Oh, how closely tied the USA and UK have become. Sharing the same pathological microbes that afflict the innocent to the financial benefit of those wealthy sponsoring and holding power.
Disgusting display by these leaders who mostly have never wanted in their lives, and those few that have wanted have neatly pulled up the ladder behind them.
15
The Conservative Party headed up by the thoroughly incompetent Theresa May can best be described as a sadomasochistic government which is waging war against the poorest and most vulnerable members of society as it seeks to punish the poorest citizens of the UK for crimes they did not commit.
Whilst Theresa May loves to stick the knife into the most vulnerable members of society she would do well to remember that it was not the people of the UK who caused the financial crash of 2008 but it was entirely the fault of the global banking elite who caused the financial meltdown through their completely irresponsible lending in the sub prime mortgage market.
Punishing the poor for something which is not their fault and financially rewarding the global bankers who caused the mess says a great deal whose interests Theresa May panders her policy making decisions towards. She isn't for the many she is totally for the few, those from highly privileged backgrounds with more money than you can shake a stick at.
12
So, do the parents have smart phones, and do the children also have smart phones ? my guess is, yes. So if they cut there phone usage they can feed and care for the most precise of there family.
For many, many, years we all got by with just the basics.
7
Conservatives in every part of the world have no problem with starving children. It is their nature.
25
"In Britain, Even Children Are Feeling the Effects of Austerity"
In the case of austerity children and other vulnerable members of of our society are the first to feel those mesures.
Austerity is an attack on the poor.
13
No wonder resentment runs deep aganst EU citizens living in the UK, or foreigners from elsewhere taking British jobs, or Arab sheiks, Chinese tycoons, Russian oligarchs with deep pockets buying up properties in posh precincts in London, when up to three million children across Britain go without food in the morning because there is nothing to eat at home. They come to school on an empty stomach and get their first meal there.
When the summer holidays begin, for tens of thousands of families, the six-week school break is characterised by acute financial stress, hunger and malnourishment, due to the absence of free school meals for children on low incomes.
But the tabloids owned by Murdoch and Harmsworth make their parents overlook the Tories’ reckless mistakes and put the blame on free trade, migration and supranational institutions etc.
18
Rightly so:
-Free trade as it shipped all the blue collar jobs to China and other low wage countries;
-migration as the new comers tend to outcompete the locals for the very few low skilled blue collar jobs that have not been outsourced and/or automated;
-Supranational instructions, like the EU facilitates job outsourcing within the EU itself and through free trade agents as well as allows uncontrolled migration, like that time Merkel unilaterally opened the whole EU to the marching refugees.
The anger seems to be running deep
8
Evidently this is the main reason voters elected to decouple from the all knowing European Union who’s edict to each member country is they “ must” take in a growing avalanche of have-nots , and refugees not speaking the language and with, in many cases, a decided loathing for the West in general. At the same time lusting for the unbelievable, to them, liberal and generous welfare programs! Welfare programs that are going broke as less and less workers are available to contribute to the welfare kitty as it is being overwhelmed with applicants, both native and new immigrants, demanding benefits ...It can’t continue, and our own system is in big trouble too with way to many hands asking for more, ever more of the free-stuff!
7
@Moe Def
This has nothing at all to do with the EU. Austerity is homemade, a political decision from a party driven by a particular view of society. I live in the UK and I don't see the avalanche of have nots you are talking about. What I see is a lot of very hard working people, British, European, Indian, African... for very little money in one of the most expensive cities in the world. I also see a lot of people who lead very comfortable lives. Distribution of wealth is a question of politics. What is Britain, the 5th largest economy in the world? And 35% of all minors poor? That's nothing to do with migration. It's a political scandal.
24
Seems a lot of what you are saying is right on a buck, however migration does come into the play as low skilled migrants outcompete low skilled locals for the few low skilled jobs that are left- food industry, farming, driving etc
That leaves scores of low skilled britons claiming the welfare.
8
I don’t understand how Mr McCullough can support the system that has contributed to the negative cycle he has become trapped in. There is no logical reasoning for austerity policies it only creates wider social gaps and strengthens the hand of the elite.
The Labour Parties previous social spending was too much but it benefited many in our society- less people living on the streets and lower tuition fees etc. Time for a change.
9
I remember this story my mom used to tell me. God ask a person I can give you anything you want with only one condition, the person you hate the most in the world will get twice what you receive. The person thought about it and said I want to loose 1 arm. Now I think about it maybe this can be one explanation of why so many low income people vote against their own interest. They have this imaginary enemy in their head: the immigrants. So they rather to be poor as long as these immigrants don't get any free handouts.
15
At a time when parents most need support services to help them to provide for their children, those services are being cut. This results in more children from low-income families being taken into local authority care due to “neglect.” But in ATD Fourth World's daily work with parents struggling to cope with the damaging effects of poverty, we see them increasingly boxed in and neglected by society. With no budget for early, preventative support, taking children into care is the purported solution. However, there is increasing evidence that forcibly separating children from parents itself causes lifelong emotional harm. The system of child protective services, as undervalued and underfunded as it is, can itself be neglectful and harmful to children. In fact, outcomes for young adults leaving the system of care show that not only does having been in care fail to prevent future poverty but all too often it puts care leavers at heightened risk for multi-generational future family separations.
The failures of the care system contribute to an inter-generational cycle where the children of care leavers are in turn removed into care. Children being forcibly and harmfully removed from parents under such circumstances and in such numbers is a violation of human rights. It is high time to reassess how poverty and neglect are perceived. The views and perspectives of those experiencing poverty can help to transform children's services. We hope that Alston will consult them.
5
Strange headline. Children are always the first to feel the effects of any cataclysm.
4
what I do tend to notice about these people is the fact that 1. a lot of them smoke. well if they give up smoking they can easily have a meal each day for the family for the price of packet of fags. 2. I have always noticed in my area that a few of those so called poor people are able to afford booze and again that is more money which could be use to feeding their family. As for the food banks well I can tell you people are abusing them because I know medical staff using them when they earn more money than I can earn and all because they can get a doctor to sign off the chit so that they can use them. So all this ho ha about nurses using food banks is a load of rubbish they are just abusing it because they cannot learn how to control their spending habits because they spend more than they can earn. Sadly this is the case for a lot of people spending beyond their means of incomes. The use a debit or credit card like it was no tomorrow and have no idea of stopping and expecting the government to pick up their tab when it is their own fault in the first place. I can say this because I am a low income earner and yet I can get by on what I can earn and have holidays all because I keep track on what I earn and what I can afford to spend as simple as that and never even think of going to a food bank as that would be a shameful thing to do.
7
Watch your judgment calls.
I liked George’s response as a good reminder when dealing with and let alone judging the welfare crisis. “Unless you walked a mile in my shoes, you don’t really know.
6
Feed the children no matter what country a person calls home! All the well-known research on poverty should guide the political decisions of offering a hand up, not a hand out! The teachers at this primary school are doing a lot more than teaching. They are the safety net of a class-conscious system.
I just returned from the Southwest region of England and London. Three highlights: discovering my roots in a still very active parish St. Mary community in Meare; witnessing the impressive Changing of the Guard with music; and seeing the Crown Jewels. There is wealth in England. It takes genuine love, caring, and compassion to share it with those who need it the most!
9
A few observations from living in the UK :
-- The British poor are the fattest people I've ever seen, so they don't lack money to buy food.
-- Their common complaint that they have to fill up on "cheap junk food" doesn't wash, since that's more expensive than the raw ingredients. (They process food in order to make a profit, remember?)
