have to pay a premium for housing (either renting or buying). In many circumstances you might have to pay at least £150k.
On the other hand, you might be able to live somewhere costing £80-90k and send your children to a school costing £10k a year. I appreciate this isn't very likely, but I am just illustrating that the housing market creates a strange bubble in which it can be more cost effective to live in a cheap area and send a child to a private school.
Of course, this isn't going to apply to most of the poorest people, because they don't have access to £10k a year, cannot choose where to live, and may have little access to other educational resources.
And whilst there are clearly societal reasons why private education is bad, the rich middle classes are going to be able to access the best school education, both state and private.
Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on
:
Croesos
I wasn't "advancing an argument" at all: I simply stated that parents pay school fees out of income on which tax has already been paid by those parents.
You then stated that the fees paid would somehow attract a 25% benefit from HMRC which is untrue.
I did say that if you think it fair and logical for VAT to be charged on school fees, then it would also be logical, using the same reasoning, for VAT to be added to university fees.
Whether or not universities are public bodies is irrelevant: there are plenty of public/statutory bodies that provide services on which VAT is charged. While you may consider that an accounting exercise, the fact remains that the end purchaser (fee payer, in this instance) still has to pay the VAT.
The only argument I was advancing is that it could be considered that parents with children at private fee-paying schools are already being 'taxed' in effect by virtue of the fact that at the same time as paying the fees charged by their child's school they are still paying, through central and local government taxes, towards the cost of state schools which their child does not use.
No, I am not arguing that income should only be taxed once, although in the case of some savings income it can be taxed three times - a disincentive to saving in anyone's book.
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
If someone can afford to buy a big TV then good luck to them, regardless of moral worth.
The question is about whether society should be obliged to step in in circumstances where someone can't afford to buy a big TV in the same way that it would be obliged to step in in circumstances where they can't afford to buy food. A further question concerns those who can afford to buy food, but choose to spend the money on a big TV instead. To what extent is society obliged to provide people with luxuries rather than just essentials?
I think you are speaking about two different things here - first society deciding a minimum pay level that everyone should receive for work, second the level that the state funded safety net should support.
I think the moral issues are different, depending on which you are talking about.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Surely, TVs should be apportioned according to moral worth?
If someone can afford to buy a big TV then good luck to them, regardless of moral worth.
The question is about whether society should be obliged to step in in circumstances where someone can't afford to buy a big TV in the same way that it would be obliged to step in in circumstances where they can't afford to buy food. A further question concerns those who can afford to buy food, but choose to spend the money on a big TV instead. To what extent is society obliged to provide people with luxuries rather than just essentials?
I've had a brain-wave. TVs could have fixed channels, which would be apportioned according to moral worth - thus, chavs would get a crappy little TV, permanently tuned to ITV3, and the rubbish that's on that; slightly more deserving poor would be permitted ITV1 also, and then it would rise up the scale of worthiness.
I suppose some really poor middle-class types, who've fallen on hard times, could be allowed BBC4, so they can watch all the arty programmes, and the Scandi-dramas, poor bastards.
Posted by seekingsister (# 17707) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
I think you are speaking about two different things here - first society deciding a minimum pay level that everyone should receive for work, second the level that the state funded safety net should support.
I think the moral issues are different, depending on which you are talking about.
But society can only decide a minimum pay level by determining what the minimum standard of life should be and what it should include.
The minimum wage should obviously be regularly reviewed and adjusted to remain in line with actual living costs. But are those costs limited to food/housing/clothing, or should they include other items that contribute to quality of life but are not essentials?
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
But society can only decide a minimum pay level by determining what the minimum standard of life should be and what it should include.
The minimum wage should obviously be regularly reviewed and adjusted to remain in line with actual living costs. But are those costs limited to food/housing/clothing, or should they include other items that contribute to quality of life but are not essentials?
Two different minimums, though, aren't they. What is the minimum level that we, as society, are prepared to allow people to live in? We provide a safety net to ensure that people are able to survive at that level.
Second, what kind of minimum level do we expect people should have if they're working?
I think those are two different moral issues.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
I think you are speaking about two different things here - first society deciding a minimum pay level that everyone should receive for work, second the level that the state funded safety net should support.
I think the moral issues are different, depending on which you are talking about.
There is a minimum (subsistence?) standard of living that nobody should be below, that is the level that should be provided by the state safety net. The minimum wage should also provide this, plus a little extra to give an incentive for people to work rather than staying on benefits. I'm just unconvinced that the minimum wage should be significantly more than the safety net. There has to be a point above which it's up to the person to provide for themselves as best they can rather than being up to society to provide it for them, and it would appear that I'm setting that point lower than many on this thread.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I've had a brain-wave. TVs could have fixed channels, which would be apportioned according to moral worth
I've already told you that it's nothing to do with "moral worth". It's right there in the post you quoted.
Are you going to engage with what I'm saying, or just keep repeating the same crap?
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I'm just unconvinced that the minimum wage should be significantly more than the safety net. There has to be a point above which it's up to the person to provide for themselves as best they can rather than being up to society to provide it for them, and it would appear that I'm setting that point lower than many on this thread.
Why? I can see many people using this argument, but I don't understand it - particularly when those who are living on the minimum wage are actually being subsidised by the state safety net anyway. I seems to me that employers who pay minimum wages are actually being subsidised by the state to keep wages low.
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I've already told you that it's nothing to do with "moral worth". It's right there in the post you quoted.
Are you going to engage with what I'm saying, or just keep repeating the same crap?
I think he/she might be teasing you.
[ 13. February 2014, 09:26: Message edited by: pydseybare ]
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I've had a brain-wave. TVs could have fixed channels, which would be apportioned according to moral worth
I've already told you that it's nothing to do with "moral worth". It's right there in the post you quoted.
Are you going to engage with what I'm saying, or just keep repeating the same crap?
Good God, man, can't you see that size of TV and number of channels is totally connected to moral worth? I repeat, chavs, who are really lazy, and spend all day in bed, should be forced to watch ITV3, and nothing else; people who at least get up and eat some baked beans, should be permitted ITV1 as well; and your unemployed middle class types, maybe BBC4, they like those gloomy Scandi-dramas, all bleak landscapes and dead bodies.
It's fair, equitable, and above all, moral. I rest my cake.
Posted by seekingsister (# 17707) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
Why? I can see many people using this argument, but I don't understand it - particularly when those who are living on the minimum wage are actually being subsidised by the state safety net anyway. I seems to me that employers who pay minimum wages are actually being subsidised by the state to keep wages low.
The problem is, taxes are sticky and government departments have a strong sense of self-preservation. Making companies pay more should in theory reduce the burden on the taxpayer who is subsidizing the difference. But what is more likely is that taxes remain the same and the cost of goods and services rise because companies would rather charge consumers for higher wages than absorb the costs themselves.
Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on
:
posted by pydseybare quote:
Two different minimums, though, aren't they. What is the minimum level that we, as society, are prepared to allow people to live in? We provide a safety net to ensure that people are able to survive at that level.
Second, what kind of minimum level do we expect people should have if they're working?
I think those are two different moral issues.
You can't say "allow people to live in": what we - society - does is give a certain amount of money and what the recipients choose to do with it is up to them.
One of the difficulties this brings up is that there are people who, when given state (our) money, choose to spend it on things we don't like. Worse, some will choose to spend it on things we don't approve of while ignoring the basic needs of their children.
Fact is, you can give 100 people with the same notional needs the same amount of money and the range of what they consider to be 'necessary' will be huge.
Example: If I won £50 on the Premium Bonds, I'd put it into the bank. If my brother won £50 he'd drink it or put it on a (losing) horse.
What some people are saying is that benefits should be given with strings, but that can only work if you give benefits that aren't money, so: - housing benefit paid direct to landlords
- amount for clothing children given as vouchers
- amount for food given as food stamps
- to ensure proper diet limit where food stamps can be spent and on what
Is that what we want?
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
Why? I can see many people using this argument, but I don't understand it - particularly when those who are living on the minimum wage are actually being subsidised by the state safety net anyway. I seems to me that employers who pay minimum wages are actually being subsidised by the state to keep wages low.
Firstly, if people on the minimum wage are having to be subsidised by benefits just to attain the minimum acceptable living standard then that's not the sort of system I'm talking about at all.
Secondly, the minimum wage should not be significantly above that required for the minimum standard of living because I think that, assuming everyone has the minimum amount necessary to live, how much extra they get should be determined by the value of what they are able to provide to the people who are paying for it. In fact, I was initially going to propose that the minimum wage should be set at the same level as the minimum standard of living, but as that would give no incentive for people on benefits to seek work I quickly revised it to provide that incentive.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
I think he/she might be teasing you.
"Teasing" in one word for it. Some people may use other words, but as this is Purg I'll refrain from doing so myself.
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
You can't say "allow people to live in": what we - society - does is give a certain amount of money and what the recipients choose to do with it is up to them.
That doesn't really represent how people experience the welfare state safety net. Most funds given to people are for particular purposes - for example housing benefit. If people do not use the money for the purpose it was intended, they suddenly find they have significant other problems.
Nobody gets a huge wadge of cash and are told to sort out all of their own problems.
quote:
One of the difficulties this brings up is that there are people who, when given state (our) money, choose to spend it on things we don't like. Worse, some will choose to spend it on things we don't approve of while ignoring the basic needs of their children.
Some do. I don't think it is fair to tar all (or a majority) of people on benefit with this brush.
quote:
Fact is, you can give 100 people with the same notional needs the same amount of money and the range of what they consider to be 'necessary' will be huge.
Example: If I won £50 on the Premium Bonds, I'd put it into the bank. If my brother won £50 he'd drink it or put it on a (losing) horse.
True but irrelevant.
quote:
What some people are saying is that benefits should be given with strings, but that can only work if you give benefits that aren't money, so: - housing benefit paid direct to landlords
- amount for clothing children given as vouchers
- amount for food given as food stamps
- to ensure proper diet limit where food stamps can be spent and on what
Is that what we want?
As I said above, benefits do have strings - they're given for specific purposes. Problem do arise when people do not spend them in the ways that are prescribed, but the impression that people are given money without strings is not credible.
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Firstly, if people on the minimum wage are having to be subsidised by benefits just to attain the minimum acceptable living standard then that's not the sort of system I'm talking about at all.
Well, that is the system we have. You're therefore discussing an ideal system which we don't have - in which case the minimum wage should be a lot higher to account for the subsidy from government that working people would not longer get.
quote:
Secondly, the minimum wage should not be significantly above that required for the minimum standard of living because I think that, assuming everyone has the minimum amount necessary to live, how much extra they get should be determined by the value of what they are able to provide to the people who are paying for it. In fact, I was initially going to propose that the minimum wage should be set at the same level as the minimum standard of living, but as that would give no incentive for people on benefits to seek work I quickly revised it to provide that incentive.
So you don't think there is any moral issue with people doing jobs which society has arbitrarily decided are worth very little, which in the process are generating huge profits for people further up in the organisation?
Economic worth is a strange way to make judgements about morality, in my opinion. I one heard, and still strongly believe, that there is only one indispensible person in any organisation - the one who cleans the toilets.
I think this is true on almost every level. The jobs that are most important are often the least valued and worst paid.
Posted by seekingsister (# 17707) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
So you don't think there is any moral issue with people doing jobs which society has arbitrarily decided are worth very little, which in the process are generating huge profits for people further up in the organisation?
Society hasn't arbitrarily decided anything. This is unskilled work. If the person on the till at Tesco quits today they can find someone else to do that work very quickly and easily. Recall we are in the EU as well.
If the issue is actually the use and distribution of corporate profits, then that's where the problem needs to be addressed.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
You're therefore discussing an ideal system which we don't have
Aren't we all? I don't think anyone on this thread is arguing that the system we have is perfect.
quote:
in which case the minimum wage should be a lot higher to account for the subsidy from government that working people would not longer get.
Perhaps. It would depend on where the minimum living standard was actually decreed to be.
quote:
So you don't think there is any moral issue with people doing jobs which society has arbitrarily decided are worth very little, which in the process are generating huge profits for people further up in the organisation?
No job is worth more than an employer is willing to pay for it or less than an employee is willing to earn for it. Yours and mine included. If the wage offered for a given job is so low that literally nobody will apply for it then the employer will either have to offer more or accept that it won't get done.
quote:
Economic worth is a strange way to make judgements about morality, in my opinion.
Morality is about ensuring that everyone has what they need to live, and in my system that would already be taken care of.
quote:
I one heard, and still strongly believe, that there is only one indispensible person in any organisation - the one who cleans the toilets.
I think this is true on almost every level. The jobs that are most important are often the least valued and worst paid.
Sure. And if everybody decided that they weren't going to shovel shit for anything less than £40k a year I'm pretty sure that shit shovelling would pay £40k per year by the end of the month. Of course, there are plenty of people who are willing to shovel shit for far less than that, which is why shit shovelling doesn't generally pay that kind of salary.
Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian
Of course, there are plenty of people who are willing to shovel shit for far less than that, which is why shit shovelling doesn't generally pay that kind of salary.
Yes, of course there are people who are 'willing' to shovel shit for a pittance, if the only alternative is the dole.
Free marketeers love to talk about choice. But they conveniently forget that choice is a luxury for many people.
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
Society hasn't arbitrarily decided anything. This is unskilled work. If the person on the till at Tesco quits today they can find someone else to do that work very quickly and easily. Recall we are in the EU as well.
If the issue is actually the use and distribution of corporate profits, then that's where the problem needs to be addressed.
The idea of work being unskilled is a misnomer. In a previous life, I worked with a group of workers in the UK who were totally undervalued - and classes as unskilled on minimum wages.
In my view, minimum wage implies a job that anyone can do without any specific skills or knowledge about it - and yet these people needed at least 6 months of training to be proficient (and fast enough) to produce enough to earn a living. Needless to say, the trade has essentially died out and migrated to places where the labour is much cheaper.
I think there are actually very few jobs which are unskilled.
