Snapshot of _Millions of people in UK would need to double their income to escape poverty, new report warns | UK News_ :
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£1820 after housing is damn good though. As housing does nornally take 30 to 40% of your salary.
If you take into account for housing cost their salary would be above the national average salary.
Say their rent is cheap at £600 to £700. That would put them on a 40k plus gross salary.
Now we don't know if both parents are working and child care cost are involved but I do agree the maths doesn't add up to put them in poverty.
>According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, six million people were in very deep poverty in 2021-22 - 1.5 million more than 20 years ago.
>This means they received less than 40% of the country's median (middle) income after housing costs.
>These people would need an additional £12,800 a year to reach the poverty line, which is defined as 60% of median income.
Yes, but if we could somehow get them to earn that extra £12,800, then simple maths will tell us that the median income will rise, which means the poverty line defined as 60% of that will also rise, so they'll be under the new adjusted poverty line.
It's always worth remembering that this figure is primarily a measure of inequality, not specifically poverty. And it's a pretty flawed measure, too - if nothing else, you see people laid off during a recession, causing the median income to fall, which means that low earners are suddenly taken *out* of poverty even though their circumstances haven't change.
Technically simple maths doesn't show that, the median (not mean !)will rise just because values below the median has gone up (only true if in this example adding 12k would push them above the current median)
Mathematically you can have different distributions with the same median. It's why different countries can have different relative poverty measures, even if their median incomes are the same/similar.
Now in the real world, it would be difficult for the bottom 10 percent (or whatever) to see a 10k increase of their income, without seeing at least some increase for the median earner as well.
Equality is poverty in developed countries. Adam Smith coined this in a wealth of nations over 200 years ago and it's been used as the international standard for measuring poverty in developed countries ever since for good reason. The logic is that once you move too far away from the median there is a high probability of becoming a poor sub class that can't operate efficiently within the society. I.e. If you don't have money for child care and transport you *can't* operate within sociaty even if you have more than enough money to eat. The cost of living within a society impacts what poor means in that society.
Equality is obviously linked to poverty, but my point is that it's a flawed measure. Because a recession will cause the median wage to drop and therefore the poverty line to drop - and it is completely absurd to argue that poverty is falling when people are being laid off from work. And on the flip side; if a load of high earners move from New York to London, then suddenly the poverty line for everyone else increases too.
Plus, in a country where everything was going brilliantly for everyone, you could still have people in poverty under this definition because they could "only" afford two foreign holidays a year, while everyone else is having five or six.
A better measure for poverty would be "can people afford the basic necessities".
Measuring "can people afford the basic necessities" is literally the point of relative poverty. It's saying "the average person operates in the 'standard' configuration for a given economy, therefore does not have an income significantly above or below affording 'basic necessities' as defined by the economy based on what we know about how inflation and average incomes work. Therefore a person earning a statistically significant sum under that will not be able to afford the 'basic necessities' as defined within the socity".
It's setup using percentages so that it avoids the pitfalls of trying to measure a member in society a needing service x and a member in society b needing service y where x is significantly more expensive than y so the definition of poor in society a is higher than society b.
Yes, I understand that this is what the calculation is *trying* to do. My point is that it does it *badly*, as you can see in the examples I gave.
The line shifts based on external factors, not related to whether someone can actually afford basic necessities or not.
But none of those external factors apply in our case? Like yeh it can be theoretically a bad measure but pretty any measure of anything can be bad given certain set hypothetical scenarios.
Relitive poverty is almost always the optimal measurement, that's why it's been the gold standard for over 200 years. Currently it highlights the current state of the UK quite accurately and I've seen no independent national or international analysis that suggests otherwise. If you do I'd love to read it.
Why wouldn't they apply in our case?
Do people not move to the UK, affecting the median wage? Do recessions not happen in the UK, affecting the median wage?
Sure. Here is a government report saying exactly the same thing as I am, by comparing to an alternative method of calculating poverty:
>The number of people below the Minimum Income Standard and people in relative low income have followed different trends over time. The number of people below the MIS increased between 2008/09 and 2013/14, then fell back slightly and stayed stable. The number of people in relative low income decreased between 2008/09 and 2013/14 and then began to increase again.
>These differences can be explained by the fact that the relative low income threshold is set with reference to median income, which is not the case for the MIS.
>After adjusting for inflation, median income was lower in 2013/14 than in 2008/09, which pushed down the threshold below which someone is counted as in relative low income. Meanwhile, the income required to meet a minimum acceptable standard of living, as measured by the MIS, increased. So, while fewer people were below the relative low income threshold, more people were below the MIS threshold. Since 2013/14, the situation has reversed as median incomes have increased faster than the MIS.
https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN07096/SN07096.pdf
Median income fell after the 2008 recession, so the line for what we count as being in poverty using that calculation dropped too.
Yeh the government used to classify poverty relitive to the 2008 adjusted median. Must admit I always found it funny when people arguing the validity of using a relitive poverty statistic tried to argue using the same statistic but fixed years in the past is more accurate. Seems to kind of miss the point to me.