-- There are lots of cheap, nutritious, even filling vegetables available there, such as carrots, cabbage, turnips and various greens. Apples are abundant there and cheap.
I had no trouble finding nutritious food in the UK for far less money than the locals were spending on their junk food, because I was willing to cook and I was determined to stay slim. But they aren't.
Editor’s note: This comment has been anonymized in accordance with applicable law(s).
7
People should not be having children if the only way they can feed, shelter, clothe and protect them is with government benefits. To do so is just wrong - even abusive. Schools need to add courses on how to determine cost of living and what "living within ones' means" actually means. This should also be part of family planning consultation.
I was recently at a church in my community donating someone clothing and saw a young couple seeking shelter and food. They had three children including a toddler and a newborn and were destitute. This cannot continue to be a problem for governments and societies to deal with.
8
@curious cat You would think that the most basic priority of any social unit ... from the nuclear family up to the nation-state ... would be to ensure the health and prosperity of its progeny. Feeding and caring for children costs a relative pittance, but we'd rather give tax breaks to gazillionaires than provide for succeeding generations ...
And that is why births in developed countries have fallen so low they're below the replacement rates ... we are so greedy and miserly that we, in the West, are actually engineering our own extinction ...
6
If we want a society that can rebound quickly from economic down cycles, then it behooves us to protect the children who end up at the bottom when the economy goes down. If their little spirits get crushed early on, then they'll grow up with less energy to offer for an economic recovery. Being poor should not be so damaging to the individual that it destroys the potential for upward motion.
10
Patricia, we have families with multiple generations that have not come off of welfare since it's inception. It's people's rights, to have more children than they can feed, clothe, and house. Churches seem to encourage this, I suppose to, "Get their numbers up". Because, you cannot convince an adult of most religious tenets, you have to start them young when they are the most gullible. And if you feed them, they'll keep coming back.
1
Children who are hungry cannot learn. Children who cannot learn are asked to leave school. Children denied education become adult criminals. Is it really worth it?
10
@NYCSandi do not make comments when it's the people who are at fault. we have a benefit system which help these people and the first thing you see a lot of these parents do is spent it on cigs and booze and food becomes the last thing they ever want to buy and then they say they don't receive enough money. The maths add up when you pay £7 - £8 for a pack of 20 which they are most likely to smoke in a day and then £10 for a case of 12 beers and that will only last a couple of days and also a lot of these parent have no idea of bring up kids and just let them run off on their own causing trouble.
Geez. Austerity in Britain looks a lot like good times in Oregon. Those kids in Britain have real kitchens and hand made food! I recently went through a cafeteria in a high school in suburban Portland, Ore. So shocking! There was nothing to cook with, only ovens clearly designed to reheat frozen foods in small portions. And I've worked in restaurants, I know what a kitchen should look like.
13
@Louisa err not true most school foods are brought in frozen and then cooked and as for austerity it usually the people who live on benefits and never done a days work who moan. This is the reason why working people in the UK want benefits to be lower than £20k a year so we can stop these parasites claiming and start working so they can stop sitting on their backside watching tv.
1
This is not rude, just as observation(s). The women who are at the food bank are all very heavy to obese, so they are eating. I also know the poor cannot afford vegetables etc so I do not hold this against them, just an observation. But the important section in this story is that the children are eating less due to money available. It sounds as though England has the same problem as here in America, stagnant wages and with Brexit it will only get worse for these very much in need people and children. Conservatism at it's worst. Britain is on it's way to being in shambles. Just like America, no one wants to pay taxes, no one wants to help, foreigners are the problem. A very sad time for the British, things will get worse.
1
Just because your overweight doesn't mean your not hungry or you have lots of money to spend on food. Unfortunately the quickest and easiest way to consume calories is through heavily processed foods.
4
A quick thought for those who blame the poor for having children they can't afford: people lose jobs. People get injured. Companies fail. You are suggesting that people undo children that were already born.
13
@Djt funny that a lot of people on benefits always seem to find money for booze and fags and yet they put food as the last thing on their list.
G whiz, I wonder if this just might have anything to do with immigration policy. Just asking for a friend.
@J.P. Studies say no. Because immigrants tend to be younger and healthier than the Brits, they contribute more to the state in taxes than they withdraw in services.
In addition they fill sectors where the Brits either won't work (like harvesting fruit and vegetables, working as low-paid cleaners and "carers", etc.) or jobs that the Brits can't work because not enough of them are qualified (like trades people, technicians and health workers).
They don't have universal, free state-run apprenticeship programs like the countries many of the immigrants come from. And the training they do offer now requires young people to go into debt, which keeps even these few programs from being filled.
Editor’s note: This comment has been anonymized in accordance with applicable law(s).
10
You didn't need to cross the Atlantic. This story of poor white working people could have been told in Pennsylvania, California, Texas, Florida etc. — but then the readers would have thought of them as white trash or labeled them hill billies. Classism is as important to fight as racism. In the story of America's poor we find still little more than threadbare cliches from the 19th century and a refusal to realize that these children which come from all the communities of this nation are our future - they are forming their attitudes about this society through the experience they are passing through now. It won't be a happy future. 3 men, billionaires, have as much as 50% 165 million americans. To say such uneven distribution is unfair doesn't begin to address the criminality of sacrificing an entire generation for their absurd lifestyles. One yacht should be enough for them. Progressive taxation is the only solution, because we've let the problem get out of hand. Vote for Democrats, for the kid's sake — the more progressive the better.
12
Is there anything about the UK that the NY Times approves of, supports or might celebrate? It seems that, since Brits democratically voted for Brexit, they have displeased this paper and it seeks to use its pages to attack their country.
2
@Keir This is bizarre -- unless it's an attempt to sow divisions within and between democratic societies, in line with Putin's goals.
The comments sections in some British papers are often clogged with "disinformation" from Kremlin trolls, voicing suspicions and spewing hatred against other democracies. Somehow the NYT manages to minimize this, but this comment sounds like one that got though....
Editor’s note: This comment has been anonymized in accordance with applicable law(s).
6
Mr McCullough intends to continue voting Conservative because "he thinks there are too many people expecting handouts for nothing" - which apparently is more important to him than providing for his son. Interesting.
10
The answer is Jeremy Corbyn and a Labor Government.
Apparently the UK is as dysfunctional as what Gore Vidal used to call the United States of Amnesia.
Mr Corbyn recently said we are going to raise taxes on second homes to help people who have none. We should do the same- there are plenty of empty apartments in NY and mansions in LA by wealthy people who dodge their taxes. Plenty more elsewhere.
8
I enrolled my grandson into kindergarten this fall in Iowa, and the local schools here in my town provide breakfast and lunch for ALL students regardless of income. I was amazed to find that out! Nourished children make better students, a winning situation for all.
24
Yes, Britain joins the list of "wealthy" countries who have people who can not feed themselves/have access to food. In Germany, an estimated 1.5 million people are reliant on food banks (and those numbers don't take into account all the recent arrivals). Meanwhile, in the U.S., Various members of Congress are still trying to make further reductions to the food stamp program (SNAP) via the Farm Bill. If I am not mistaken, isn't this how revolutions start? When countries are unable to see to the basic needs of its citizens - they are failed states. BTW: the Farm Bill expires this Sunday - now, that should be front page news.