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
No job is worth more than an employer is willing to pay for it or less than an employee is willing to earn for it. Yours and mine included. If the wage offered for a given job is so low that literally nobody will apply for it then the employer will either have to offer more or accept that it won't get done.
In a pure economic market, this is possibly true. In reality it is blatently not true. People on low incomes are not often there because they do not have the skills for higher-paid work, but because they can't access work which reflects their skills. Also with the reduction in power of unions, corporations have been able to make massive profits whilst depressing wages - and in an environment where people are desperate for work, they can continue doing this.
quote:
Sure. And if everybody decided that they weren't going to shovel shit for anything less than £40k a year I'm pretty sure that shit shovelling would pay £40k per year by the end of the month. Of course, there are plenty of people who are willing to shovel shit for far less than that, which is why shit shovelling doesn't generally pay that kind of salary.
See my point above about unions. Corporations crush unions and society weakens workers. The end result is exploitation.
Posted by seekingsister (# 17707) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
The idea of work being unskilled is a misnomer. In a previous life, I worked with a group of workers in the UK who were totally undervalued - and classes as unskilled on minimum wages.
In my view, minimum wage implies a job that anyone can do without any specific skills or knowledge about it - and yet these people needed at least 6 months of training to be proficient (and fast enough) to produce enough to earn a living.
I gave the example of a supermarket till because it is job that requires little skills or training to do. I am sure there are people on minimum wage who do have skills and are being underpaid, but surely the issue there is not the level the minimum wage is set at, but the fact that they're earning it at all instead of something more reflective of their abilities.
For example if there are medical care workers or skilled manual laborers being paid the same as someone working at Topshop, then I think that's a serious problem, but it doesn't seem directly related to the living wage debate.
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
No job is worth more than an employer is willing to pay for it or less than an employee is willing to earn for it. Yours and mine included. If the wage offered for a given job is so low that literally nobody will apply for it then the employer will either have to offer more or accept that it won't get done.
That's not actually true any more.
Job Centre: "Here's a job stacking shelves in Tesco."
Job Seeker: "FFS, that's a zero hour contract and on the minimum wage. If I take it, there's a good chance I'm going to starve to death and/or freeze and/or become homeless."
Job Centre: "I'm stopping all your benefits for a month. I've a quota to make, you work-shy waster. Next!"
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
This thread would be a whole lot smoother if people stopped assuming that I'm defending the status quo.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
The idea of work being unskilled is a misnomer. In a previous life, I worked with a group of workers in the UK who were totally undervalued - and classes as unskilled on minimum wages.
In my view, minimum wage implies a job that anyone can do without any specific skills or knowledge about it - and yet these people needed at least 6 months of training to be proficient (and fast enough) to produce enough to earn a living.
I gave the example of a supermarket till because it is job that requires little skills or training to do. I am sure there are people on minimum wage who do have skills and are being underpaid, but surely the issue there is not the level the minimum wage is set at, but the fact that they're earning it at all instead of something more reflective of their abilities.
For example if there are medical care workers or skilled manual laborers being paid the same as someone working at Topshop, then I think that's a serious problem, but it doesn't seem directly related to the living wage debate.
Since a lot of social care in people's homes was contracted out to the lowest private sector bidder, there are a lot of care workers earning a lot less than someone working at Topshop, if you take the time travelling from one client to the next into account.
Posted by justlooking (# 12079) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
....But society can only decide a minimum pay level by determining what the minimum standard of life should be and what it should include.
The minimum wage should obviously be regularly reviewed and adjusted to remain in line with actual living costs. But are those costs limited to food/housing/clothing, or should they include other items that contribute to quality of life but are not essentials?
'Society' has determined what the minimum standard of life should be and what it should include in the research referenced above. This has been used to determine the Minimum Income Standard for each year since.
Whether someone earning minimum wage reaches this standard will depend on other circumstances. A single person working full time on minimum wage will fall below the standard, a childless couple both working at minimum wage will exceed the standard. A family with one parent working on minimum wage would be entitled to multiple benefits amounting to around 50% of their net earned income and would still fall below the standard.
AFAICS levels of poverty can be judged from how many of the minimum standards are lacking and for how long.
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on
:
Jeremy Brett's Sherlock is rubbish? - I am obviously watching the wrong channel for my class. There are more rubbishy channels than that.
More importantly, I'm not sure about the toilet cleaners pay going up if they weren't there for a month - if the users followed the instructions I vaguely recall from the Parisian foyer we stayed in when I was 15 and "laisser le WC comme vous voulez le trouver" they wouldn't be nearly so necessary.
On the other hand, if people responsible for allocating wages were made to do every task they were responsible for a week, and then took into account the amount of revulsion they felt, the world would be a better place. (And maybe the people who don't think about leaving the WC as they would wish to find it would find themselves having sanctions taken out against them.)
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I think that, assuming everyone has the minimum amount necessary to live, how much extra they get should be determined by the value of what they are able to provide to the people who are paying for it.
Ok - there's a 'should' in there. That implies that there's some normative aspect.
Who gets to decide the value of what people provide? Suppose the shit shovellers are being paid the minimum wage. Suddenly, somebody opens a factory farm next door, and the demand for shit shovelling goes up, so that the employers have to pay twice the minimum wage to retain their staff. The employers are willing to pay that, so clearly the shit shovelling is worth that to them.
Does that mean that they ought to have paid that previously? Or that they're now paying over the odds? No - the value of the job is simply what the employer pays and the employee accepts. One can't say that the employer should be paying more or that the employee should be accepting less. Or so goes the argument.
So shit shovellers are being paid the minimum wage. Instead of a factory farm being opened, the government decides to double the minimum wage. The employers are still willing to pay double, as when the factory farm was opened; the employees are still willing to accept. Does this mean that the minimum wage has been raised too high? No. The value of the job is what the employers are willing to pay, and they are willing to pay this new level of the minimum wage. One cannot say that the employer should pay more; one cannot say that the employee should accept less.
One cannot therefore on the above argument say that the government has set the minimum wage at the wrong value. The minimum wage is set at the value at which it is set; and that therefore is the value of minimum wage labour jobs. Should doesn't come into it. As long as employers need the job done, and therefore have to pay for it to be done, the work is indeed worth whatever level the minimum wage is set at.
To say that matters are different when the government intervenes as when another factory intervenes is to make an entirely different argument. It is to import a moral argument into the value-free argument. A value-free economics can make no distinction between the actions of government and any other economic factor. To treat government interference with the market as interference is to covertly import a moral or political view into the economic case.
Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Who gets to decide the value of what people provide? Suppose the shit shovellers are being paid the minimum wage. Suddenly, somebody opens a factory farm next door, and the demand for shit shovelling goes up, so that the employers have to pay twice the minimum wage to retain their staff. The employers are willing to pay that, so clearly the shit shovelling is worth that to them.
Does that mean that they ought to have paid that previously? Or that they're now paying over the odds? No - the value of the job is simply what the employer pays and the employee accepts. One can't say that the employer should be paying more or that the employee should be accepting less. Or so goes the argument.
So shit shovellers are being paid the minimum wage. Instead of a factory farm being opened, the government decides to double the minimum wage. The employers are still willing to pay double, as when the factory farm was opened; the employees are still willing to accept. Does this mean that the minimum wage has been raised too high? No. The value of the job is what the employers are willing to pay, and they are willing to pay this new level of the minimum wage. One cannot say that the employer should pay more; one cannot say that the employee should accept less.
I think that's a good way to put it.
You could also consider the case of all the local shit-shovellers getting together (whether or not formally, as some sort of guild or union) and saying "none of us will shovel shit for less than X". Would that be very different in principle to each individual shit-shoveller deciding that he won't take a job at that wage?
The minimum wage is a collective decision of a similar sort: the country (by its elected representatives) saying "None of us should have to shovel shit for less than X". There's no reason why we shouldn't collectively decide that X should be a decent living wage.
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
Point of information: shit shovellers in the UK are actually paid reasonably well. Toilet cleaners are not.
This is largely due to professionalisation and unionisation of the water workers and the lack of qualifications and unions amongst toilet cleaners.
Also if the shit shovellers rebel, everyone soon knows about it. If toilet cleaners rebel, they get locked out and someone else is dragged in from the job centre.
It is true to say that a refusal of everyone to do certain jobs would have an effect, but the government actively pushes people into low paid jobs by subsidising crappy wages and penalising those who are looking for higher-than-minimum-wage jobs.
Posted by Moo (# 107) on
:
One thing that is being overlooked is that, at least in the US, many minimum-wage jobs are held by teenagers living at home.
Even though the teen does not learn many specific job skills, he does learn what it means to hold a job--getting to work on time and following the instructions of his supervisor.
It is much easier for a teen who has held this type of job to get another job later than it is for one with no work experience.
Moo
Posted by JFH (# 14794) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
You could also consider the case of all the local shit-shovellers getting together (whether or not formally, as some sort of guild or union) and saying "none of us will shovel shit for less than X". Would that be very different in principle to each individual shit-shoveller deciding that he won't take a job at that wage?
The minimum wage is a collective decision of a similar sort: the country (by its elected representatives) saying "None of us should have to shovel shit for less than X". There's no reason why we shouldn't collectively decide that X should be a decent living wage.
You may be surprised to find that the Scandinavian countries, hailed over the world as having least poverty and greatest equality in income, do not have a minimum wage. Why should something as important and as rapidly changing as decent pay levels be left to such an untrustworthy, unrepresentative and sluggish as a politically elected government?
Also, basing it in law disables unions from actually affecting the level once just about everyone involved agrees it ought to be raised. Sure, they could write collective agreements, but justifying a certain level by law makes it harder to argue or negotiate for a raise beyond the statutory level.
Admittedly, Sweden and other Scandinavian countries in general have rather generous social benefits that minimize the need for a minimum wage as the working poor are outlawed along with the general poor, but I could personally well see lowering the lowest pay levels just to enable young unemployed (as I was myself until temporarily emigrating for studies abroad) to actually enter the job market.
However, this points to a problem with the "decent pay level" - I have lower needs than a family breadwinner. I suppose raising child benefits might help reduce this difference, but we're still talking about an actual difference in the needs of a certain pay level, although the difference in desperation for a job is not really that great.
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
One thing that is being overlooked is that, at least in the US, many minimum-wage jobs are held by teenagers living at home.
Even though the teen does not learn many specific job skills, he does learn what it means to hold a job--getting to work on time and following the instructions of his supervisor.
It is much easier for a teen who has held this type of job to get another job later than it is for one with no work experience.
Moo
According to a recent report, 2.4 million UK workers are within 50p of the minimum wage. Not all are teenagers living at home, clearly.
But then I think it is highly unlikely that is even true in the USA either.
Posted by Talitha (# 5085) on
:
The trouble with inflating the definition of poverty is that not only is it an insult to genuinely poor people like those Mudfrog works with, but it diverts resources and compassion from them.
Every time I see a list of so-called necessities in the UK, like the one on page 2 of this thread, I'm shocked by how much is on it. I'm sure most of those categories are more than we spend in our family, and I've always thought of us as rich. We have everything we need and pretty much everything we want. This is partly luck of temperament - we have cheap hobbies - and partly deliberate cultivation of contentment by not reading things like lifestyle magazines, which are likely to make me start thinking I "deserve" nicer things. I don't expect my contentment to be similarly threatened by reading "minimum income" lists!
I think a lot of UK-based anti-poverty campaigners are really campaigning against inequality: they want to go beyond everyone having the necessities and have complete equality of wealth, 100% redistributive taxation, no one having more than anyone else. Which is a valid opinion, just not one I share. I just wish they'd be honest about it.
Posted by seekingsister (# 17707) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by JFH:
You may be surprised to find that the Scandinavian countries, hailed over the world as having least poverty and greatest equality in income, do not have a minimum wage. Why should something as important and as rapidly changing as decent pay levels be left to such an untrustworthy, unrepresentative and sluggish as a politically elected government?
Also, basing it in law disables unions from actually affecting the level once just about everyone involved agrees it ought to be raised. Sure, they could write collective agreements, but justifying a certain level by law makes it harder to argue or negotiate for a raise beyond the statutory level.
Interesting point. I also wonder about the logic of a national minimum wage, which is certainly too low for London/SE but possibly too high for some other parts of the country. Setting it too close to the higher or lower ends of the labor market will either mean some workers in expensive areas get underpaid, or some workers in low cost areas don't get hired.
There's no mechanism such as in the US to allow regions to set their own minimum wages so I'm not sure how to resolve it.
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Talitha:
I think a lot of UK-based anti-poverty campaigners are really campaigning against inequality: they want to go beyond everyone having the necessities and have complete equality of wealth, 100% redistributive taxation, no one having more than anyone else. Which is a valid opinion, just not one I share. I just wish they'd be honest about it.
Yes, because fuel poverty, homelessness and food banks don't exist.
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
Posted by Talitha (# 5085) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Talitha:
I think a lot of UK-based anti-poverty campaigners are really campaigning against inequality: they want to go beyond everyone having the necessities and have complete equality of wealth, 100% redistributive taxation, no one having more than anyone else. Which is a valid opinion, just not one I share. I just wish they'd be honest about it.
Yes, because fuel poverty, homelessness and food banks don't exist.
And I'm completely in favour of working to make sure everyone has adequate shelter, fuel and food!
The controversy in this thread is about what things beyond those count as necessities and what as luxuries. And, IME, people like the JRF (and a lot of people on this thread) put a lot of what I'd call luxuries in the necessity category, hence my comment.
Posted by seekingsister (# 17707) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Yes, because fuel poverty, homelessness and food banks don't exist.
Again - isn't the original post raising the question of poverty beyond the point of having basic needs met? I haven't seen any suggestion that a home, heating, and food are not basic needs.
ETA: cross-post with Talitha
[ 13. February 2014, 14:06: Message edited by: seekingsister ]
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
One thing that is being overlooked is that, at least in the US, many minimum-wage jobs are held by teenagers living at home.
Even though the teen does not learn many specific job skills, he does learn what it means to hold a job--getting to work on time and following the instructions of his supervisor.