To the original point, yep the 2008 crash was absolutely a statistically significant event that created an interesting situation that kept the statistitions entertained. However a) was a bit long ago now, and b) you can easily correct for it by measuring the trend.
Doesn't matter if you use the 2008 adjusted or the international definition. They both say poverty is skyrocketing in the UK. I think that's why I haven't seen a 2008 adjusted one in a while.
The concept of having a national poverty line is nonsense. Everyone should use international standards, otherwise you're just measuring inequality. ie. if the people at the bottom remain exactly the same and the people in the middle get better off, the poverty metric increases.
Just square the circle, if you want to escape poverty you need to escape the UK. Buy a house outright for some ridiculously low price (even in France), keep the rest invested/saved.
It's harder without EU FOM but even then you can still stay in a house in the EU 180 days a year, maybe spend a few months in another nearby country like Turkey/Balkans or Morrocco, few months back in the UK. Or just get a visa by setting up a business like a language school, even if it only exists on paper.
I've done my calculations and if I keep at a low paid full time job and save well I can basically retire at 40 in a cheap overseas house. UK only for family visits and perhaps temp work if I want more money.
I basically got inspiration for this idea after from working alongside EU migrants. They mostly just wanted to come to the UK, make a fast buck and go back to their homelands and buy a house outright.
there's always been a stereotype that they are motivated and hard working, and when I heard about how cheap the houses were in their homelands I could see why. I worked out I could literally buy a house over there after working for a year, you can get houses for under 10k euros out there.
Though I'd prefer to live in south/west europe rather than Eastern Europe.
Cutting immigration would reduce the people available to do necessary roles, increasing the costs of goods and services, and making these peoples lives even worse if they don't work in an industry with a shortage.
Short term maybe, but a tighter labor market with no cheap labor to import would force wages higher and force companies to invest in productivity hiking advances, which would eventually make the average person’s life better. Importing low-paid labor just prolongs the current status quo and puts the UK further behind on a global scale. There’s no painless way to get society-level change, but I’d rather a higher quality of life for your average Briton in 20 years rather than an even larger underclass who is even more hopeless and poor.
I don’t want to be callous with this comment. I want someone to explain to me what I’m missing.
The article says that a family of 4 with £21,900 a year after housing costs is living in poverty. That’s £420 a week. Thinking about my bills, that doesn’t seem all that bad?
Ok. £420 a week is £1820 a month. (£420 x 52 / 12)
Food: £400
Council Tax: £150 (I’m assuming this isn’t included in housing costs)
Energy: £150
Water: £30
Broadband: £20
Mobile Phones: £40
House Insurance: £15
Tv License: £15
That’s just over £800. That still leaves £1,000 a month. Have I missed anything?
2 people on the minimum wage working full time hours make over £43k a year. So based on that; both parents aren’t working full time - so childcare costs at a minimum would be largely reduced.
We are a family of 3 and eat pretty well for £400. Add £100 to that then. That still leaves £900 a month.
I didn’t expect people living in poverty to have a mortgage to be honest. Owning a house and being in poverty doesn’t compute to me; but fair enough. My B&C on a large mortgages house is £20. So add £5; still not much.
Yeah that’s definitely all fair to incorporate. Remember it’s £21,900 after housing costs though. So other than life insurance I can’t think of any additional costs associated with having a mortgage.
What about childcare? Car costs? Savings? Dental costs? Clothes? Haircuts?
Childcare for one will be more than £1000 a month.
It "doesn't seem that bad at all" because our expectations for income in this country have become so low.
Childcare cost is the big one. But 2 people on the minimum wage working full time hours make over £43k a year. So based on that; both parents aren’t working full time; so it certainly wouldn’t be full childcare costs.
I’m by no means saying. That these people are flush. I just don’t think having that much money would put someone in the “poverty” bracket.
We had 2 kids that were 1 and 2. I worked full time, my partner did 2 days a week so that they could maintain their career when the kids got older.
Childcare for the 3 days per week per child was £1300 per month. It would have been far higher if my partner was full time.
I don't think you understand that if both parents are full time the childcare costs would likely be double the mortgage.
This is the answer I was looking for. Thanks. Yeah that makes total sense. I was thinking school age children. I’ve got a lot of stick for my comments; but a reasoned answer like this was all I was looking for.
Even with school-aged children, the childcare costs don’t end. Wrap around care is £18 per child, per day at my kids school and then camps during term breaks can be several hundred pounds per week, per child.
£400 a month for food with kids?
You’re missing clothing, shoes, school uniform, transport costs, possibly childcare if both parents are working and dependant on the age of the kids…
Your take on this is pretty shit.
We spend £400 a month on food and have 1. And we eat pretty well. Add another £100? That still leaves £900.
2 people on the minimum wage working full time hours make over £43k a year. So based on that; both parents aren’t working full time with that income. I still don’t see how all that adds up to £900 a month?
I’ve said I don’t want to be callous. I’m literally asking the question so I can better inform myself.
I genuinely don’t think you need to concern yourself over other peoples incomes and expenditure unless it affects you directly.