12
@Here's the Thing you said a reduction in SNAP benefits is a food bank. You’re right that money is fungible. I think politicians understand the economics, at least the ones that matter, but they have to do a little magic to satisfy the people they represent. They can reduce SNAP benefits while providing more money per person if the number of people who need them get food elsewhere and the cuts are not that deep. Expanding military spending is popular with the group that also wants to reduce SNAP benefits. Providing free meals at school for the children of vets or service members who meet the same criteria as those on SNAP reduces the demand for SNAP benefits. This creates room for a tiny decrease in funding but overall still providing more per person. This tactic generates the headlines that gets the base on both sides fired up. When the other side is in power they do the same trick in reverse by restoring the previous budget cuts and then some while moving the kids and their 3 hots and a cot parents into a different program for vets. This allows both programs to get their necessary funding increases over time and reduces income inequality while preventing unrest. It keeps everyone in a polarized environment happy.
However, I expect pliticians to lie to us into doing the right thing in even more clever ways. I feel the British and EU austerity cheerleaders may have missed the meeting where everyone agreed on this mutually beneficial blue lie for politicians.
The statement in the report that Universal credit was cut because of a "mistake" which occurred because he was paid twice in one month, is not a *Mistake*.
It is a deliberate flaw built in to the legislation, another hurdle to make it both more difficult to receive the benefits and to cut the amount due as well. it is calculated (by the government) that this situation could occur up to three times per year, and each time it does occur the benefit is stopped and must be re-applied for leading to another MANDATORY five week wait. It is a targeted war against the poor to fund tax cuts for the super rich. The UN has TWICE previously found the government guilt of using poverty as a weapon since the Conservative took over in 2010. Rickets may not have occurred in Morecambe but it certainly has elsewhere in the country (I receive benefits and also live about 80miles from this town, I know what I'm talking about)
12
@Perry Benefits is there as a temporary measure to help those back into work and then there are other forms of benefit for those who do need it. the universal credit does work but it depends on how the councils implement it and the area I'm in the universal credit roll out has worked. What I am against is those who can work who rather spend their whole life claiming benefits just for the sake that they can and never have to do any work and it those parasites that affect the genuine people who need it more.
In the same country, bankers, financiers and CEOs are paying themselves enormous sums of money. They have even benefitted from austerity: It was austerity for the everyone except the 1%!
David Cameron, when he introduced austerity, famously said the following: "We're all in this together." Politicians are so good at soundbites and lies. I never thought that in my lifetimes I would have to read about poor families having to go to food banks to try and put food on the table for their loved ones. This is truly a national disgrace!
14
You'll get no criticisms from me on the other side of the "pond," UK. Our glass house can't take any stone-throwing right now. I would like to reference a bit of good leadership from a time when we had a better leader who, facing a nation in dire financial straits, chose not to exploit their darkest fears of poverty and want, but to lend them courage:
"Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men." ~FDR
Neither the US nor the UK has a problem of material wealth. THERE IS ENOUGH THAT NO ONE NEED SUFFER FOR LACK OF FOOD, SHELTER AND, YES, MEDICAL CARE.
We should not buy into the lie of scarcity. The choice between recognition of property rights and providing for the common welfare is a false one. Austerity need not be imposed upon the vulnerable, while the powerful stand apart from all responsibility.
22
I have seen these issues for decades in the US, where children somehow bear the brunt of their parents' problems.
We can't expect children to learn if they are not fed. We can't expect children to get a good enough education to break the cycle of poverty if they can't learn.
Every country needs to plan long-term and they need to start with children getting all they need to thrive.
19
The rich bankers of London and New York caused the financial meltdown and as usual the poor as to pay. It will be even worse in the US under the GOP and Trump. We have a clown of a president who openly brags: "He just made is rich friends much richer". Meanwhile we run deficits an the GOP plans to pay for them with welfare and social service cuts. What is even more disgusting a large minority of so called Christians cheer the GOP on.
23
Helping people to meet their basic needs is the easiest way to boost GDP. People who do not have their basic needs met spend their money instantly. A store with more demand must buy more inventory to meet a surge in new demand. A person buying groceries for a week might hypothetically cost -$100 to the government. As that money is spent a percentage is collected as tax. A business must instantly spend a percentage of that money because that business demands more inventory. The suppliers to businesses have to meet the new business demand and keep a percentage of that money for taxes and spend it yet again buying the raw materials necessary to support the new demand. and providing raw materials requires money be spent again. That initial $100 government investment spent five times without taking out taxes is $500 in total GDP. To make up the government’s investment they would need to tax it at 20%. This naive analysis ignores savings rates but also ignores anything above M0. Conversely cutting taxes at the top end increases government debt, does not increase or help meet demand, and encourages savings. Savings like stock buybacks will be spent once the demand is there to expand a business.
Also children are hungry and they should feel bad.
8
@PictureBook Are you running for office? Maybe you should -because many of our elected leaders seem unable (or unwilling) to connect these dots.
4
@heres the thing, they’ve all connected the dots. They may be horrible and craven people but they aren’t stupid.
They just cannot admit that they they understand perfectly, which is what disgusts me the most.
1
If:
1) a person works a full time job - that's 40h/week
2) they have a reasonable number of children (one per adult)
3) more food is being grown in the country than is being consumed
Then:
every such person should have a roof over their head and enough to eat. It doesn't have to be a big roof, or take-out every day. The point of having a monetary system is so that everyone doesn't have to grow their own food, which is inefficient.
My guess is that Britain's economy is contracting. The people who need to be fixing this - the upper class - are instead hoarding resources - IOUs, essentially, digits in a bank account, colored squares of paper, whatever. They do this so they don't lose social status. relative to the continent, maybe, say by having to live in a smaller house or drive a less prestigious auto. The pain is being transferred to the people who aren't able to fix the problem
Families go hungry so that their social superiors can have/keep fancy toys.
4) If, on the other hand, there are more people than the land can support, it's probably time to move elsewhere or starve. Overpopulating one's available resources is dangerous, and such a country had better hope it produces lots of what other countries want, say, oil.
Britain's only excuse at this juncture is greed and poor management.
14
It would be interesting to know who employs that bus-driver, who pays his such a miserable wage that it must be supplemented by Govt. welfare payments. I am pretty sure it is a private company, to whom the local Council has outsourced the provision of transport for the disabled. Therefore the Govt payments are actually subsidizing the profits of that company, by enabling it to pay its workers less than a living wage, knowing that welfare payments will (or not) make up the difference. So tax-payers' money goes to pay the bus company (via the Local Authority/Council), which no doubt makes a nice profit by underpaying its workers. Then more tax-payers' money has to be spent to make up the low-wage shortfall. End result? UK tax-payers subsidizing private Capital to make more profits, while workers and their children are left hungry. That's Conservative (and Republican) government for you.
25
@David if it was a proper wage then he would not be eligible for in work benefits.
I've been saying for years that many of the largest companies in the UK are deliberately underpaying their employees knowing the taxpayer will make up the shortfall by in work benefits, meanwhile shareholder dividends are rising and rising.
It is a national disgrace and every company should be forced in its annual report to show how many of its employees are having to claim In work benefits and subsequently how much the subsidy is from the taxpayer.
2
A nation's children is its future. If a large proportion of them are permitted to languish in neglect rather than nurture, a dimmer future for the nation 20 years down the road is locked in place. We are doing our version of it here in the U.S., with our long-term disinvestment in public education as well as a gradual decline in the parents' real wages.
16
@Flaminia I totally agree but the decline in wages and investment isn't so much less money but the fact that the value of each dollar people earn is lower. This is a direct result of the US Debt. When a country borrows large sums living standards decrease. It was predicted in the early 80's when debt started to rocket. Just look at a chart online. We now have trillions of dollars of debt and the result is what you are seeing. People that earn money locally via wages in US dollars are seeing real buying power drop.