It is much easier for a teen who has held this type of job to get another job later than it is for one with no work experience.
Moo
This was true a generation ago. Today most minimum wage earners in the US are adults, often single mothers with a family to support.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Talitha:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Talitha:
I think a lot of UK-based anti-poverty campaigners are really campaigning against inequality: they want to go beyond everyone having the necessities and have complete equality of wealth, 100% redistributive taxation, no one having more than anyone else. Which is a valid opinion, just not one I share. I just wish they'd be honest about it.
Yes, because fuel poverty, homelessness and food banks don't exist.
And I'm completely in favour of working to make sure everyone has adequate shelter, fuel and food!
The controversy in this thread is about what things beyond those count as necessities and what as luxuries. And, IME, people like the JRF (and a lot of people on this thread) put a lot of what I'd call luxuries in the necessity category, hence my comment.
And as I pointed out on the last page, that is not intended to be a list of necessities. It is a list that the responders to the survey from which the list was derived defined as being a minimum to fully participate in society as they understood it.
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
:
The problem at least me is that it's easy to clump everyone who is worried about poverty as people who say that everyone deserves a vacation, and then ignore the fact that at least where I live we have children going hungry every day, and not because their parents don't care. In my area, for instance, it's a big problem that every day the schools close or just open late, there are many children who just won't eat those meals. The parents' budget is just that tight. Because you know, I'm just not worried about everyone having a vacation. I'm worried about every effing child getting three nutritious meals. Hell, it would be nice if their parents could eat three meals too! I'm concerned about the fact that most people on food stamps are working, which means they're doing their best--don't tell me they're choosing to work at a low-paying job and turning down good ones--and it's still not enough. I'm concerned that in this country it's just fine to pay people a wage that doesn't cover feeding their children more than one meal a day. But that's okay, it's all their fault for working a minimum wage job. Clearly, if they just were virtuous enough a better job would pop into being!
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
I think many might be surprised at the number of people who use foodbanks and are in work and earning above the minimum wage.
I was surprised earlier about someone's claims of the value of the minimum wage.
The current minimum wage in the UK is £6.31. I think most people are contracted to work 35-37 hour weeks, which in a year would be £12,000 per year. But people might actually earn less than that - depending on holiday pay and so on.
The living wage for London is suggested to be £8.80, which is nearly £17,000 per year, outside of London it is £7.65, which is nearly £14,700 per year.
Clearly none of these will pay for the kinds of expenses reported above.
Posted by Moo (# 107) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
It is much easier for a teen who has held this type of job to get another job later than it is for one with no work experience.
This was true a generation ago. Today most minimum wage earners in the US are adults, often single mothers with a family to support.
It remains a fact that it is much harder nowadays for a teenager to get his first job than it was when my daughters were teenagers twenty-five years ago.
Moo
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Surely, TVs should be apportioned according to moral worth? I would think a 20" model would be suitable for no-good lazy bastards, who don't draw their curtains in the morning, and probably smoke in bed; maybe a 32" TV would be OK for the deserving poor. Sky? Out of the question, they'll only watch the racing on it, and gamble their benefits away.
You could do the same with holidays, maybe a week in a caravan in Skegness for the deserving poor, as long as they don't start getting delusional about having ice-creams and other luxuries; but for the stay-in-beds - no way.
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
One of the true hallmarks of poverty is the lack of choice. Being middle class means having options. You can't afford everything, but you can choose where to live or where to go on holiday. You can choose where to scrimp and save and what you are scrimping and saving for. You can't afford every luxury, but you are able to afford a few indulgences, even if it's just a weekly latte at a nice cafe or a monthly special meal out. But you get to choose what those indulgences are.
So we see this persistent notion that the poor should have what they need, but shouldn't have any choices about it. We (taxpayers? government? some Unnamed Moral Authority?) determine what is important, what is necessary, and what is not. We determine that a nice cut of meat is necessary, but a boxed cake mix to make a cake for your child's birthday is not. We decide that a cell phone is necessary, but not a smart phone. As we have seen on this thread, mostly we decide the indulgences that are important to ME are necessary, but the indulgences I chose to go w/o in order to afford the former are wasteful.
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
It remains a fact that it is much harder nowadays for a teenager to get his first job than it was when my daughters were teenagers twenty-five years ago.
Moo
The phenomena of McJobs is a real one, sometimes justified as you have above - that they're useful experience for kids.
Unfortunately the sad reality is that for many they become a life, rather than life experience.
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
It is much easier for a teen who has held this type of job to get another job later than it is for one with no work experience.
This was true a generation ago. Today most minimum wage earners in the US are adults, often single mothers with a family to support.
It remains a fact that it is much harder nowadays for a teenager to get his first job than it was when my daughters were teenagers twenty-five years ago.
Moo
Probably partially because so many non-teens are stuck in those jobs.
Posted by Talitha (# 5085) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
And as I pointed out on the last page, that is not intended to be a list of necessities. It is a list that the responders to the survey from which the list was derived defined as being a minimum to fully participate in society as they understood it.
The JRF page originally linked from this thread says "a minimum acceptable living standard", and the PDF linked from there even says: "it covers needs, not wants; necessities, not luxuries."
[bad code is always bad]
[ 13. February 2014, 14:38: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
Posted by Talitha (# 5085) on
:
(Argh, sorry, made some copy-paste errors in UBB code and then missed edit window)
Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Talitha:
(Argh, sorry, made some copy-paste errors in UBB code and then missed edit window)
Sorted.
Posted by JFH (# 14794) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Surely, TVs should be apportioned according to moral worth? I would think a 20" model would be suitable for no-good lazy bastards, who don't draw their curtains in the morning, and probably smoke in bed; maybe a 32" TV would be OK for the deserving poor. Sky? Out of the question, they'll only watch the racing on it, and gamble their benefits away.
You could do the same with holidays, maybe a week in a caravan in Skegness for the deserving poor, as long as they don't start getting delusional about having ice-creams and other luxuries; but for the stay-in-beds - no way.
One of the true hallmarks of poverty is the lack of choice. Being middle class means having options. You can't afford everything, but you can choose where to live or where to go on holiday. You can choose where to scrimp and save and what you are scrimping and saving for. You can't afford every luxury, but you are able to afford a few indulgences, even if it's just a weekly latte at a nice cafe or a monthly special meal out. But you get to choose what those indulgences are.
So we see this persistent notion that the poor should have what they need, but shouldn't have any choices about it. We (taxpayers? government? some Unnamed Moral Authority?) determine what is important, what is necessary, and what is not. We determine that a nice cut of meat is necessary, but a boxed cake mix to make a cake for your child's birthday is not. We decide that a cell phone is necessary, but not a smart phone. As we have seen on this thread, mostly we decide the indulgences that are important to ME are necessary, but the indulgences I chose to go w/o in order to afford the former are wasteful.
I think it's more an issue of suspending everyone's choice as to what basic conditions should be accepted in society, forcing a lack of choice onto a chip of everyone's income in order to achieve basic necessities for all. However, enforcement goes onto everyone, and once people have what could be considered human needs, I have little reason to see why some should get a choice taken from the sum of others'.
I say this not having been poor, but with experiences of tricky bits of life causing me to live on sums quite far below social benefits. I also say this having had the experience of having worked an entire summer with manual labour at minimum wage, just to find out that after taxes, had I not worked the government would've paid out benefits for the same amount as I earned - but the money I had worked up went to luxuries, and I had the same government support as every single student in Sweden. (The benefits were eligible only for students, and I could not receive them due to my "high" income following summer labour.) That dented the legitimacy of the benefit levels for me quite a bit.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Talitha:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
And as I pointed out on the last page, that is not intended to be a list of necessities. It is a list that the responders to the survey from which the list was derived defined as being a minimum to fully participate in society as they understood it.
The JRF page originally linked from this thread says "a minimum acceptable living standard", and the PDF linked from there even says: "it covers needs, not wants; necessities, not luxuries."
[bad code is always bad]
I don't think you're reading that in the context of the whole explanation.
It says:
quote:
The Minimum Income Standard (MIS) is the income that people need in
order to reach a minimum socially acceptable standard of living in the
UK today, based on what members of the public think.
(My Bold)
In other words, "needs" means as "needed to participate in society as that society (i.e. the members of the public in the survey) define that."
It goes on to be clear that:
quote:
How is it related to the poverty line?
MIS is relevant to the discussion of poverty, but does not claim to be
a poverty threshold. This is because participants in the research were
not specifically asked to talk about what defines poverty. However, it is
relevant to the poverty debate in that almost all households officially
defined as being in income poverty (having below 60 per cent of median
income) are also below MIS. Thus households classified as being in
relative income poverty are generally unable to reach an acceptable
standard of living as defined by members of the public.
IOW - if you're in poverty, you will be below the MIS. It doesn't follow that if you are below the MIS, you are in poverty. One is a subset of the other.
The JRF didn't make it up and decide what should be a "need". They asked the public.
[ 13. February 2014, 14:44: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Talitha:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
And as I pointed out on the last page, that is not intended to be a list of necessities. It is a list that the responders to the survey from which the list was derived defined as being a minimum to fully participate in society as they understood it.
The JRF page originally linked from this thread says "a minimum acceptable living standard", and the PDF linked from there even says: "it covers needs, not wants; necessities, not luxuries."
[bad code is always bad]
I don't think you're reading that in the context of the whole explanation.
It says:
quote:
The Minimum Income Standard (MIS) is the income that people need in
order to reach a minimum socially acceptable standard of living in the
UK today, based on what members of the public think.
(My Bold)
In other words, "needs" means as "needed to participate in society as that society (i.e. the members of the public in the survey) define that."
The American safety net, such as it is, isn't the same as the UK, so I can't comment on whether or not your definition is the reality or not. But the bolded statement you are parsing does not seem to say what you are defining it to be. Rather, it would appear the public were asked to define what a "minimal standard" of living was. In reality, all societies do that, if not explicitly then implicitly, by the choices we make. In the US we have decided that a "minimal standard" does not necessarily include having shelter. We have determined that it does include emergency health care but not (until quite recently) preventative health care that might avoid that emergency. We have decided to provide some minimal food allowance (although in constant risk of being cut) but not to provide rehab for alcohol or drug dependency. We have decided it's OK to have folks freeze to death on the streets but not OK to die of a heart attack w/o some medical intervention.
The point is, all societies decide what is the "minimal standard" that they're not willing to let anyone fall below. That is not the same thing as saying "have what everyone else has."
Posted by Erroneous Monk (# 10858) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
The point is, all societies decide what is the "minimal standard" that they're not willing to let anyone fall below. That is not the same thing as saying "have what everyone else has."
But the question here is whether that minimum standard should be one that allows a fuller participation in society than existence/survival. I would say that it should be. As I understand it from your post, the consensus in the USA would be that it need not be.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
I think there is more than one definition of "acceptable". There's "acceptable" meaning "able to play a full part in society, "acceptable" meaning "I'd be pretty pissed off if I was below", and "acceptable" meaning "I'd not be willing to see anyone have less than this". The Survey used to create the MIS is close to the first, which is why it isn't, and isn't meant to be, a definition of a poverty line.
That was rather my point. The JRF and the MIS have nothing to do with the levels at which benefits, or for that matter the minimum or even living wages, are set.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
No - the value of the job is simply what the employer pays and the employee accepts. One can't say that the employer should be paying more or that the employee should be accepting less. Or so goes the argument.
As I adknowledged in a subsequent post.
quote:
One cannot therefore on the above argument say that the government has set the minimum wage at the wrong value. The minimum wage is set at the value at which it is set; and that therefore is the value of minimum wage labour jobs. Should doesn't come into it. As long as employers need the job done, and therefore have to pay for it to be done, the work is indeed worth whatever level the minimum wage is set at.
Then why not advocate for setting the minimum wage at £100/hour? I mean, it is what it is and "should" doesn't come into it, right? Why set your sights so low?
quote:
To say that matters are different when the government intervenes as when another factory intervenes is to make an entirely different argument. It is to import a moral argument into the value-free argument. A value-free economics can make no distinction between the actions of government and any other economic factor. To treat government interference with the market as interference is to covertly import a moral or political view into the economic case.
The problem with setting a minimum wage higher than where I have already said it should be set is that it removes choice from the workers. Specifically, it removes a worker's ability to improve their own employment prospects by undercutting their rivals for the job.
Let's go back to the shit shovellers. Let's say they have all agreed to not work for less than £40k a year. Now let's say that I'm not the best shit-shoveller by any means, but that I am quite willing to offer my services to employers for £35k a year, thus giving myself a chance at a job that I would otherwise not be able to get. Should I be allowed to do so, or should I be forced into unemployment because my only good selling point - being cheaper - has been outlawed?
Posted by justlooking (# 12079) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
The point is, all societies decide what is the "minimal standard" that they're not willing to let anyone fall below. That is not the same thing as saying "have what everyone else has."
But the question here is whether that minimum standard should be one that allows a fuller participation in society than existence/survival. I would say that it should be. As I understand it from your post, the consensus in the USA would be that it need not be.
The minimal standard in the UK as defined by the JRF research
quote:
‘A minimum standard of living in Britain today includes, but is more than just, food, clothes and shelter. It is about having what you need in order to have the opportunities and choices necessary to participate in society.’
Thus, a minimum is about more than survival alone. However, it covers needs, not wants; necessities, not luxuries: items that the public think
people need in order to be part of society.
However, many people earn less than they need to reach that standard and can still fall well below even with benefits to top up their earnings.
Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Let's go back to the shit shovellers. Let's say they have all agreed to not work for less than £40k a year. Now let's say that I'm not the best shit-shoveller by any means, but that I am quite willing to offer my services to employers for £35k a year, thus giving myself a chance at a job that I would otherwise not be able to get. Should I be allowed to do so, or should I be forced into unemployment because my only good selling point - being cheaper - has been outlawed?