1
Britain's people cannot blame the Russians or the EU. The people elected Tories to run the government and they will get Tory policies - austerity is just the beginning. When the Tories get done their once legendary universal health care will be a shadow of itself. Same here. VOTE!
15
@wilt er not quite, the Conservatives didnt *win* the last election, they merely became the largest party (having had a majority) with Labour massively increasing their share. The only way the Tories (conservatives) are in power is as a result of political chicanery and bribery- they promised an extra $1.4bn to Northern Ireland -exempting it from the very worst of austerity- in return for the 10 Ulster Unionist (extreme religious fanatics)MPs unconditional support, this gave them a working majority to push any legislation they want ( the situation is exacerbated by the fact that although Sinn Fein also hold seats from Northern Ireland, they refuse to take their seats in parliament(to sit in parliament you must take an oath to the head of state-The Queen- which they refuse to do)) which could do a lot to counteract these vile policies and reduce the govt majority down to maybe 1 (from the 6 they have now(out of 650 odd)
2
It’s a real joy to see right-wingers justify starving kids and making their parents desperate, as they trundle off to church to tell Jesus how very wonderful they are.
“‘Twas on a Holy Thursday, their shining faces clean...”
I certainly look forward to fixing the problem. All we need is child labor and workhouses...hey, I know! Let’s bring back child chimney sweeps! I mean, Dick van Dyke had fun, didn’t he? Sang and danced and everything!
17
@Robert Child chimney sweeps often died young of testicular cancer.
The same savage situation exists in the United States, supposedly the richest nation on earth. But there's no need to worry because the fool in the Oval Office is going to make the country great again while rewarding those who will never have to wonder where their next meal and their next meal, and their....is going to come from. We live in exceedingly dark and miserable times.
19
Lest we forget why austerity was put in place? I used to work for a local county council - under Labour it was a free for all...a ridiculous waste of money providing services of little use to many. The Conservatives came along and ceased this expenditure and introduced “austerity”. Now it’s going too far...there has to be a balance of provision and impacting children without wasting money.
4
It will get much much worse when the economy crashes again.
8
@gene The rich forget this rich winner take all society was the society Marx originally imagined would produce his communist society, not rural Russia.
3
It is quite easy to sit in your comfy armchair and type up some finger-pointing comments.
Without a doubt, there is a lot that can be done to help the struggling families.
A mix of efficient use of existing resources, constructive and effective initiatives, as well as more funding and belt tightening in governmental overhead should all come into play.
The question is how much do the out-of-touch Eton bred elites in London really care about such remote places as Morecambe and others?
15
@Frank Savage YES!
3
"Even" children? I thought children were always among the first affected by austerity.
9
So typical of modern day "conservatives", be they British, American or whatever particular nationality they choose to call themselves. Rather than acknowledge or address inequity or poverty (whatever the cause), just deny that it exists. After all -- as President Trump has told us -- "alternate facts" are just as good as the real ones. And so much more convenient!
15
From the party of Thatcher "the Milk Snatcher," who took away free milk from school kids aged 7-11...
Who needs a Dickens ridicule things when the Tories foist "hard times" on the children and people of Britain so blatantly? Bah, humbug!
21
And the wealthy keep building their mansions, yachts and still manage to offshore substantial sums of money. There is a storm brewing and we are all in for a major course correction.
19
Child poverty is a monstrous injustice, to eradicate wherever it arises.
Relative poverty is not. If average incomes were $100m pa, those on $59m would be poor, relatively.
The cause of increased genuine hardship is the chronic Universal Credit backlog, stretching far beyond the five-week entry. It could be eased by moving civil servants from other jobs to administer it. But doing so would acknowledge Government error, and civil service overstaffing.
People in hardship go to food banks now, since the law changed to let benefits staff give clients information about them. FBs burgeoned, in response to people predictably taking this up.
Incidentally it is believed in the UK (informed by US tv shows) that going to food banks and other voluntary help centres is what people on low incomes in the US do as standard, not due to national economic failure.
The UK does have Austerity, however; milder than Greece and Spain, far worse than conditions in Germany. The international credit crisis was exacerbated in the UK by Gordon Brown (Labour's last FM) borrowing to disguise weakness.
That caused the debt Labour now blames the Government for not reducing (as also for not spending more).
Likewise, many UK jobs now are in low-productivity services because in the 70's (admired by one poster) Unions under Labour squandered good jobs in strikes.
The poster who says the UK "should admit when it needs help" is pursuing an EU-phile agenda (as is the NYT) and indulging in condescension.
1
@Chris Yeah, it's all Labour. Sure.
5
@Chris Yes the British Labor Party created all the bundles junk mortgagees that destroyed the banking system. Please familiarize yourself with the real causes of the 200 meltdown. It wasn't government borrowing it was good ole capitalist greed.
5
Austerity=prosperity.
I wish we could try austerity in America again. The last time we did it was the 1990s. During the 90s Federal spending dropped from 22% of GDP to 18%, welfare was reformed, taxes and interest rates rose. The result- the longest economic expansion in US history and a balance budget.
In the 00s we increased federal spending, created a new healthcare handout (Medicare Part D) cut taxes and interest rates. The result- a weak expansion followed by a massive recession. Austerity works.
2
@Joe Public Yes! Until your children becomes ill from undernourishment and can't succeed in school and are doomed to a life of poverty themselves. And don't forget - there's never austerity for the rich. Just those pesky poor folk.
7
@Joe Public: I've got to disagree. Looking at a more long-term picture, I am thoroughly convinced that it was no coincidence that the appearance of your "austerity"/neo-conservative movement took place in the 1990s. That's because it could never have taken place while any significant number of voters retained any living memory of the Great Depression, which is the inevitable consequence of the inequities created by the policies which you advocate. Unfortunately, this also brings the implication that the experience will have to be repeated before we can re-achieve any degree of economic and social sanity. Presuming that we survive it.
6
Would this be the austerity that handed the wealthiest trillions in tax and regulation cuts, while spending more trillions on unbudgeted and unnecessary wars while crashing the economy in 2002 and again in 2006?
12
These workers are made to compete with the workers in China and other low wage countries.
The difference is that the cost of living is probably 20 times higher in the UK than it is in China.
Therefore, the governments goal should be two-hold:
1. identify and invest in the development and training in sectors that cannot be outsourced or automated.
2. Tackle the astronomical costs of living- including food, taxes, red-tape, housing, transportation and so on.
11
Either people are going to have employment that pays them enough to live, or they get benefits to make up the deficit, or you’re going to have crime and instability. The bankers running Britain seem to have forgotten the lessons of past experience. Interesting times ahead.
19
@walkman. My thoughts exactly. I was struck by the fact that an employed bus driver for disabled kids could not earn enough to live on and support his one dependent. This reflects a lack of commitment to providing services for the disabled as well as a lack of commitment to the requirement that a job pay enough to support a person.
9
Hungry children is one more sad legacy of the greedy bankers who crashed the financial system with their careless get-rich-quick schemes. The fiscal austerity that followed has led to the destabilization of political systems in Europe and the US as well as the rise of right wing populism and demagogues like Trump. The current booming economy is not helping the working poor as much as it should because Wall St. demands corporations cut costs (like wages) in order to boost share prices. Greed wins again. I fear none of this is going to end well.
26
I guess the conservatives across the pond are just as dismissive of facts if they don't support their agenda. Why do politicians -- often times conservatives -- always believe that inflicting pain and suffering will motivate presumably lazy people to get a job? If the children go hungry, then it's merely collateral damage. Living with constant scarcity of basic needs makes it nearly impossible to plan for the future. What is ironic is that people who suffer like this vote against their interest every single time.
22
So Mr. McCullough will continue to vote Conservative because he says too many people expect something for nothing ... like his own hungry child I guess ...
It's Mr. McCullough's right to vote to take food out of hungry children's mouths, including his own ... but he certainly isn't deserving of any sympathy for the straits he is consciously bringing upon himself through his own political choices ...
48
@Brian Grantham
Here, here. I was shocked by this - he is also swallowing the tripe we're told about 'lazy' poor people, even though he is poor, and inflicting more pain on himself and his family. Yes, there are people who work the system, but if he looks in the mirror, he'll see that they don't account for everyone receiving assistance. Boggles the mind.
13
I know what’s going on in the U.K. having lived here since birth many years ago. Most of the time now I have a kind of low level anger at the way politicians, especially Conservative ones, are destroying our country. Reading articles like this raise up the anger but also invite much sadness. Our children should not have to experience this. They should not have to worry that their parents may not be able to keep them fed, housed and clothed. I grew up poor in the 1970’s a decade the English right wing love to disparage as it was just before their beloved Thatcher became PM. At no time did I feel insecurity as a kid. Their were no food banks in the U.K. in the 70’s. We would never have lossed our municipally owned house. In fact we always felt that the “community” or however we understood that as kids would look after us. Our current government - both callous and grossly incompetent - is hateful, not a word I use lightly.
50
Austerity programs do not work, as Britain is finding out. If it isn't too late, Britain needs to undo the damage they have done by pumping money into their economy and refunding social programs that people, especially children and single parents, rely on. If Britain needs help from other countries they need to give up their pride and ask!
31
Austerity programs meant to keep the deficits from exploding.
Austerity has never been associated with generous welfare support system.
So in that regard, austerity works in taming the budgets, at the expense of the hardship and struggles of the most vulnerable. Cruel I know
7
Surely the answer is that wages are too low to live on. Either the government should provide a living income so that the bus driver can stay home and take care of his son properly or the minimum wage should be raised to a realistic standard. All this will be worse after Brexit as Workers’Rights presently protected, to some extent, by the EU will no longer apply.
22
Having children is a big problem when you cannot afford to have children. Its well known that having a child is one of the leading causes of poverty, especially for women. In 2016, I made only around 10k as per my W2 from working part-time while taking college class part-time. I also got pregnant in 6/2016. It was a instant NO BRAINER for me to have an abortion. Living on Long Island, NY I drove to the nearest Planned Parenthood. Over the course of a week, I made an appointment, met with a counselor, and got a script for the meds. Took the meds at home and had no problems. Now I am on track to start grad school next year and will hopefully be making 90K+ in a stable job by 2021 when I graduate. Had I not had access to an abortion or had decided to keep the fetus, my life would be very different. And for this, I am very, very grateful.
Nothing in life is perfect. I know a lot of people that manage to make it with kids despite their financial circumstances. Blah blah blah. But I strongly feel that having children when you are in POVERTY is a bad decision. For sure, people at this socioeconomic class have many barriers to making the right life choices. Its the government's job to do something about this and help people break from this cycle of poverty. Expand access to birth control and abortions, or expand agencies that can help these parents feed and care for their kids while they are working. Decide on one, but don't take away both!
61
Of course, one of driving forces of modern "conservatism" is the belief that people in poverty should be compelled to have children. That or give up sex entirely, which to their minds is actually seen as a viable option -- or at least that it should be, for all of "those" people. I don't know how they wrap their heads around that kind of fuzzy logic, but they sure are adept at doing so.
9
I have no issue with feeding poor children. I do have an issue when parents are allowed to abdicate their responsibilities.
Welfare and food stamps can/should be raised but there should be no school meal programs. Make the parents responsible!
Note that this would work year round. The current system only works on school days.
3
I don’t see how irresponsible parenting factored into the problems described in this article. But I’m glad you aren’t opposed to feeding poor children.
26
@Al The parents literally can't afford to buy food. Without these programs, children go hungry. You have no soul.
5
So goes the town, so goes the people.
Morecombe was once a seaside resort, popular with many in the north west of England but always ruining second to the much larger Blackpool (about 40 miles to the south).
Along came inexpensive flights and holidays in Spain and the popularity of the blustery and rainy Morecambe declined. The two fairgrounds have been closed for nearly 20 years. The pier burned down and is now closed – not an uncommon event in the UK. Their soccer team finished close to the bottom the fourth tier of the UK soccer league. Their better days are now ten years behind them.
It’s not all doom and gloom. Notwithstanding its location, maybe the town can reinvent itself as a trendy middle class resort. The people are friendly and blessed with a resilience so common in England’s North West. We can see that from the responses given by the interviewee, Mr. McCullough. His politics may be misguided but there’s no denying the pride that comes through in his responses.
I wish them all well.
20
Ah relative poverty, in the country of billionaires, the millionaire is in relative poverty. A more useless measure has never been invented.
"Mr. McCullough received around $900 every month to supplement the roughly $650 a month he earns as a bus driver for disabled children."
That's £494/7.83 min wage = 15 Hours per week, or less if a higher wage. Do I really need to spell out what the solution here is!!!!
12
@steve. Are there enough jobs in Morecambe for him to have more than one? And do you want someone providing transportation for disabled children, or not? So, yes, I DO need you to spell out your idea of a solution.
5
I live in Morecambe ... terrible to see what is happening, not just here. In a world where food is thrown away and wasted how can it be right that in a comparatively affluent country such as the UK children are hungry! Shame on those who make decisions with such drastic effects!
37
Not sure why this warrants a feature article? Because these children are white?
41% of children in the US live in 'low income' families, and there are numerous school districts where >50% of students receive free breakfast and lunch. In fact, 35% receiving food assistance would be viewed as a win in many districts.
Publications such as the Times should focus on children in our country living in far worse conditions, with far less of a social safety net.
5
@Owen
Some of us are actually interested in what is going on beyond our immediate horizons. Maybe if more people thought globally, we'd have fewer jingoistic trumps and trumpites.
73
@Owen You make a good point: the fact that these children are white is certain to draw much more interest than the many other articles the Times and other publications have written that were about brown or black children living in places white people didn't intend to visit.
Nevertheless, I still think starving children deserve a mention, and I think you probably agree.
3
If Trump and the GOP congress really wants to make America great again, they could start by making $15 an hour the minimum wage.
Instead, we got a tax cut for the wealthy and a couple of dollars more in our paycheck,
20
*Temporarily have a few more dollars in the pay check. Wait til the middle class tax cuts expire...the tax bill they rammed through is unforgivable.
7
My wife and I run a community food program for our local school district. The families we feed have children in the district and are considered the "working poor." For several of our families, the food we provide is critical to their survival. They struggle each month to pay the rent, put gas in their cars to get to work, and pay their utility and medical bills. At best their living conditions are marginal. Sadly, the number of families in the program continues to grow. All the while, the State of Michigan continues to cut what few benefits they might qualify for while giving massive tax breaks to businesses.
A great country does not let its children go hungry.
84
Fiscal conservatism is moot when a section of its constituents, especially the children, suffers.
19
Another great article about austerity in the UK. Peter Goodman's piece, about Liverpool, was also very good.