Yes, to be honest. Because your getting the job not only results in someone else not getting it (so zero net benefit) but in everyone else does that job taking a pay cut over the long term (certainly anyone else wanting that job) and leads to a race to the bottom that leaves everyone worse off except the person who can most afford to lose it - the owner of (say) the stable. Employers can and will exploit people's need to work to drive down wages. Collective bargaining is the only weapon most employees have.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
I think many might be surprised at the number of people who use foodbanks and are in work and earning above the minimum wage.
Yes, and I think you might actually be shocked to know the truth about food banks.
1. You have to be referred by the JobCentre or another agency - you can't just turn up as and when and get stuff.
2. You will only be given 3 days worth of food.
3. You can only return to the food bank twice more in any 6 month period.
Yes, that's correct; you read it right:
You can only get 9 days' worth of food in an entire 6 month period, having been referred by the Jobcentre who stopped your money in the first place.
Now tell me again that Britain is living on food from food banks...?
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Yes, and I think you might actually be shocked to know the truth about food banks.
1. You have to be referred by the JobCentre or another agency - you can't just turn up as and when and get stuff.
2. You will only be given 3 days worth of food.
3. You can only return to the food bank twice more in any 6 month period.
Yes, that's correct; you read it right:
You can only get 9 days' worth of food in an entire 6 month period, having been referred by the Jobcentre who stopped your money in the first place.
Now tell me again that Britain is living on food from food banks...?
I'm not sure why you are telling me this, I am quite aware of the way that Trussell Trust banks work. Or don't work.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by justlooking:
The minimal standard in the UK as defined by the JRF research
quote:
‘A minimum standard of living in Britain today includes, but is more than just, food, clothes and shelter. It is about having what you need in order to have the opportunities and choices necessary to participate in society.’
Thus, a minimum is about more than survival alone. However, it covers needs, not wants; necessities, not luxuries: items that the public think
people need in order to be part of society.
However, many people earn less than they need to reach that standard and can still fall well below even with benefits to top up their earnings. [/QB][/QUOTE]
And there is the problem.
It's not that low-income people don;'t have what everyone else has because they think that's what everyone should have, but that they want it
now. It's their right to own it now.
A generation ago people who couldn't afford, say, a washing machine, saved up for it until they had enough money and in the meantime went to the laundrette. They didn't demand extra money so they could afford just to take the money from their account and buy it.
I was talking to my wife yesterday about this thread and she reminded me of her parents. Not poor - her Dad was a draughtsman at British Aorospace - but when my wife was a child 40 years ago she remembers being told 'no, you can't have XYZ because we can't afford it.' Has she grown up scarred, and mentally corrupt and excluded from society because her parents couldn't just go and buy it? Not at all!
And in those days it was almost considered shameful to go into debt to get even necessary items. My wife remembers the time when her parents, for the very first time bought something on Hire Purchase; my father-in-law's mother went absolutely mad when she found out her son had done this terrible thing!
Nowadays, materialism and consumerism have convinced people, even poverty campaigners, that our lives are incomplete, that we are not participating fully in society, if we don't have at least the basic model of what everyone else has.
Don't they see that is exactly how advertising works?
Poverty is when you don't have the basics, not when you can't afford gadgets and entertainment. - for example I went to a young man's flat this very evening and it was freezing because he had the heating off - now that is poor.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Yes, and I think you might actually be shocked to know the truth about food banks.
1. You have to be referred by the JobCentre or another agency - you can't just turn up as and when and get stuff.
2. You will only be given 3 days worth of food.
3. You can only return to the food bank twice more in any 6 month period.
Yes, that's correct; you read it right:
You can only get 9 days' worth of food in an entire 6 month period, having been referred by the Jobcentre who stopped your money in the first place.
Now tell me again that Britain is living on food from food banks...?
I'm not sure why you are telling me this, I am quite aware of the way that Trussell Trust banks work. Or don't work.
I'm just 'putting it out there' because people seem to assume that 'Britain isn't eating' means that every week all these poor families are relying on food banks to supplement their poor incomes because they can only afford to 'heat or eat'. It simply is not true.
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
Foodbanks are a poor sticking plaster measure of poverty anyway - for reasons you've highlighted and others.
There are a lot of people who are missing meals and such a lot of the time. The 'heat or eat' phenomena is a real thing even amongst working people.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
:
Which is why Christians should not give to food banks.
It lets the government off the hook.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
And in those days it was almost considered shameful to go into debt to get even necessary items.
So a mortgage holder would hang his head in shame around a good, honest renter? That seems like a vaguely bullshit claim to me.
It all seems to go back to an ugly resentment of the poor. I'm reminded of politicians like Ronald Reagan railing against Cadillac-driving welfare queens and "strapping young bucks" buying T-bone steaks with food stamps. Sure, these were racially-coded dogwhistles (which I don't think applies here), but there also seemed to be an outright anger at the idea that anyone who was poor and receiving public assistance be anything more than absolutely destitute.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Which is why Christians should not give to food banks.
It lets the government off the hook.
The PM said - and I don't think it was a cynical comment - that the reason for the rise in the use of foodbanks was because they have authorised JobCentres to refer people to them in emergency circumstances.
It seems to me that Jobcentres find it easier to do that than to sort out the problem for their client.
I also believe that foodbank use has risen because of the 'build it and they will come' phenomenon.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
And in those days it was almost considered shameful to go into debt to get even necessary items.
So a mortgage holder would hang his head in shame around a good, honest renter? That seems like a vaguely bullshit claim to me.
It all seems to go back to an ugly resentment of the poor. I'm reminded of politicians like Ronald Reagan railing against Cadillac-driving welfare queens and "strapping young bucks" buying T-bone steaks with food stamps. Sure, these were racially-coded dogwhistles (which I don't think applies here), but there also seemed to be an outright anger at the idea that anyone who was poor and receiving public assistance be anything more than absolutely destitute.
Sorry Mr Croesus, but here in mid twentieth century postwar Britain that was how our culture worked.
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
Just thought I'd see what evidence there was regarding the 'heat or eat' phenomena.
Centre for modern family (never heard of them) 2012: 8% of parents questioned have skipped meals to ensure family fed 15% unable to pay household bills
Journal of the Royal Statistical Society 2014: We find evidence that the poorest of older households cannot smooth fuel spending over the worst temperature shocks. Statistically significant reductions in food spending occur in response to winter temperatures 2 or more standard deviations colder than expected, which occur about 1 winter month in 40; reductions in food expenditure are considerably larger in poorer households.
Netmums 2012: One in five mums is missing meals so her children can eat
Trussell Trust, Fareshare, Tesco Just over a quarter of those surveyed say that they have struggled to buy the same amount of healthy and nutritious food as they did a year ago, while almost two thirds admit that they will go cold by cutting back on heating to provide food for their families.
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
The PM said - and I don't think it was a cynical comment - that the reason for the rise in the use of foodbanks was because they have authorised JobCentres to refer people to them in emergency circumstances.
It seems to me that Jobcentres find it easier to do that than to sort out the problem for their client.
Of course, not only Jobcentres are able to refer people to foodbanks. Large, and growing, numbers of local agencies often give out the passes necessary to obtain food from a foodbank.
quote:
I also believe that foodbank use has risen because of the 'build it and they will come' phenomenon.
Sorry, let me understand what you are implying here: are you saying that people are commonly using foodbanks who do not need to? What evidence do you have for this claim?
Posted by Garasu (# 17152) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
are you saying that people are commonly using foodbanks who do not need to? What evidence do you have for this claim?
Particularly given the claim upthread that access to foodbanks is actually quite restricted!
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
The PM said - and I don't think it was a cynical comment - that the reason for the rise in the use of foodbanks was because they have authorised JobCentres to refer people to them in emergency circumstances.
It seems to me that Jobcentres find it easier to do that than to sort out the problem for their client.
Of course, not only Jobcentres are able to refer people to foodbanks. Large, and growing, numbers of local agencies often give out the passes necessary to obtain food from a foodbank.
quote:
I also believe that foodbank use has risen because of the 'build it and they will come' phenomenon.
Sorry, let me understand what you are implying here: are you saying that people are commonly using foodbanks who do not need to? What evidence do you have for this claim?
No, that's not quite what I mean - I'm saying that the existence of the foodbanks gives agencies the easy option. Instead of making a phone call to sort out someone's benefit, give them a referral form to the foodbank down the street. if the foodbank hadn't been built the chances are the only option for the referring agency would be to sort out the problem better.
Bear in mind that the non-benefit office referrers can only refer 2 ways - either they refer the client to the food bank or they refer them back to the JobCentre or Benefit Agency. Either way, if the JC or the BA will not help the only alternative is the food bank.
A question: What happens to the family with no food if they are referred to the food bank 3 times in the space of a month? They have 5 more months before they can access the food bank again. I guess that it's at that point the Jobcentre actually does it's job because the aternative is no longer avaliable to their client. Maybe the jobcentre should have sorted out the money in the first place!
Build the foodbank and they will come - or mmore accurately, get sent!
Posted by Garasu (# 17152) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
What happens to the family with no food if they are referred to the food bank 3 times in the space of a month? They have 5 more months before they can access the food bank again. I guess that it's at that point the Jobcentre actually does it's job because the aternative is no longer avaliable to their client. Maybe the jobcentre should have sorted out the money in the first place!
So there's an issue?
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
No - the value of the job is simply what the employer pays and the employee accepts. One can't say that the employer should be paying more or that the employee should be accepting less. Or so goes the argument.
As I adknowledged in a subsequent post.
I'm glad my summary was accurate then.
quote:
quote:
One cannot therefore on the above argument say that the government has set the minimum wage at the wrong value. The minimum wage is set at the value at which it is set; and that therefore is the value of minimum wage labour jobs. Should doesn't come into it. As long as employers need the job done, and therefore have to pay for it to be done, the work is indeed worth whatever level the minimum wage is set at.
Then why not advocate for setting the minimum wage at £100/hour? I mean, it is what it is and "should" doesn't come into it, right? Why set your sights so low?
I'm arguing from your premises, which you acknowledged as yours above. It's not really my job to resolve problems that your premises raise.
It's fine to say there are moral reasons for setting the minimum wage at a certain level relative to benefits. It's also fine to say that moral considerations don't dictate the value of wages. You can't consistently assert both.
quote:
quote:
To say that matters are different when the government intervenes as when another factory intervenes is to make an entirely different argument. It is to import a moral argument into the value-free argument. A value-free economics can make no distinction between the actions of government and any other economic factor. To treat government interference with the market as interference is to covertly import a moral or political view into the economic case.
The problem with setting a minimum wage higher than where I have already said it should be set is that it removes choice from the workers. Specifically, it removes a worker's ability to improve their own employment prospects by undercutting their rivals for the job.
You typed 'problem' where you meant 'benefit'.
quote:
Let's go back to the shit shovellers. Let's say they have all agreed to not work for less than £40k a year. Now let's say that I'm not the best shit-shoveller by any means, but that I am quite willing to offer my services to employers for £35k a year, thus giving myself a chance at a job that I would otherwise not be able to get. Should I be allowed to do so, or should I be forced into unemployment because my only good selling point - being cheaper - has been outlawed?
Let's see: there's a person who shovels shit better than you and needs the money more than you do. And you're asking why it is you who is forced into unemployment rather than him?
Let's face it: in a contest between Mark the Muppet and Sam the Superb, the question isn't whether the employer will hire the Muppet at £35 pa or Sam at £40 pa. It's whether the employer will hire Sam at £40 or hire Sam at whatever level the Muppet becomes too stupid to hold out for a better offer. The Muppet's never going to get the job over Sam. We aren't being concerned for the Muppet by lowering the minimum wage: we're basically using the Muppet to let the employer haggle Sam's price down.
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
No, that's not quite what I mean - I'm saying that the existence of the foodbanks gives agencies the easy option. Instead of making a phone call to sort out someone's benefit, give them a referral form to the foodbank down the street. if the foodbank hadn't been built the chances are the only option for the referring agency would be to sort out the problem better.
I see - you are alleging something between casual disregard for the welfare of claimants and deliberate calculating brutal punishment of claimants because it is easier to give them a voucher to a food bank? Why is conspiracy an easier explanation than poor performance of the service? What do jobcentres gain from deliberately sending claimants to foodbanks?
quote:
Bear in mind that the non-benefit office referrers can only refer 2 ways - either they refer the client to the food bank or they refer them back to the JobCentre or Benefit Agency. Either way, if the JC or the BA will not help the only alternative is the food bank.
Presumably the JC or BA will have to do something eventually. So this is just a delaying tactic, no?
quote:
A question: What happens to the family with no food if they are referred to the food bank 3 times in the space of a month? They have 5 more months before they can access the food bank again. I guess that it's at that point the Jobcentre actually does it's job because the aternative is no longer avaliable to their client. Maybe the jobcentre should have sorted out the money in the first place!
Or perhaps the system is so overwhelmed that it is incapable of working within the necessary timeframes. I'm not sure believing in a conspiracy is really necessary to understand this trainwreck.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Garasu:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
What happens to the family with no food if they are referred to the food bank 3 times in the space of a month? They have 5 more months before they can access the food bank again. I guess that it's at that point the Jobcentre actually does it's job because the aternative is no longer avaliable to their client. Maybe the jobcentre should have sorted out the money in the first place!
So there's an issue?
Too right there's an issue. Don't get me started!! Over half the people who are sent to foodbanks are experiencing little more than a catastrophic 'cash-flow' problem because of the ineptitude, inflexibility and sheer awkwardness of the jobsworths at the Jobcentre. I know because I've had to deal with it on behalf of people I've helped wither on the phone or in person at the JobCentre. It's astonishing!
There's more than an issue - there's a scandal!
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
Mudfrog, please help me understand what you are saying - you believe that the large numbers of people who report missing meals etc because they can't afford to both heat and feed their families is because of deliberate conspiracy by jobcentre staff and/or policy.
Is that what you think?
Posted by Garasu (# 17152) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Too right there's an issue. Don't get me started!! Over half the people who are sent to foodbanks are experiencing little more than a catastrophic 'cash-flow' problem because of the ineptitude, inflexibility and sheer awkwardness of the jobsworths at the Jobcentre.