11
Take a long look at the photo at the top of the article, at the body language of the kids waiting at the food line. No horseplay with each other, no social interaction with each other, as you'd normally expect to see. Instead they're all focused on the food, one little girl even up on her toes; obviously, these kids are really hungry. The picture captures it perfectly. Pete McGuire, Atlanta
42
@Pete McGuire
Or they were told to do that by the photographer.
3
People voting against their own interests such as in the case of Mr. McCullough are really a problem. There seems to be a lack of education in what exactly they are voting for, though Mr. McCullough seemed to understand that he was voting against handouts (financial aid) so what did he expect?
Just one other thing. We need to teach children about social responsibility while they are young. It seems to be more of a "dog eat dog" world every day. Mr. CEO, do you really need that 5th house? I realize you can do whatever you like with YOUR money, but really! These are your countrymen! (and women!) Why is that so terrible to say? Why are they not shamed more when they don't want to pay their taxes!
28
@C. Bernard
Perhaps true dos one extent, but while I can not profess to be fully up on all elements of UK politics, one must assume that there as well as here, people vote for a party or candidate for a number of reasons. Yes, "own interests" undeniably play a part, a big one, even, but there are other things that voters may view as on a par or even more important in the long run. Being too focused on one's personal needs, while certainly understandable in many cases, may not actually be in their "own interest" for what they see as the safety and future of their nation.
3
@George S
He said he supports them because of their approach to finances (destructive austerity for the poor) and because he worries about other people getting freebies. I don't think he wants to slide deeper into poverty and hunger for the nation's future 'safety', whatever that means. He made a horrible, destructive and foolish decision.
But they still vote Tory. They still voted to leave the EU. They still voted for Matt Bevin. They still voted for Trump. Seems oddly similar.....
32
In this Modern Age, when we claim to have the answer to everything, why does the term Working Poor exist?
11
Thank you for highlighting a national disgrace here in the UK, though it gives me no pride to say that the situation is probably worse than you describe. The "modernisation" of the benefits system has been patchwork at best, and only slowly being rolled out nationally. The disgrace is that, in planning the changes, nothing was put in place to cover the gap in switching over, with the results that rents were going unpaid for weeks, leading to evictions; parents were unable to pay for utilities, with services being cut off; and the true victims were the children. Meantime we have a tax system that enables the very rich to exploit every loophole imaginable, despite the tax authorities (understaffed and overworked) doing their best, and we have THE worst UK Prime Minister in history @theresa_may at the Bloomberg meeting yesterday, proudly announcing that we'll soon have even lower corporation tax rates when the disaster of brexit is implemented. Talk about madness....
27
The "worst PM in history" seems a trifle hyperbolic. Remember Ramsay Macdonald, Neville Chamberlain (Munich?), Churchill (in last administration when he was barely compos mentis?), Anthony Eden (probably non compos mentis when he took us into Suez), Edward Heath (3-day week?), James Callaghan (Brazilian levels of inflation and humiliating handouts from the IMF, making Britannia an international joke?), Tony Blair (Iraq?), Gordon Brown (recalling Tiberius, capax imperii nisi imperasset). There is quite a list of contenders for the relevant plaudit. On the substantive issue, is it not time to think outside the box and shift to a universal basic income, funded by borrowing (with unprecedented low levels of interest) and effective taxation of, among others, multinationals with enormous presence in countries where they pay laughable amounts of corporation tax?
4
Have another royal wedding and throw all that extravagance in their faces.
14
@Richard L
There WILL be another royal wedding next month! Invite all the school children of Morecambe to the breakfast!
1
First off - the UK tries much harder than the USA to achieve and work towards a balanced budget. They have no where near the national debt the USA does.
Secondly, in the past 10 years, the British have been taking in a huge number of immigrants & migrants, to the tune of adding 'one Liverpool' of population each year. Yes, many of these folks contribute to the economy, but many others do not.
8
@Cathy
What's the point of a balanced budget if children are hungry? And please, quit blaming immigrants. You know most of them don't receive any help, or so little it's laughable, right?
5
It's happening in there and here in the states. Instead of balancing budgets by increasing taxes on those who are seeing increasing profits, we allow them to hurt us and our children.
37
Wonder how many voted for Brexit and committed other self-inflicted wounds.
Of course, Nigel Farage and Jeremy Corbyn, of UKIP and Labour respectively, are no bargain either.
So maybe the UK is in as bad a shape, if not more so, as the U.S.
7
Corbyn is the only one who understands the root of this crisis in the greed inherent in Capitalism.
7
@ Kevinlarson So he chose to take money from Russia?
@Bos
Perhaps when the UK sends less money to Brussels they will have more money to attend to domestic priorities, as is their real responsibility.
2
Last year when I lived in London during the summer - I trekked to Morecambe.
Would not have known this but can say that it hardly appeared to be a tourist town as it once was. At the height of summer - all but deserted - even with a dairy festival on.
And it hardly looked like any young folks live there.
Therefore, that one picture of folks receiving a weekly basket - all appear seniors unless they are collecting it for their grandkids.
It may be one of the wealthiest countries - but my six month long stay in London and extensive travels in England - tells me the reason is it is simply too expensive to pay monthly bills - even if working full time.
I do not know the reason why it is is so expensive since it appears wages and job opportunities are not that plentiful.
26
I noticed in the photographs that all the children are White. I guess I'm either to assume that the financial situation is worse in a more mixed ethnic environment or that things are so bad that even the White communities are in difficulty. I'm going with the latter position.
The father driving the school bus is working what is usually a part time job. I assume so because his monthly earnings are so low. Wouldn't it be better if he had a better paying job and the low paying part time work be left to someone who doesn't need full time earnings?
Great Britain puts a lot of money into the European Community's coffers every year but receives a stipend from the fund to feed children. After Brexit there should be more than enough to provide the subsidy itself since the subsidy is less than the total given to the EC? I'm sure Parliament has already spent this money on whatever but the people must make sure that this subsidy doesn't get lost in budgeting and an increase in the fund should be insisted upon.
8
@NYHUGUENOT...I thought the 'all white' photos were rather suspicious as well.....because London's population is close to half immigrant, most/many not white...and in the north (Birmingham, Manchester, etc) there are entire towns of Pakistanis, Bengalis, Indians, and others......rather funny that..
6
@NYHUGUENOT
In answer to your first question many poor towns in the UK are not very ethnically diverse. See Peter Goodman's recent article in this series about the borough of Knowsley near Liverpool. The financial situation in more ethnically diverse areas is not necessarily worse or better, it depends.
The father works part time, I assume, because he is a single parent and has a young child to look after.
The dues the UK pays into the EU is spent (Typically) on European-wide infrastructure, education, and agricultural subsidies. Not directly into welfare programs, that is the responsibility of national governments.
10
@Cathy The article is not about London but rather about Morecambe. A quick look at the census figures shows that this area is 97.7% white. Doesn't sound suspicious to me that the photos are of mostly white children.
Also, there are no towns in the North that are composed entirely of Pakistanis, Bengalis or Indians. In fact, there are no town or cities in the whole of the UK that are composed the way you describe. Please make a better attempt to get your 'facts' right.
4
Disgusting to see this. Every trip to London illustrates what is happening. It seems more hidden in the smaller cities but it must be there too, just with fewer Ferraris.
11
It’s fascinating to see these urban white Protestant kids in poverty. It’s something not commonly seen in the US anymore, outside of the most rural and backward areas. In the US, an all-white school like this would be indicative of wealth and privilege.
4
@DK Someone always has to be at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder in a capitalist society (Or any society, for that matter), and the UK doesn't have colonies as a relief valve anymore. The UK has pretty successful immigrant communities for the most part, so poor English fill the role as they have for centuries.
7
How about comparing what Americans school children eat for lunch compared to England. Even with crunching numbers, the English feed their children way better. As our president says, that’s sad.
13
I am always incredulous that, in a wealthy first-world nation, any child, any family, lacks resources for food. It happens as well here in the USA. Are we so parsimonious because we fear that money will be “wasted” in fraud? When at the same time we binge on frivolities because the money “belongs” to us and is not to be shared. Who indeed are we, certainly not what we pretend to be?
46
@vincentgaglione
When are we going to start condeming men and women for producing offpsring into disadvantaged circumstances? No one who can't provide for himself/herself -- including staying marketable, saving for retirement and buying health insurance so as not to become a burden on the rest of us -- has ANY business reproducing. We need to stigmatize imprudent procreation to the nth degree.
If you can't feed 'em, don't breed 'em, as the expression goes.
6
@Kosher Dill this sounds a lot like a trope of the eugenics movement of the early 20th century. Your standards are so high at least here in the US - where health insurance and retirement is unaffordable for many- that no one who wasn't firmly middle class could have children. How does your moralizing help the problem today? Think about it.
2
Until recently, the UK benefits system rewarded having as many children as possible as there was no cap on the number of children for whom you could receive benefits. It incentivized out of wedlock births as well as a child was the ticket to housing and benefits. From what I read in the UK newspapers, there's no serious effort to recover child support from the fathers of out of wedlock children either.
An impression: in the pictures the school is well maintained and equipped. But there are hungry children in it.
16
The UK has the highest number of billionaires living there and see what happens. It's time to go after the billionaires and their special laws that allow them to receive vast amounts of welfare often like in this case taking from the poorest and calling it austerity.
48
A perceptive article, like we wouldn't read in the papers over here.
The benefits reforms have, after some years delay, apparently started to reduce life expectancy in the UK too.
33
This is a sad state of affairs for England, but at this time the percentage of children living in poverty in Britain is fully 25% less than in the U.S.
When the 2008 crisis hit, the Fed was able to "print money" to save our banks because the dollar is the currency of global finance, so we were able to essentially pass on most of our losses to the rest of the world.
The British couldn't do that with the pound so their economy is still suffering the consequences of the collapse created in the U.S.- that isn't to say foreign banks shared no blame, only that our banks and country didn't suffer the same consequences.
The point is, that of all the most powerful and wealthy nations in the world, the most powerful, the U.S., has the very highest rate of child poverty.
No wonder we depend on so many educated immigrants to keep our economy humming- we squander so much of our own human capital. A fact made evident by the data in this article.
Here is where we stand in caring for our children.
https://blogs.sas.com/content/sastraining/2018/05/24/child-poverty-in-ri...
26
There is working poor in both the USA and Britain because of corporate greed. CEOs pay themselves in stock options here so they depress wages to improve stock prices, thus increasing their personal wealth.
Minimum wages need to be higher so a family can be supported. Despite a massive tax cut, corporations have not improved wages enough for workers. States must pass laws.
Minister May should look at Kansas when they practiced austerity and see that failure as well as Portugal who did not.
37
Even? Austerity bites the young the hardest either directly or indirectly by hurting a caregiver. The impact lasts for generations. A meal missed, a book unread, a teacher unavailable, a parent stressed, a sport unplayed.
74
@paul summerville
Y'all ought to work for the welfare dept. A couple of weeks, you'd see what unlimited demands can cost.
And hasn’t Universal Credit just been proven to be a colossal waste of money that fails to achieve its aims? I believe the report concludes along the lines of: ‘it’s swallowed too much money to cancel it, so we’re kind of stuck with it’ (to paraphrase).
Ian Duncan-Smith: A man fully deserving of a criminal trial for the premature deaths of disabled people, or of unemployed starving, that his maniacal fervour for reform caused. Oh, but he has money and served ‘honourably’ - so he’ll get a knighthood eventually, I’m sure. Disgusting. We don’t need a second referendum or a third referendum, we don’t need leave or remain, we just need a new Guy Fawkes so we can start from scratch.
27
@Mat
Guy Fawkes wasn't very successful in his plan to blow up the Parliament. You need someone who is a better planner this time.
6
I bet all these hungry kids' parents have the latest iPhone, however.
I was raised by a working-class single mother in the '60s and '70s and things were never easy but I always had 3 good meals a day. If she could do it in her own back then...these parents can surely do it now.
8
@John
Rent is immeasurably higher today than in the 60s and 70s and that is really important.
Utility charges have shot up with privatisation.
Wages have shrunk relative to buying power in the last 50 years. Minimum wage has become a norm rather than a floor.
I come from a priviledged background and I am a well paid professional, but I also remember when tertiary education was free in my day.
Did you not read that the father skipped his own meals to feed his son - does that sound like someone who is too lazy to try?
Open your eyes.
Have a heart.
73
@John
I doubt poor people can afford the iPhone X. They would own cheap android phones because they work such irregular schedules that they need to keep in touch with each other. Why such anger at poor people owning phones? And as for the mother cooking three times a day, it's tough if she has to leave for work before her children wake up in an empty house and are forced to fend for themselves. And the families may not even have cooking facilities.
65
@John
There are many like us who grew up in extreme poverty in the 1950s and 1960s. My father was a mental patient who was institutionalized on occasion. My mother was able to feed 7 children on the pittance "Relief" gave us. Welfare wasn't very generous in those days. We weren't even allowed to have a telephone. No consideration was made for clothing. I was in Puberty and growing and was wearing high water pants and a pair of donated shoes stuffed with paper. If it wasn't for the help we got from the Deacons at church it would have been much worse.
6
Here in America we're following this track: food insecure families and children going without -- especially during summer months. And a GOP-led Congress with Trump as their kingpin pushes to cut SNAP and other programs that benefit women and children--while handing out billions more to the bloated military.
104
Re: Those in particular who are still struggling while in full-time employment. We need some proper, official checks on pay with the power to hold offending bosses to account. Far too many private companies ignoring the minimum wage, and even that barely copes with rising prices. Living wage - drop this hysterical national obsession with finding the tiny % who exploit a system, or the witchhunt for those of a ‘something for nothing culture!!’
And joined-up thinking, and long-term planning. These days when the government gracefully decides to inject money somewhere, they just take it from somewhere equally in need. And there’s no joined-up thinking. Crime was falling? Cut police numbers! Cut kids after school programs! Cut social programs that curb crimes. Oh, crime is rising again? More people use the NHS? Cut staff levels! Cut training grants! Close hospitals!
And now May is quietly telling audiences in the US about slashing corporation tax post-Brexit. In the US, note, and quietly - she didn’t announce it here, she knows the reaction it would get...
22
"On a recent afternoon, as his phone buzzed with debt notices from the local water board, Mr. McCullough’s eyes welled up as he described how he struggled to provide his son with some of the basic things in life — like fresh vegetables, new clothes and haircuts.
Mr. McCullough voted Conservative in past elections and said he would do so again if an election were held tomorrow. Despite his travails, he supports the party’s cautious approach to state spending, and he thinks there are too many people expecting handouts for nothing."
And here in lies the crux of the problem
209
@Fakkir Labour party, the main opposition in the UK, is both A) Weak and Scandal-ridden
B) Against a second referendum to Remain in the EU
Conservatives are potentially still the best bad option there, and nobody really represents the sensible people in the UK anymore.