By "jobsworths", you mean "I'm going to be sacked if I don't do what I'm told"?
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
I didn't actually use the word 'conspiracy' - that's your own assertion.
I used the words quote:
ineptitude, inflexibility and sheer awkwardness
.
The Salvation Army's own figure - borne out at least by my own experience - reveal that over 51% of people accessing foodbanks do so because of delays to their benefits, reapplying for benefits, sanctions and mistakes, errors and misinformation.
It's not a conspiracy but there is a culture of unhurried unhelpfulness.
I can give examples.
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
OK, forget the word conspiracy and call it whatever you like.
The people who are choosing between heating and eating are largely because of the effect of job centres passing them off rather than dealing with their claims. Is that what you think?
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Garasu:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Too right there's an issue. Don't get me started!! Over half the people who are sent to foodbanks are experiencing little more than a catastrophic 'cash-flow' problem because of the ineptitude, inflexibility and sheer awkwardness of the jobsworths at the Jobcentre.
By "jobsworths", you mean "I'm going to be sacked if I don't do what I'm told"?
No, I mean a man behind a desk at the Jobcentre who refused to help my client because he couldn't be bothered. He didn't know I was with my client because I was sitting a few yards away. I then came over and asked why payment was refused and why he wouldn't help. His continuing obstructive attitude roused the annoyance of the clerk at the next desk who asked him why he wouldn't help the man (who had had his benefit payment unexpectedly stopped). After talking to me, seeing I was in Salvation Army uniform - and telling me she had once volunteered for The Salvation Army - she decided to take the client's case away from the original clerk, and after literally 3 phone calls (one of which was made by myself) was able to say to my client, 'the money will be in your account by 3pm today.'
My question is simply this: what would have happened to this man if he had gone alone to the Jobcentre? He would have accepted the initial 'I can't help' and gone away penniless with no food and no ability to pay his rent - or maybe he would have been referred to the foodbank to obtain food.
As it was he got his money, no thanks to the Jobsworth - and due in no small part to the fact that I stood as advocate and the other clerk just happened to respect The Salvation Army.
Posted by Garasu (# 17152) on
:
I'm happy to accept that an individual member of staff interpreted the rules badly. But the point is that the environment is to pressure staff to make that bad decision.
I've been there. Sometimes someone has to say "I'm prepared to take the rap on this". It's generally not terribly nice, even if you're eventually vindicated.
I don't blame staff who aren't prepared to do that.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
And you can add to that the misreading of a date which meant they refused a benefit.
Add to that the fact that they faxed the re-submitted application to the wrong department and demanded he make another claim - which would take a further 2 weeks.
Add to that a huge mistake on my own son's claim which would have made him homeless were it not for the fact that we put him up and fed him free for 2 months - he's 25!
Add to that a man who was told to come off one benefit and apply for another but themn when he did he was told he wasn't entitled and had to go back on the original - a process that would take 3 weeks!!!! - and he would get no money until then.
The list goes on and on.
OFFICIAL Salvation Army figures are over 51% of hardship is caused by this kind of problem.
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
Hang on, 51% of people accessing foodbanks (which as we've agreed isn't much of a measure, given how ineffective they are) or 51% of all people experiencing hardship (for example the high levels of reports of people missing meals)?
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
Hang on, 51% of people accessing foodbanks (which as we've agreed isn't much of a measure, given how ineffective they are) or 51% of all people experiencing hardship (for example the high levels of reports of people missing meals)?
51% of people who approach The Salvation Army for help (usually food) do so because of cash-flow shortage because of delays/stoppage/of benefits.
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
OK but even if that reflects all agencies across the board who have people coming to them because of that reason, that only explains just under half of the use of food banks.
So even if foodbanks really are set up because of inept government services, one can expect half of them (or half of the users of them) to have come because of other reasons. No?
Posted by Majorminor (# 17967) on
:
Our food bank has no limitations on how often a person or family can access food, so long as they are genuinely in need, and this can be because of JSA sanctions, coming out of hospital (and therefor having benefit suspended)' partner as the main claimant leaving the home, being offered a place in a refuge, of any other genuine reason. I think it's dangerous to generalise on food bank criteria or the type of clients helped.
[ 13. February 2014, 21:27: Message edited by: Majorminor ]
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
51% of people who approach The Salvation Army for help (usually food) do so because of cash-flow shortage because of delays/stoppage/of benefits.
There is an impression, fostered in the right wing press and the government, that most people on benefits are scroungers who do not really need the money. It is a surprise that this coincides with a jobsworth / do not care attitude among staff administering benefits... why exactly?
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Let's face it: in a contest between Mark the Muppet and Sam the Superb, the question isn't whether the employer will hire the Muppet at £35 pa or Sam at £40 pa. It's whether the employer will hire Sam at £40 or hire Sam at whatever level the Muppet becomes too stupid to hold out for a better offer. The Muppet's never going to get the job over Sam. We aren't being concerned for the Muppet by lowering the minimum wage: we're basically using the Muppet to let the employer haggle Sam's price down.
Evidence suggests this to be false.
Evidence suggests that, for example, medical practices are now hiring cheaper nurses to do things that doctors used to do, and are hiring even cheaper healthcare assistants to do things
that nurses used to do.
So employers are, to use your terminology, hiring the cheap muppet in place of the more expensive but superb.
Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on
:
At least in America, it seems to be that public schools often are a major food source for poor kids.
I do not think this is an exaggeration. I can see why for some people it's convenient to imagine that it's an exaggeration, but I do not think it really is one.
Posted by justlooking (# 12079) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Talitha:
The trouble with inflating the definition of poverty is that not only is it an insult to genuinely poor people like those Mudfrog works with, but it diverts resources and compassion from them.
Every time I see a list of so-called necessities in the UK, like the one on page 2 of this thread, I'm shocked by how much is on it. ...
The research behind the minimum income standards doesn't define poverty. It defines what a majority of adults believe to be an acceptable minimum standard of living which will cover physical needs and allow someone to play a part in their society rather than be isolated. For children this includes toys and books and the kinds of activities and experiences which are necessary for their social development.
A second stage of the research was to ask the respondents how many of the identified items they had lacked and for how long.
I don't think anyone is expecting benefit levels be set to meet these standards or even that minimum wage levels would meet these standards. But those who form social policies need to know how people are living and managing what they have and how they perceive their own situation.
Successive governments have made pledges to end child poverty and to ensure all children have what they need to develop fully and play a part in society. This won't be achieved by treating children as extensions of their parents. What horrifies me about the current debate around poverty and benefits is the way children are labelled as 'scroungers' and are penalised by the system. Ultimately if parents don't have the means to support their children then the state has to take those children into care and support them, and at far greater expense.
[ 14. February 2014, 08:35: Message edited by: justlooking ]
Posted by justlooking (# 12079) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Let's face it: in a contest between Mark the Muppet and Sam the Superb, the question isn't whether the employer will hire the Muppet at £35 pa or Sam at £40 pa. It's whether the employer will hire Sam at £40 or hire Sam at whatever level the Muppet becomes too stupid to hold out for a better offer. The Muppet's never going to get the job over Sam. We aren't being concerned for the Muppet by lowering the minimum wage: we're basically using the Muppet to let the employer haggle Sam's price down.
Evidence suggests this to be false.
Evidence suggests that, for example, medical practices are now hiring cheaper nurses to do things that doctors used to do, and are hiring even cheaper healthcare assistants to do things
that nurses used to do.
So employers are, to use your terminology, hiring the cheap muppet in place of the more expensive but superb.
This is happening in schools in the UK which use unqualified staff to teach. I certainly wouldn't call them muppets but they are a cheap alternative. Rather than use supply teachers to cover for absences agencies now send in cheaper 'cover supervisors' at less than half the teacher's pay rate. They're not supposed to be used for long-term cover but schools get round this by asking agencies for cover supervisors who have qualified teacher status. These may be retired teachers or increasingly these days older teachers who've been managed out of their jobs to make way for younger, cheaper alternatives. Schools also employ full-time cover supervisors who are not supposed to teach but in practice often do just about everything a teacher would, including marking and and assessments.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Let's go back to the shit shovellers. Let's say they have all agreed to not work for less than £40k a year. Now let's say that I'm not the best shit-shoveller by any means, but that I am quite willing to offer my services to employers for £35k a year, thus giving myself a chance at a job that I would otherwise not be able to get. Should I be allowed to do so, or should I be forced into unemployment because my only good selling point - being cheaper - has been outlawed?
Yes, to be honest. Because your getting the job not only results in someone else not getting it (so zero net benefit) but in everyone else does that job taking a pay cut over the long term (certainly anyone else wanting that job) and leads to a race to the bottom that leaves everyone worse off except the person who can most afford to lose it - the owner of (say) the stable. Employers can and will exploit people's need to work to drive down wages. Collective bargaining is the only weapon most employees have.
So what is the person who has nothing to offer to an employer other than being cheaper than the rest supposed to do? Just stay unemployed?
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
And you can add to that the misreading of a date which meant they refused a benefit.
Add to that the fact that they faxed the re-submitted application to the wrong department and demanded he make another claim - which would take a further 2 weeks.
Add to that a huge mistake on my own son's claim which would have made him homeless were it not for the fact that we put him up and fed him free for 2 months - he's 25!
Add to that a man who was told to come off one benefit and apply for another but themn when he did he was told he wasn't entitled and had to go back on the original - a process that would take 3 weeks!!!! - and he would get no money until then.
The list goes on and on.
OFFICIAL Salvation Army figures are over 51% of hardship is caused by this kind of problem.
I expect the SA work damn hard to find suitable data and you work equally hard to interpret it to reach those conclusions.
I'll know better than to donate to the Salvation Army in future.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Let's go back to the shit shovellers. Let's say they have all agreed to not work for less than £40k a year. Now let's say that I'm not the best shit-shoveller by any means, but that I am quite willing to offer my services to employers for £35k a year, thus giving myself a chance at a job that I would otherwise not be able to get. Should I be allowed to do so, or should I be forced into unemployment because my only good selling point - being cheaper - has been outlawed?
Yes, to be honest. Because your getting the job not only results in someone else not getting it (so zero net benefit) but in everyone else does that job taking a pay cut over the long term (certainly anyone else wanting that job) and leads to a race to the bottom that leaves everyone worse off except the person who can most afford to lose it - the owner of (say) the stable. Employers can and will exploit people's need to work to drive down wages. Collective bargaining is the only weapon most employees have.
So what is the person who has nothing to offer to an employer other than being cheaper than the rest supposed to do? Just stay unemployed?
There's a problem either way. Either he's unemployed, or someone else is (the person who wanted more for the job). And of course, because there's someone willing to do it for less, whoever gets the job gets paid less for doing it.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
The problem with setting a minimum wage higher than where I have already said it should be set is that it removes choice from the workers. Specifically, it removes a worker's ability to improve their own employment prospects by undercutting their rivals for the job.
You typed 'problem' where you meant 'benefit'.
Removing choice is a benefit? I'm amazed to read that on a thread where so many others have said that the real problem with poverty is that it removes choice from the poor.
quote:
quote:
Let's go back to the shit shovellers. Let's say they have all agreed to not work for less than £40k a year. Now let's say that I'm not the best shit-shoveller by any means, but that I am quite willing to offer my services to employers for £35k a year, thus giving myself a chance at a job that I would otherwise not be able to get. Should I be allowed to do so, or should I be forced into unemployment because my only good selling point - being cheaper - has been outlawed?
Let's see: there's a person who shovels shit better than you and needs the money more than you do. And you're asking why it is you who is forced into unemployment rather than him?
"Needs the money more than you" is something you've added, not something I said.
quote:
Let's face it: in a contest between Mark the Muppet and Sam the Superb, the question isn't whether the employer will hire the Muppet at £35 pa or Sam at £40 pa. It's whether the employer will hire Sam at £40 or hire Sam at whatever level the Muppet becomes too stupid to hold out for a better offer. The Muppet's never going to get the job over Sam. We aren't being concerned for the Muppet by lowering the minimum wage: we're basically using the Muppet to let the employer haggle Sam's price down.
My concern is that the Muppet has no chance of getting a job without being able to offer something to prospective employers that makes him more appealing to them than anyone else. If ability to do the job isn't going to tick that box then he needs to use something else, and being cheaper is pretty much the only other thing that exists. Deny him the ability to offer his services at a cheaper rate, and you basically deny him the opportunity to get a job.
We see this sort of thing all the time at the corporate level. Take airlines, for instance - companies such as EasyJet can offer cheap, no-frills flights that attract customers and earn them money. If every airline had to charge the same amount for flights then everyone would book with high-quality companies like BA, and EasyJet would go bust. The ability to differentiate on price means companies that can't compete on quality are still able to get a piece of the pie. Why should it be any different when the "pie" is employment and the "companies" are prospective workers?
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
There's a problem either way. Either he's unemployed, or someone else is (the person who wanted more for the job).
Yes, there are two people and only one of them can get the job. One will win and one will lose.
My point is, if you remove the ability to compete on price you are guaranteeing that the Muppet will lose. You are effectively telling the Muppet that he's not allowed to have a job, because the only way he can possibly compete has been banned.
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Yes, there are two people and only one of them can get the job. One will win and one will lose.
My point is, if you remove the ability to compete on price you are guaranteeing that the Muppet will lose. You are effectively telling the Muppet that he's not allowed to have a job, because the only way he can possibly compete has been banned.
I must be missing something - how is having a floor (minimum price) restricting competition on price? All it is doing is preventing exploitation of the worker who are least able to command a good price for their labour by insisting that they should not have to work for poverty wages.
Posted by Talitha (# 5085) on
:
Those who are sceptical of Mudfrog's claims about systematic incompetence and laziness in jobcentres have presumably never had a dispute with a large bureaucracy such as a utility company. The incompetence, inconsistency and buck-passing you encounter there is incredibly frustrating - and I say that as a financially secure middle-class consumer with the power to take my business elsewhere or complain to the regulator, and when all that's at stake is further inconvenience for me and maybe a few weeks without the internet.