Feeling like an island since the loss of its once-mighty empire and the ability to exploit vast areas of its dominions of Canada and Australia for food products...Britain had food rationing during WWII and the rationing for food and clothes extended far into the 1950s in consequence. It's clear almost 80 years later that Britain will never recover. But on the positive side, there are few iif any 300 pound school children as one sees in abundance here in Chicago.
12
@Tournachonadar obesity among children is one the rise in the UK too, sadly.
3
@Tournachonadar
@Tournachonadar
"But on the positive side, there are few if any 300 pound school children as one sees in abundance here in Chicago."
Wrong. I just came back from the UK and there are plenty of American-style obese children and adults in poor neighborhoods. Once you leave the touristy areas, it's clear that Britain is a poor country.
17
@Tournachonadar Japan is also an island that lost its empire and got throughly leveled, including by two atomic bombs. It also built up Toyota in the 1950's while the UK ran its industry into the ground.
2
The issue isn't solely access to work, but access to well-paying jobs. If those are not readily available, it is no different than the subsidies and tax breaks big business gets to offer individuals subsidies to keep healthy food on the table, utilities paid and clothing purchased.
13
@Laura
Perhaps the jobs are available and people feel they are above them.
We were in London for a week last spring and after a few days it dawned on us -- we had hardly interacted with any "real British people" at all. The hotel clerks and management, the tour bus operators, restaurant servers, shop assistants etc -- all were immigrants, Eastern European in particular. English was their second or third language.
Apparently native-born Brits think they are too good to serve at table or staff a front desk.
3
@Kosher Dill
I find your conclusion not apparent, at all.
How do you know what native-born Brits think or why they are not in those jobs you saw on your travels there? As the article reported, besides food, even the basics like clothes and haircuts, were hard to come by.
When children go home for school holiday and come back undernourished, it is everyone's problem, and must be solved. Schools must provide nourishment, or learning cannot take place. Children should not suffer in a country where millionaires and billionaires more than thrive, or are we content to backslide to Dickens' times? Heartbreaking.
"Mr. McCullough voted Conservative in past elections and said he would do so again if an election were held tomorrow. Despite his travails, he supports the party’s cautious approach to state spending, and he thinks there are too many people expecting handouts for nothing."
In other words, like low-income white Americans, McCullough votes against his own best interests in order to punish those "other" people for whom he begrudges government help.
195
@msd. Yes, "divide and conquer" works everywhere, it seems.
7
Britain, now a backwards country with archaic political institutions, is dominated by an establishment which is driving the country away from any updated concept of welfare. Unless people raise up against the nationalist isolationist Conservative government things will become even worse.
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David Cameron made it illegal NOT to send £1billion every MONTH to unaccountable foreign aid.
So this money goes to the likes of India who have a space budget and to other countries such as Colombia who were given £15m to reduce the flatulence of their cattle to help reduce climate change.
Meanwhile, some English local councils are aiming to collect household rubbish once per month - it used to be once a week.
The roads across the country are literally falling to pieces, potholes creating lethal conditions for motorists and cyclists.
Meanwhile, the politicians voted themselves another pay rise.
Austerity? "Do as I say, not as I do" is the politicians mantra.
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Foreign aid isn't the issue here - FA is an area in which the UK builds positive links with developing economies, influencing policy abroad (something we are sadly turning our back on with Brexit).
Austerity for the poor, tax breaks and bailouts for the banks and wealthiest in society. It's the same story either side of the Atlantic.
It's really telling that the gentleman in the article would still vote Conservative if there were an election tomorrow, despite the hardships caused to him via their policies.
The idea that other people (who are often in a similar position to us) are somehow less deserving of aid or financial help is the real crisis of our time, normal people attacking one another over ever increasingly small amounts of capital.
We should love ourselves more, have some self respect.
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@Mike
The UK foreign aid budget was set at 0.7% of the Gross National Income or around 1.6% of the gross public expenditure for 2018.
It allows the UK to pursue its interests abroad in a much cheaper way than the (also cash-strapped Armed Forces), and is generally used to promote peace and stability in areas which directly impact the UK.
Comparatively, public welfare including the NHS, the benefits system, and education account for 43% of the budget. Cutting the foreign aid budget to augment the social safety net would have a negligible effect on the provision of public services but a drastic effect on Britain's ability to influence overseas, which is particularly relevant today as we are Brexiting from our closest trading partner.
Targeting foreign aid is a ploy to sugarcoat the absurd fetish for cutting services of this government. The austerity programme has been bleeding Great Britain dry since 2008, and if it continues the Conservative government will enjoy their budget surplus in a poverty-stricken country barely keeping afloat. Kings and queens of ashes.
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20% of that 43% is pensions, and 18% is the NHS/social care. Which leaves pennies for children, the unemployed, and working parents. And the old are controlling government policy, and often xenophobic. This is probably why ‘foreign aid’ is often pointed up as the ‘real’ reason we can’t afford to have children. My parents’ and their parents’ generations had 4 children per couple, with few exceptions. Outside the reasonably prosperous home counties, and one cousin who started his family in Australia, none of us has managed more than two, entirely for financial reasons. A dying country is reduced to drinking the blood of its young. https://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/year_spending_2019UKtn_17tc1n_40#ukgs302
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Nutrient-deproved rather than literally hungry. I see them rather stuffed with £1 chips, crisps and soda from discounts. The proliferation of cheap junk food, inflation of healthy options and lack of education is the problem here. Talking of actual hunger is insulting to those in other parts of the world, who go without food for days...
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@Guest
"I see them rather stuffed with £1 chips, crisps and soda from discounts. The proliferation of cheap junk food, inflation of healthy options and lack of education is the problem here. Talking of actual hunger is insulting to those in other parts of the world, who go without food for days..."
So some poor people are more deserving than others. They eat cheap processed food because it is all they can afford and even if family members can cook, they may not have access to a kitchen.
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What we need is not welfare, we need jobs to pay better money and affordable childcare. One of David Cameron's last actions in this field was to slash subsidies for a third child, and this caused some uproar, but it also shows that people cannot financially afford to raise children without subsidies, which is intrinsically wrong. We do not need welfare, we need the system to change!
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@marielaveau I would hope that such an action is combined with cheap and accessible birth control. You can't expect people to be abstinent, especially if married or in long term relationships.
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@marielaveau
We do need welfare, it is the gateway to jobs to which actually do pay better. The NHS, housing, food, and disability benefits, and public education are the three mainstays of UK public benefits. Putting to one side the myth of 'benefit scroungers' (1), it is self-evident that people in poverty do not want to be there: They would like good jobs, the difficulty is in getting them. The issue is that personal and financial stability is a prerequisite for holding a good job.
The benefits system ensures (or tries to) that people have a minimal, stable standard of living which enables them to pursue better paths. Healthcare, provisions for disability, education, and housing are sine qua non. You must have them, and they are expensive. The benefits system prevents people from falling into cyclical debt and poverty simply by not being able to afford basic necessities, which in turn prevents getting a well-paying job.
Speaking of good jobs though, I agree. But that would take a conversation about the vast discrepancy between shareholder value and employee remuneration. Simply put, companies exist to make money for shareholders or executives, not to pay employees. Salaries are an expense, and the financial pressure is to minimise that cost (by cutting wages, outsourcing, etc.) and maximise shareholder value. You can't change that by cutting benefits.
(1) http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/the-scrounger-myth-is-causing-r...
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@Maryj
Unlike the regligion-dominated backward United States, the UK has a national health service which provides contraception AND abortion for all citizens.
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