How much more distressing must it be when it's the jobcentre and they have the power to say whether you eat or starve, and you have no recourse when they cock it up?
I'm lucky enough not to have experienced it personally, but I find it all too believable based on my experiences with other bureaucracies.
Posted by M. (# 3291) on
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Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
"And in those days it was almost considered shameful to go into debt to get even necessary items."
So a mortgage holder would hang his head in shame around a good, honest renter? That seems like a vaguely bullshit claim to me.
"Sorry Mr Croesus, but here in mid twentieth century postwar Britain that was how our culture worked."
I don't want to get involved in this debate too much, but I do want to back Mudfrog up here. Family story, told by my mother - when she and dad decided to buy a house on mortgage in the early-mid 50's, they came in for quite some stick. There was a thin line between lower middle class/respectable working class respectability and lack of respectability and debt could tip you over it. Debt was always shameful, even mortgage debt.
But they were part of the never had it so good generation and went ahead. To their, and the family's great benefit, I have to say.
M.
[ 14. February 2014, 09:56: Message edited by: M. ]
Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on
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On saving up for stuff: the truly poor have nothing left over to save.
To take one of Mudfrog's examples: a washing machine. When you’re really broke, you can’t save up for a washing machine because you need clean clothes now so the little bit of money you have is disappearing into the slot at the laundrette.
When I was on the minimum wage, I used to spend about 4 euros a week at the laundrette (only the washer – I came up with a variety of creative ways of air-drying the stuff in my tiny studio apartment because I couldn’t afford the dryer), which adds up to 200 euros or so in a year. 200 euros a year would have got me quite close to the price of a washing machine, except that I had to spend that money in order to have clean clothes to wear straight away so I couldn’t save it. And I simply didn’t have enough money left over to save another 4 euros a week. I was counting Every. Cent. By time I’d paid the rent and bills, done my grocery shopping (right over the other side of town at the Chinese supermarket because it’s the cheapest place), bought a travel card etc. there was just nothing left.
This is a good example of how *life is more expensive for the poor*. Now that I can afford the initial outlay to have a washing machine in my apartment, I am actually spending less money over the long term getting my laundry done. (I paid 300 euros for the machine – in the next 3 years, say, I will have spent 300 euros plus the cost of the electricity, vs. 600 odd euros if I was still going to the automated washery.)
Which was brilliantly formulated thus by Terry Pratchett:
quote:
“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.
Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.”
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
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That's right. I don't think wealthier people appreciate how much of a scandal launderettes are.
Similarly coin/card energy meters. More expensive for a poorer service.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
I must be missing something - how is having a floor (minimum price) restricting competition on price?
It's when the floor is set too high that it becomes a problem. A floor that guarantees food , heat, healthcare etc. is a good thing, but one that is set considerably higher than that level removes the ability for workers who are perfectly willing to forego luxuries in order to improve their prospects of getting a job in the first place to do so.
quote:
All it is doing is preventing exploitation of the worker who are least able to command a good price for their labour by insisting that they should not have to work for poverty wages.
The ones that are least able to command a good price are exactly the ones that benefit from being able to offer their services at a lower price. If prices are fixed at a higher level that their abilities can demand, they will just be unemployed instead. Is that better?
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
The ones that are least able to command a good price are exactly the ones that benefit from being able to offer their services at a lower price. If prices are fixed at a higher level that their abilities can demand, they will just be unemployed instead. Is that better?
I don't think that logically follows. Corporations profit today far more from worker's labour than they've ever done before. They could pay more and profit less, but obviously there is no need to if they can get the same labour for less pay.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
I don't think that logically follows. Corporations profit today far more from worker's labour than they've ever done before. They could pay more and profit less, but obviously there is no need to if they can get the same labour for less pay.
Sure. And because EasyJet exists nobody will ever want to fly with BA.
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Sure. And because EasyJet exists nobody will ever want to fly with BA.
Easyjet are not only cheaper because they pay their staff less, though*. There are various differences between the models, including a complicated cost-loading system in play by Easyjet together with other ways they've identified to reduce cost.
*in fact I've actually heard that their wages are quite competitive. I'm not sure how true that is.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
There's a problem either way. Either he's unemployed, or someone else is (the person who wanted more for the job).
Yes, there are two people and only one of them can get the job. One will win and one will lose.
My point is, if you remove the ability to compete on price you are guaranteeing that the Muppet will lose. You are effectively telling the Muppet that he's not allowed to have a job, because the only way he can possibly compete has been banned.
I know what your point is. And my point is that what happens is whoever is willing to the job for the least amount of money gets it, so wages drop. I think we can find better ways of getting more people into employment than letting wages sink through the floor, can't we? The real issue is shortage of jobs; were there more work available the muppet would get the job because there wouldn't be a sea of applicants.
The real world doesn't work like this anyway; jobs are advertised at £X/hr; I'm not aware that it's generally possible to say at an interview "you should hire me because I'll do it for £X-2".
[ 14. February 2014, 10:53: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
Easyjet are not only cheaper because they pay their staff less, though*. There are various differences between the models, including a complicated cost-loading system in play by Easyjet together with other ways they've identified to reduce cost.
EasyJet are cheaper because they offer a lower standard of flight - no meals, less baggage allowance, destination airports that are in the middle of nowhere, etc. People are still willing to pay more if they want the higher standard that other airlines can provide.
Similarly, companies that want a higher quality of staff will be willing to pay more than companies who are just after the cheapest people they can get. There will be opportunities for both types of worker.
The only times this model doesn't give all concerned a decent chance of success are when the price is fixed for everyone (in which case the lowest quality always loses) or when the quality is the same for everyone (in which case the highest cost always loses).
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Sure. And because EasyJet exists nobody will ever want to fly with BA.
Easyjet are not only cheaper because they pay their staff less, though*. There are various differences between the models, including a complicated cost-loading system in play by Easyjet together with other ways they've identified to reduce cost.
*in fact I've actually heard that their wages are quite competitive. I'm not sure how true that is.
I've heard that too. It's probably because the managers and owners of EasyJet take the view that spending extra to recruit those at the top gives better value. Look at it this way, would you want to be on, or would you want to own and operate, a plane flown by someone worried about the rent?
It might even explain why service is seen to be poor in Jobcentres. The staff have been denigrated, conditions of service worsened and the emphasis placed on ensuring claimants don't get anything they aren't legitimately claiming for, rather than enabling them to get the benefits they are entitled to, so is anyone surprised staff don't perform at their best and that claimants have to resort to charity?
[ 14. February 2014, 11:13: Message edited by: Sioni Sais ]
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
So what is the person who has nothing to offer to an employer other than being cheaper than the rest supposed to do? Just stay unemployed?
What is the alternative you're proposing?
The people with something to offer to an employer are unemployed instead?
In an ideal world we'd have full employment. If we don't have full employment and somebody has got to be unemployed it might as well be the person who is least competent.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
OFFICIAL Salvation Army figures are over 51% of hardship is caused by this kind of problem.
I expect the SA work damn hard to find suitable data and you work equally hard to interpret it to reach those conclusions.
I'll know better than to donate to the Salvation Army in future.
It's not really a surprise to me that the rules governing jobcentres and benefits are not operated in the interests of the people who need them. I don't think it's in the interests of people who need benefits to suggest that this maladministration doesn't happen. Next thing, you'll object when somebody suggests that ATOS occasionally finds people with disabilities fit for work when it shouldn't.
Mudfrog's failure is not in his facts. It's in not connecting the maladministration of benefits with the wider social attitudes to people on benefits that he's displaying.
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
I don't believe that the majority of people facing a choice between food and paying bills are in that situation because of the jobcentre.
I can believe there is a significant problem with running the service. I just don't like the way Mudfrog is using this as a reason to be dismissive of people he seems to think are just kidding themselves that they're poor.
That said, education is a big part of poverty too.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
I'm a little confused now. We help anyone that comes to us - we don't turn people away. It doesn't matter to me whether someone comes to us direct or has been referred, we help them!
My annoyance with the system, (not with the clients) is that is causes the problems that we try to help with. I can guarantee that no one who accesses a food bank or who contacts us wants to do so; they would much rather the agencies did their job correctly and that they got the money they are due on time.
Actually, someone asked earlier about TSA is doing to tackle the causes of poverty - well, giving someone a voice is part of that. I was there in the jobcentre demanding that a man be paid - and he was!
I was on the phone demanding that they forward his application so he could get paid rather than be evicted by his landlord.
It seems to me that as well as providing the food, have also been on the side of the poor against the bureaucrat and tried to get them their money.
What's wrong with that?
[ 14. February 2014, 12:44: Message edited by: Mudfrog ]
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
I'm a little confused now. We help anyone that comes to us - we don't turn people away. It doesn't matter to me whether someone comes to us direct or has been referred, we help them!
My annoyance with the system, (not with the clients) is that is causes the problems that we try to help with. I can guarantee that no one who accesses a food bank or who contacts us wants to do so; they would much rather the agencies did their job correctly and that they got the money they are due on time.
OK, the Jobcentres and other official agencies don't do their job properly. Why are you so condemnatory of benefits claimants and "the poor" in general?
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
I'm a little confused now. We help anyone that comes to us - we don't turn people away. It doesn't matter to me whether someone comes to us direct or has been referred, we help them!
My annoyance with the system, (not with the clients) is that is causes the problems that we try to help with. I can guarantee that no one who accesses a food bank or who contacts us wants to do so; they would much rather the agencies did their job correctly and that they got the money they are due on time.
OK, the Jobcentres and other official agencies don't do their job properly. Why are you so condemnatory of benefits claimants and "the poor" in general?
I'm not!
Where have I condemned benefit claimants and the poor?
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
The problem with setting a minimum wage higher than where I have already said it should be set is that it removes choice from the workers. Specifically, it removes a worker's ability to improve their own employment prospects by undercutting their rivals for the job.
You typed 'problem' where you meant 'benefit'.
Removing choice is a benefit? I'm amazed to read that on a thread where so many others have said that the real problem with poverty is that it removes choice from the poor.
How many people would choose to be undercut?
If along with the choice to undercut other people, you're also giving those people the choice not to be undercut then that would be one thing. Maybe they could all form a some sort of united organisation, we could call it a "ted organisat" for short, in which they could all jointly vote for whether they wanted to be undercut. Would that be better in your opinion?
'Choice' is a mere feel-good buzzword until you fill it out with details about what the choice is between and who gets affected by those choices.
quote:
quote:
Let's see: there's a person who shovels shit better than you and needs the money more than you do. And you're asking why it is you who is forced into unemployment rather than him?
"Needs the money more than you" is something you've added, not something I said.
You said that the only advantage the one person has is that he's cheaper. If 'needs the money more than you' is not a reasonable paraphrase of not being cheaper then I don't know what 'being cheaper' means.
quote:
quote:
Let's face it: in a contest between Mark the Muppet and Sam the Superb, the question isn't whether the employer will hire the Muppet at £35 pa or Sam at £40 pa.
My concern is that the Muppet has no chance of getting a job without being able to offer something to prospective employers that makes him more appealing to them than anyone else. If ability to do the job isn't going to tick that box then he needs to use something else, and being cheaper is pretty much the only other thing that exists. Deny him the ability to offer his services at a cheaper rate, and you basically deny him the opportunity to get a job.
I'm touched by your concern. Still, I think your emotional attachment to the Muppet is leading you to propose measures that would be counterproductive and not actually do the Muppet any good.
That's irrelevant to my argument. Are you denying Sam also the ability to offer his services at a cheaper rate? If Sam also offers his services at a cheaper rate - and why wouldn't he? - then the Muppet is back at square one, still has no advantage over Sam, and is still denied the opportunity to get a job.
quote:
We see this sort of thing all the time at the corporate level. Take airlines, for instance - companies such as EasyJet can offer cheap, no-frills flights that attract customers and earn them money. If every airline had to charge the same amount for flights then everyone would book with high-quality companies like BA, and EasyJet would go bust. The ability to differentiate on price means companies that can't compete on quality are still able to get a piece of the pie. Why should it be any different when the "pie" is employment and the "companies" are prospective workers?
Nobody defends restrictions on price-fixing as benefitting the companies. The justification is that it forces the companies to provide products more efficiently and therefore benefits the consumer.
The main difference between the two situations is that in the case of employment there isn't a pie. Sam isn't going to do eighty per cent of the work and Muppet the other twenty. Either Sam gets a full-time job or the Muppet does.
If your argument is that should the minimum wage be cut then people who couldn't previously afford to hire Muppet will be able to hire him, while those people who previously hired Sam at the higher rate will continue to do so, that's one argument. And perhaps the only way to resolve that is to see whether the empirical facts support it. But if that's the case then Sam and the Muppet are not directly in competition.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
There's a problem either way. Either he's unemployed, or someone else is (the person who wanted more for the job).
Yes, there are two people and only one of them can get the job. One will win and one will lose.
My point is, if you remove the ability to compete on price you are guaranteeing that the Muppet will lose. You are effectively telling the Muppet that he's not allowed to have a job, because the only way he can possibly compete has been banned.
I know what your point is. And my point is that what happens is whoever is willing to the job for the least amount of money gets it, so wages drop. I think we can find better ways of getting more people into employment than letting wages sink through the floor, can't we? The real issue is shortage of jobs; were there more work available the muppet would get the job because there wouldn't be a sea of applicants.
The real world doesn't work like this anyway; jobs are advertised at £X/hr; I'm not aware that it's generally possible to say at an interview "you should hire me because I'll do it for £X-2".
And meanwhile, you've done nothing to create more jobs. At the end of the day, you still have one person with a job and one person unemployed. The only difference is, will the person with the job have enough income to afford some small amount of discretionary spending-- thus contributing to the economy by creating demand for goods & services, which will ultimately lead to creation of more jobs-- so the 2nd person might have a job.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
How many people would choose to be undercut?
Probably as many as would choose to have no chance in the job market.
quote:
If along with the choice to undercut other people, you're also giving those people the choice not to be undercut then that would be one thing. Maybe they could all form a some sort of united organisation, we could call it a "ted organisat" for short, in which they could all jointly vote for whether they wanted to be undercut. Would that be better in your opinion?
The trouble is, if you're the Muppet in that scenario then agreeing to not drop your price is the same as agreeing to not get a job.
quote:
'Choice' is a mere feel-good buzzword until you fill it out with details about what the choice is between and who gets affected by those choices.
The specific choice here is about giving up on extra income in order to guarantee an income in the first place.
quote:
quote:
"Needs the money more than you" is something you've added, not something I said.
You said that the only advantage the one person has is that he's cheaper. If 'needs the money more than you' is not a reasonable paraphrase of not being cheaper then I don't know what 'being cheaper' means.
You're confusing "needs" with "wants". Remember that the basis of what I'm talking about is that all of a person's needs are going to be provided anyway.
quote:
Nobody defends restrictions on price-fixing as benefitting the companies. The justification is that it forces the companies to provide products more efficiently and therefore benefits the consumer.
It's always seemed weird to me that price fixing is seen as bad when companies do it, but good when employees do it.
If all the supermarkets got together and decided to refuse to sell any of their produce for less than a certain amount there'd be widespread condemnation, but when, say, tube drivers get together and decide to refuse to sell their labour for less than a certain amount it's good and proper.
quote:
If your argument is that should the minimum wage be cut then people who couldn't previously afford to hire Muppet will be able to hire him, while those people who previously hired Sam at the higher rate will continue to do so, that's one argument. And perhaps the only way to resolve that is to see whether the empirical facts support it.
It's certainly the case in some industries. Chefs, for instance - the best get big money at fancy restaurants, while the worst get small money at fast food joints.
quote:
But if that's the case then Sam and the Muppet are not directly in competition.
Perhaps not - at least in the sense that BA and EasyJet aren't in direct competition. But a too-high minimum wage prevents the "EasyJet" section of the market from being able to do business.
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
I'm a little confused now. We help anyone that comes to us - we don't turn people away. It doesn't matter to me whether someone comes to us direct or has been referred, we help them!
My annoyance with the system, (not with the clients) is that is causes the problems that we try to help with. I can guarantee that no one who accesses a food bank or who contacts us wants to do so; they would much rather the agencies did their job correctly and that they got the money they are due on time.
OK, the Jobcentres and other official agencies don't do their job properly. Why are you so condemnatory of benefits claimants and "the poor" in general?
I'm not!
Where have I condemned benefit claimants and the poor?
My bad. You haven't condemned the poor and benefits claimants. All you have done is condemn the "choices" they make.
Big, fat, hairy difference.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
I'm a little confused now. We help anyone that comes to us - we don't turn people away. It doesn't matter to me whether someone comes to us direct or has been referred, we help them!
My annoyance with the system, (not with the clients) is that is causes the problems that we try to help with. I can guarantee that no one who accesses a food bank or who contacts us wants to do so; they would much rather the agencies did their job correctly and that they got the money they are due on time.
OK, the Jobcentres and other official agencies don't do their job properly. Why are you so condemnatory of benefits claimants and "the poor" in general?
I'm not!
Where have I condemned benefit claimants and the poor?
My bad. You haven't condemned the poor and benefits claimants. All you have done is condemn the "choices" they make.
Big, fat, hairy difference.
Again I ask, where have I done this?
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
I don't think you have done this. The confusion is in the definition of poor.
Yours is different to most of ours.
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
:
From your post on the first page
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Oh dear, I've probably left it too long to resond and I shan't answer the points that have been raised.
My comment about General Booth's opinion that not all poverty is an unmixed evil, is irony was due to the fact that he worked so much for and with those who suffered the types of poverty that the Nineteenth Century world was subject to...
As far as the living wage is concerned, I don't support it; not because I don't believe that people should have enough to live on, but because I don't believe that it is the state's job to ensure, as the living wage proposes, that people can afford 32" televisions and a holiday in a holiday cottage in the country.
It is the state's job to create a thriving economy, to keep law and order, maintain health, education, defence, etc, etc, etc so that in a prosperous economy people can work for a living. It is the task of the state also to protect those who cannot work with emergency basic relief.
I was a teenage in the 1970s and we were, by the government's standards, 'poor'. I remember Christmases when our presents were all provided by the grandparents; I remember being given an evidently second hand bike for my birthday - having been told in advance it was in fact going to be such, I remember walking to my public school (yes I had a privileged education via a direct grant scheme) in the rain without a coat because we couldn't afford one. I remember not being able to afford to join the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme ... I had free school meals.
Oh, I could go on.
Were we 'poor'? Well we never went without food, we never were cold (apart from the fact there was no central heating in the house - but that was quite normal even for richer people at the time). We had a television (black and white) and a telephone. We had no car.
I went to the pictures occasionally, went swimming a lot, had richer friends, did loads of stuff that kids did together
We didn't have family holidays and the only time my sister and me went away was Sunday School camp.
So were we 'poor'?
NO. Not really - there were things we could not afford; and that, I think is the problem.
We now have such a consumerist, materialistic society, that the middle classes feel guilty if the poorer people can't afford to do the things they themselves enjoy. Oh, the poor dears can't afford to dine out at posh restaurants, let's raise their wages artificially so they can come and sit with us!
Fine. I can't afford to go to posh restaurants on Newcastle's quayside even now - the Toby Carvery at £5.99 is an expensive meal out for us! But I don't winge and say I need a higher wage so I can go to eat at Hester Blumenthal!!
There is a difference between poverty (cold, hungry and naked) and being on a low wage where luxuries are few.
The problem is that they say that poverty is not a state of being unable to feed your kids, poverty is the state of saying to your kids, 'sorry we can't afford that'.
My view is that there is no shame and no degradation in living on a low wage. Just because you can't afford everything you want does not make you poor.
Talk to most people my age and above and they'll all tell you the same.
Oh, and another thing.
One of Booth's remedies for poverty was to get people off the drink.
A lot of poverty is caused by bad and selfish spending choices.
My advice to some people would be this:
Stop smoking (£50 a week for a 20 a day habit) and feed your kids!!
{my italics)
The living wage doesn't put people in the 32" television owning and holiday in a cottage class, and why stereotype the poor as smokers on 20 a day and suggest they feel an entitlement to go to smart restaurants?
That phrase "Poor spending choices" is trotted out over and over again and while it may happen what right do you have to excuse societies meanness on that basis? Don't better off people make poor spending choices too? Why shouldn't the poor make these mistakes too?
Mudfrog, if you can't see the condemnation in the italicized parts of your own words, it has to be because you don't want to see it.
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on
:
I'm not sure how old Mudfrog is, but I think there's a generational/upbringing thing here.
I have a lot of contact with low-income families and my observations are not dissimilar to Mudfrog's. But part of the problem is people for whom consumerism has become an important part of personal identity in a way it never was for previous generations. If you take my plasma TV away, I won't feel too impoverished; but they might.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
That phrase "Poor spending choices" is trotted out over and over again and while it may happen what right do you have to excuse societies meanness on that basis? Don't better off people make poor spending choices too? Why shouldn't the poor make these mistakes too?
In my own work with the (American) homeless, I may not know much, but I've discovered two things I believe to be true:
1. Sioni Sais is right that the rich (and middle class) make poor choices too. We all do. We all make poor spending choices. We all execute poor judgment from time to time or make just damn stupid decisions that could have dire consequences. The only difference between the housed and the homeless in this regard is that the housed happened to be fortunate enough to have someone-- a friend, a relative-- to bail them out when they screwed up, whether it was loaning them some cash or letting them crash on their couch. For whatever reason, the homeless didn't have that so they end up on the street. None of us, then, who are housed got there thru our own smart or worthy choices alone-- we got there with the help and support of others when we needed it most.
2. Mudfrog is right that sometimes the poor make choices that exasperate those who are closest and are working the hardest to help them. But there's a reason for that. It has to do with locus of control. People with an internal locus of control-- who believe their choices and decisions matter and have an impact on their future, will make choices with a long-range view. So a small handout will be used strategically as an investment in that better future-- whether it's buying a suit for a job interview, paying tuition for some job training, or saving for a deposit on an apt.
People with an external locus of control believe things-- both good and bad-- "just happen"-- whether from God or fate, and there's nothing we can do to change that destiny. A handout of $$ or food is no different than a disabling disease or accident-- just the luck of the draw. The notion of investing in the future doesn't really factor in, because the future is so uncertain. So your handout is going to be used to meet very short-term needs-- including the need for a short respite of pleasure in a fairly miserable life through whatever means available.
That can be extraordinarily frustrating for those who work closely with the poor. Those aid workers tend to be the "internal locus" people, with an eye to the big picture, who desperately want their homeless friends to start making the choices that will help them move into a better future.
But the thing is, people don't develop that external locus of control for no reason. They come about it for very good reasons-- because they have been battered down so often by life, by circumstances beyond their control, that any hope for a better future has been beaten out of them. And honestly, they're not all wrong. As has been shown in some of the examples shared here, the very limited choices available to the poor often mean they don't have all that much control over the future.
Working with the poor & homeless is a constant battle not just against incompetent bureaucracies and indifferent political agendas, but against our own bitterness and fatalism.
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
:
Eutychus,
For the record, I'm 56 and my parents were well into their thirties when I was born. I think you are a bit younger than me but I don't know Mudfrog's age.
The differences in views are probably due to what we have seen. I expect you and Mudfrog both feel frustration about some of those you work with but I feel frustrated by those I work with too!
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
I'm not sure how old Mudfrog is, but I think there's a generational/upbringing thing here.
I have a lot of contact with low-income families and my observations are not dissimilar to Mudfrog's. But part of the problem is people for whom consumerism has become an important part of personal identity in a way it never was for previous generations. If you take my plasma TV away, I won't feel too impoverished; but they might.
In my own experience, the lure of consumerism has been much greater for older generations-- the boomers on down thru the few generations below them. I'm an end-of-baby-boomer who grew up in the age of growth and optimism when we truly believed each generation will have a better life than the last. The acquisitive consumerism we were weaned on grew with each successive generation.
But the generation that I see now in the univ. classes I teach are a different breed. Like my parent's generation who were so impacted by the Great Depression, this generation has been profoundly influenced by the Great Recession. Yes, they are dependent upon their smart phones and internet-- but that has more to do with generational adaptation to new technology than it does with acquisitiveness, as well as a realistic awareness of how important that new technology will be to the workplace and life in the new millennium. But this group of univ. students is much less "entitled" and more aware of the limitations of consumerism and the tenuousness of prosperity than any generation I've taught previously.
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
That can be extraordinarily frustrating for those who work closely with the poor. Those aid workers tend to be the "internal locus" people, with an eye to the big picture, who desperately want their homeless friends to start making the choices that will help them move into a better future.
This is true. But a lot depends on what you mean by "work closely with the poor".
Some people "work with the poor" because their job description involves them taking an "internal locus" approach; inevitably, they will implement coercive measures designed to influence choices, and this can easily make the "beneficiaries" resentful.
Some people "work with the poor" because of a vocation. This may slide into codependency in which their zeal for making others make the right choices may actually have as much to do with the helper's wellbeing as the helpee's.
Very often, just like everybody else, the poor just want friends, not somebody trying to shift them into some other locus. These days, that's what I try to be - a friend.
That said, when somebody asks me (as they did this Sunday) for €40 to make up for what they just blew at the races, I find myself drawn to the coercive measure approach.
[ 14. February 2014, 16:09: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
That can be extraordinarily frustrating for those who work closely with the poor. Those aid workers tend to be the "internal locus" people, with an eye to the big picture, who desperately want their homeless friends to start making the choices that will help them move into a better future.
This is true. But a lot depends on what you mean by "work closely with the poor".
Some people "work with the poor" because their job description involves them taking an "internal locus" approach; inevitably, they will implement coercive measures designed to influence choices, and this can easily make the "beneficiaries" resentful.
Some people "work with the poor" because of a vocation. This may slide into codependency in which their zeal for making others make the right choices may actually have as much to do with the helper's wellbeing as the helpee's.
Very often, just like everybody else, the poor just want friends, not somebody trying to shift them into some other locus. These days, that's what I try to be - a friend.
That said, when somebody asks me (as they did this Sunday) for €40 to make up for what they just blew at the races, I find myself drawn to the coercive measure approach.
(sigh) Well said. It's a tightrope between hope and despair.
![[Votive]](graemlins/votive.gif)
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
I'm 52 this year. I have been a Salvation Army officer for 25 years.
My hometown is Blackpool where life expectancy among men is the lowest in the country - caused by poverty, alcoholism and drug taking.
[ 14. February 2014, 17:04: Message edited by: Mudfrog ]
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
Anyway, back to poor spending choices: At the church we share with the Methodists they have a 2 hour drop-in Friendship Group on a Thursday afternoon. Most of the people there are either homeless of vulnerable and very low in come - mostly single middle-aged men who have no hope of ever working again and are very lonely.
One bloke sat there and pulled out enough betting slips to paper a small living room.
I couldn't help but say to him, in a friendly and teasing manner, 'just think how much money you'd have if you had't lost it on the horses.'
The stories of poverty down through the years being caused by gambling, drugs and drunkenness are too numerous to ignore. Children are often poor because their parents drink too much.
They are not the majority but there are children who are victims of neglect. The answer to a family on minimum wage where the parents drink too much is not to give them more money to spend on their alcoholism.
Hard hat on.
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
One bloke sat there and pulled out enough betting slips to paper a small living room.
I couldn't help but say to him, in a friendly and teasing manner, 'just think how much money you'd have if you had't lost it on the horses.'
"But I have been put in a council flat in a remote village way out of town. I have nothing to do and cannot get work because I am a basket case and thus unemployable. There are precisely 2 bars and they are the only source of company. When the one without the betting is closed, what choice do I have but to go to the other one? And I've always loved horses, I used to ride as a teenager. I admit I'm down this week but I won €50 last week. Would you deny me that simple pleasure?"
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
One bloke sat there and pulled out enough betting slips to paper a small living room.
I couldn't help but say to him, in a friendly and teasing manner, 'just think how much money you'd have if you had't lost it on the horses.'
"But I have been put in a council flat in a remote village way out of town. I have nothing to do and cannot get work because I am a basket case and thus unemployable. There are precisely 2 bars and they are the only source of company. When the one without the betting is closed, what choice do I have but to go to the other one? And I've always loved horses, I used to ride as a teenager. I admit I'm down this week but I won €50 last week. Would you deny me that simple pleasure?"
And that quote is from?
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on
:
The guy who wanted €40 off me last Sunday. Not so much a quote as a reconstitution of several quotes.
Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on
:
I would suggest, Mudfrog, that alcoholism is often as much a consequence of poverty as a cause of it. Giving someone enough to live on and giving them some opportunity to make meaningful choices in their life might give them some incentive to get, and more importantly stay, sober.
Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on
:
It seems to me that vice is hardly limited to poor people. It's just much more difficult to manage for poor people, kind of like how everything is more difficult to manage for poor people.
There are, I'd bet, a lot of comparatively rich alcoholics. I have known of some. But if you're making good money and don't generally live in the limelight, nobody cares if you go home after work and spend the evening plastered.
[ 14. February 2014, 18:44: Message edited by: Bullfrog. ]
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
Well indeed, alcoholism is a pitiful thing and has ruined the lives of so, so many. I too have know homeless men who were once wealthy professionals who have lost everything due to alcohol.
Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Well indeed, alcoholism is a pitiful thing and has ruined the lives of so, so many. I too have know homeless men who were once wealthy professionals who have lost everything due to alcohol.
Exactly. It's harder to hide your problems when you can't keep a roof over your head.
Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on
:
posted by arethosemyfeet quote:
I would suggest, Mudfrog, that alcoholism is often as much a consequence of poverty as a cause of it. Giving someone enough to live on and giving them some opportunity to make meaningful choices in their life might give them some incentive to get, and more importantly stay, sober.
A lovely idea but a for a true alcoholic the booze is an addiction.
In the USA they have figures to show that over 6 million children are in the care of at least one parent with a substance abuse problem - and they recognise that this is probably a significant under estimate since in many cases either the problem won't be noted by social workers (there may not be a social worker) or a grandparent may be shouldering the burden of childcare, etc.
This factsheet covering basic US child welfare gives an idea of the scale of the problem and highlights the difficulties, particularly with some substances, of addicts being unable to make 'meaningful choices'.
I know that in some states they have adopted a policy of mandatory weekly drug-testing for mothers on welfare and that, where a child is in care, getting the child back is dependent on staying clean. Sounds very harsh, but perhaps damage limitation is the 'least bad' solution?
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
I know that in some states they have adopted a policy of mandatory weekly drug-testing for mothers on welfare and that, where a child is in care, getting the child back is dependent on staying clean. Sounds very harsh, but perhaps damage limitation is the 'least bad' solution?
The point other shipmates was making was not that alcoholism is not a terrible disease that creates havoc and suffering for innocent bystanders-- mostly children. It was that it is not confined just to the poor, it's simply harder to hide when you're poor. Drug-testing only mothers on welfare suggests that the entire enterprise really has nothing to do with rescuing children from abusive or neglectful homes, and everything to do with scoring political points at the expense of the poor.
Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on
:
I'm well aware that alcoholism is an addiction, but addiction, like other forms of mental illness, can have aggravating factors that make it worse, and make it harder to manage. Certainly there are plenty of professionals with alcohol issues (surgeons are well known, and I've known too many teachers who will get through a bottle of wine a night) but I don't think their alcoholism is caused by a lack of moral fibre. Alcoholism often begins as a response to stress; it's self-medication that is temporarily effective but becomes problematic as the dose needed for the required effect increases and relaxation drifts into numbing. If you want to give people a fighting chance of dealing with addiction it's going to help if you can reduce the stress in their life. When that stress is caused by poverty, as it often is, reducing poverty can make someone more able to tackle their addiction, and help prevent others sliding into it. Now, cash alone won't do that, other intervention will be needed too, but not having to live hand to mouth makes a big difference to stress, and indeed to your ability to make good choices.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
'Choice' is a mere feel-good buzzword until you fill it out with details about what the choice is between and who gets affected by those choices.
The specific choice here is about giving up on extra income in order to guarantee an income in the first place.
To guarantee an income? How does that work? If the employer offers five jobs shit shovelling, and twenty people apply at £1000 pa less than the advertised rates, then all twenty people are guaranteed an income? Is the government going to pass a law forcing them to accept the employees?
Is Sam guaranteed an income too, or is it only the Muppet who is guaranteed an income? How does that work? Can an employer ever make employees redundant, or so long as they've once accepted a reduced income, the employer can't ever make them redundant, because they're guaranteed an income?
(You haven't said anything about how the choice affects other people's income.)
quote:
quote:
You said that the only advantage the one person has is that he's cheaper. If 'needs the money more than you' is not a reasonable paraphrase of not being cheaper then I don't know what 'being cheaper' means.
You're confusing "needs" with "wants". Remember that the basis of what I'm talking about is that all of a person's needs are going to be provided anyway.
So the Muppet doesn't have any actual advantages over Sam?
Perhaps we could pass a law forbidding Sam to do the job any better than the Muppet could. That would also enhance the Muppet's chances of employment.
quote:
quote:
Nobody defends restrictions on price-fixing as benefitting the companies. The justification is that it forces the companies to provide products more efficiently and therefore benefits the consumer.
It's always seemed weird to me that price fixing is seen as bad when companies do it, but good when employees do it.
Well, yes. We don't care what income companies have. We care what income people have. This is because companies are abstract entities and cannot care about anything on their own behalf, while people can care.
quote:
quote:
If your argument is that should the minimum wage be cut then people who couldn't previously afford to hire Muppet will be able to hire him, while those people who previously hired Sam at the higher rate will continue to do so, that's one argument. And perhaps the only way to resolve that is to see whether the empirical facts support it.
It's certainly the case in some industries. Chefs, for instance - the best get big money at fancy restaurants, while the worst get small money at fast food joints.
It seems to be the case at fewer industries than was widely predicted by employers and right-wing politicians when the minimum wage was introduced.
quote:
quote:
But if that's the case then Sam and the Muppet are not directly in competition.
Perhaps not - at least in the sense that BA and EasyJet aren't in direct competition. But a too-high minimum wage prevents the "EasyJet" section of the market from being able to do business.
I would hope that Easyjet pays its pilots and cabin staff as much as BA does. You're not paying BA extra so you don't crash or for trained medical personnel should you have a medical emergency. You're paying BA extra not for better cabin staff, but for more cabin staff, bigger seats, free toilets, and cabin entertainment.
[ 15. February 2014, 14:04: Message edited by: Dafyd ]
Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
'Choice' is a mere feel-good buzzword until you fill it out with details about what the choice is between and who gets affected by those choices.
The specific choice here is about giving up on extra income in order to guarantee an income in the first place.
To guarantee an income? How does that work? If the employer offers five jobs shit shovelling, and twenty people apply at £1000 pa less than the advertised rates, then all twenty people are guaranteed an income? Is the government going to pass a law forcing them to accept the employees?
Is Sam guaranteed an income too, or is it only the Muppet who is guaranteed an income? How does that work? Can an employer ever make employees redundant, or so long as they've once accepted a reduced income, the employer can't ever make them redundant, because they're guaranteed an income?
(You haven't said anything about how the choice affects other people's income.)
quote:
quote:
You said that the only advantage the one person has is that he's cheaper. If 'needs the money more than you' is not a reasonable paraphrase of not being cheaper then I don't know what 'being cheaper' means.
You're confusing "needs" with "wants". Remember that the basis of what I'm talking about is that all of a person's needs are going to be provided anyway.
So the Muppet doesn't have any actual advantages over Sam?
Perhaps we could pass a law forbidding Sam to do the job any better than the Muppet could. That would also enhance the Muppet's chances of employment.
quote:
quote:
Nobody defends restrictions on price-fixing as benefitting the companies. The justification is that it forces the companies to provide products more efficiently and therefore benefits the consumer.
It's always seemed weird to me that price fixing is seen as bad when companies do it, but good when employees do it.
Well, yes. We don't care what income companies have. We care what income people have. This is because companies are abstract entities and cannot care about anything on their own behalf, while people can care.
quote:
quote:
If your argument is that should the minimum wage be cut then people who couldn't previously afford to hire Muppet will be able to hire him, while those people who previously hired Sam at the higher rate will continue to do so, that's one argument. And perhaps the only way to resolve that is to see whether the empirical facts support it.
It's certainly the case in some industries. Chefs, for instance - the best get big money at fancy restaurants, while the worst get small money at fast food joints.
It seems to be the case at fewer industries than was widely predicted by employers and right-wing politicians when the minimum wage was introduced.
quote:
quote:
But if that's the case then Sam and the Muppet are not directly in competition.
Perhaps not - at least in the sense that BA and EasyJet aren't in direct competition. But a too-high minimum wage prevents the "EasyJet" section of the market from being able to do business.
I would hope that Easyjet pays its pilots and cabin staff as much as BA does. You're not paying BA extra so you don't crash or for trained medical personnel should you have a medical emergency. You're paying BA extra not for better cabin staff, but for more cabin staff, bigger seats, free toilets, and cabin entertainment.
Easy jet pays less than BA. There is a base rate for competence and safety, then anything else is a bonus. So, actually you *are* paying flag carriers for better cabin staff. They won't be any better in an emergency, but you're missing the point that the margin's in the quality of inflight experience. With pilots they get round it on the no-frills airlines by eating back into their wages by charging for uniforms and food.
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
Easy jet pays less than BA. There is a base rate for competence and safety, then anything else is a bonus.
Do you have a reference for this? I don't believe this assertion is a given, in fact my recollection is that wages at Easyjet are competitive.
quote:
So, actually you *are* paying flag carriers for better cabin staff. They won't be any better in an emergency, but you're missing the point that the margin's in the quality of inflight experience. With pilots they get round it on the no-frills airlines by eating back into their wages by charging for uniforms and food.
I have heard that pilots of low-cost airlines in the USA are badly paid, but in the UK I'm sure I've read that Easyjet pays their pilots well.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
That's right. I don't think wealthier people appreciate how much of a scandal launderettes are.
Similarly coin/card energy meters. More expensive for a poorer service.
Oh, FFS!
Launderettes are not "a scandal". If you run a launderette, you have to own or rent a building, you have to have insurance, pay business rates and so on. You have to pay for people to staff them. You also, obviously, have to buy the machines in the first place, and maintain them.
Certainly people who operate launderettes make money, but they are not raking in obscene profits.
Launderettes are simply much more expensive to run than a washing machine in your kitchen. You might as well argue that it's a scandal that I can't go to a restaurant and get a decent meal for the same price that it would cost me to make such a meal in my own house, if I happened to have a fully-equipped kitchen on hand.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
I know that in some states they have adopted a policy of mandatory weekly drug-testing for mothers on welfare and that, where a child is in care, getting the child back is dependent on staying clean. Sounds very harsh, but perhaps damage limitation is the 'least bad' solution?
The point other shipmates was making was not that alcoholism is not a terrible disease that creates havoc and suffering for innocent bystanders-- mostly children. It was that it is not confined just to the poor, it's simply harder to hide when you're poor. Drug-testing only mothers on welfare suggests that the entire enterprise really has nothing to do with rescuing children from abusive or neglectful homes, and everything to do with scoring political points at the expense of the poor.
Let me add that in the US there is very very little funding for drug & alcohol rehab, waiting lists for publicly funded programs in these states, if they exist at all, will have waiting lists literally years long. So we're willing to pull social workers off other urgent cases to drug test every welfare recipient, but unwilling to give addicted parents the resources they would need to overcome their addiction.
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on
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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
]Oh, FFS!
Launderettes are not "a scandal". If you run a launderette, you have to own or rent a building, you have to have insurance, pay business rates and so on. You have to pay for people to staff them. You also, obviously, have to buy the machines in the first place, and maintain them.
I am a businessman, and I've used a launderette. I once worked out the profit margin on a launderette and it was massive.
I agree there is a necessary investment in the machines, but users are penalised for not being able to afford to buy their own washing machine. I think it is a scandal.
In the same way a popular high-street brand fleeces poor consumers by charging them very high prices for products that are paid on a monthly-rental basis. This is also extortion, in my opinion.
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Certainly people who operate launderettes make money, but they are not raking in obscene profits.
Actually they are, compared to comparable local shops.
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Launderettes are simply much more expensive to run than a washing machine in your kitchen. You might as well argue that it's a scandal that I can't go to a restaurant and get a decent meal for the same price that it would cost me to make such a meal in my own house, if I happened to have a fully-equipped kitchen on hand.
Break down all the costs for me and I'll discuss it with you. Launderettes have a vastly higher profit margin than almost any restaurant.
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
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Originally posted by pydseybare:
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Originally posted by betjemaniac:
Easy jet pays less than BA. There is a base rate for competence and safety, then anything else is a bonus.
Do you have a reference for this? I don't believe this assertion is a given, in fact my recollection is that wages at Easyjet are competitive.
A competitive salary for A320 and Boeing 737 crew is probably lower than that for the widebodies that make up a substantial part of BAs fleet, simply because there are more crew trained and qualified on those types. That may account for part of the difference while the concentration of BA at Heathrow and Gatwick may also contribute.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
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Originally posted by pydseybare:
I have heard that pilots of low-cost airlines in the USA are badly paid, but in the UK I'm sure I've read that Easyjet pays their pilots well.
My 25 year old son is an Easyjet pilot, he has been flying for them as first officer for twelve months. His wages and conditions are excellent and he absolutely loves it. No, he doesn't pay for his food or uniform. He already earns more than I did as acting headteacher and has just bought himself a brand new Audi A5.
Not poor street then!
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