This doesn’t affect you.
Believe people when they say they’re struggling.
You must realise what a silly position this is to hold?
If you want support for the things that affect you or that you care about, you need to be able to bring others who are not affected along with you, which means explaining things to those who lack direct experience.
By only telling these other people to just take your word for it, you are doing yourself a significant disservice.
I literally said in my first comment that I didn’t understand and wanted someone who did to explain to me. This person isn’t doing a very good job of bringing be along.
This is a platform that encourages discussion on the subject of the post. And this post is about people’s income. It seems exactly like what we should be talking about?
Also, not talking about these things seems the exact opposite of what we should be doing. I’m trying to make sense of what I’m reading and you’re attacking me for it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Those kids will be getting free school meals. Transport, yes, but I wasn’t sure how much time put for that because it largely depends. Certainly not £1k a month though.
£150 a month isn't even keeping your house at 17° if it's old like a lot of our housing stock. Living somewhere colder than the south of England? Definitely will need to increase this - even more so if you have a prepayment meter.
Our water bill is £45 a month fixed. Can't have a meter fitted so there's definitely variation in those costs.
Growing children need clothing.
School clubs so you can both work full time can run up a decent bill as well.
Older children/teenagers, particularly boys may well not be eating enough with a food bill of £400 a month. And many do not have the option of getting to an Aldi or Lidl easily for their food shop to bring the costs down as low as possible.
Dentistry is expensive.
Repeat prescriptions are also another cost.
Transport for everyone to be able to commute to/from school/work if it's available. Live somewhere even remotely rural or just not even on a bus route? Now you have car upkeep and fuel to pay for.
You seem to have lowballed on things (£15 insurance good for you but extrapolating that for all is incorrect) energy will depend partly on heating system which for the poorest will not be under there control (can't change for gas radiators if renting).
Biggest issue seems to be childcare costs which can v high for a lot of people.
As someone paying childcare costs, yes they are high. They are highest when you get no funding support for childcare though (previously <3 years). For easier maths, let's say they start at 1. That's 2 years of crazy costs, but then they drop a lot. And you certainly won't be paying for uniform or school trips during that time of highest cost though.
Summary: yes childcare is expensive, but the most expensive part is not applicable for everyone with a child.
The median for a couple with two kids under 14 is £700/wk. I pulled the data out here https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/19di1mb/millions_of_people_in_uk_would_need_to_double/kj7t7as/
It’s relative poverty not actual. A measure campaigning groups like to use because there will always be people in poverty if the measure is median income nationally.
Relative poverty is actual poverty in a developed economy. It's trying to see if you are able to function as a member within the society rather than some poor sub class, not measure wether or not you can literally eat (which is useless in a society with a safety net). That's why Adam Smith pointed out its superiority for measuring poverty in the UK the wealth of nations 200 years ago.
Except that however rich society gets there will be people in relative poverty. It gets trotted out as a statistic when saying someone is desperate. It might be a useful measure for some things but it gets misused.
That's not true, if your bottom end stays within 20% of your median you'd have 0% poverty. So a society with a fairly equal bottom half would have no relative poverty.
> it gets trotted out as a statistic when saying somone is desperate
That's patently untrue, it's been the international standard for measuring poverty in developed countries for hundreds of years. The argument of it not being absolute poverty and therefore useless gets trotted out by apologists every time a country gets poorer though.
> A measure campaigning groups like to use because there will always be people in poverty if the measure is median income nationally.
Definitely doesn't have to be.
I mean you joke but yeah, if you were in this bucket, probably not advisable to have wasteful expenditure such as daily takeaway coffees, lunches out and expensive breakfast items. That's a pretty fair comment.
Oh can you IMAGINE the screaming from the Bank of England and the tories of people actually did double their wages to just be able to eat??? OH BUT INFLATION!!! INFLATION!!!
Country is fucked! Will take strarmer 2 decades to just return us back to where we were in 2010
Are they talking about people who currently choose to work part-time? When these agenda driven think tanks try to use big numbers to push the narrative that there's lots of people earning low incomes, you have to remember there's 8.4m working age people who work part-time as a lifestyle choice. That's about 25% of the workforce and the other 75% are currently working 40 hours a week to subsidise that lifestyle choice.
Yes I'm sure every single working age person is working part time as a lifestyle choice. No such thing as education, child care, disabilities, those with care commitments, free lancing, retirement jobs, or just those that earn enough working part time. Yes clearly all these people are just lazy freeloaders!
Just trying to work out the numbers here
> Giving an example of a couple with two children under 14 living in poverty, JRF suggested the average income for this type of family after housing costs was £21,900 - and they would need an extra £6,200 yearly just to reach the poverty line.
So that makes it £28,100 for the poverty line. That's £46.8k for the median then (if 28k is 60% of the median) for *after housing cost, post tax income*?
That doesn't sound right.
Median household income AHC is about £500/wk or £26k/year.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/households-below-average-income-for-financial-years-ending-1995-to-2022/households-below-average-income-an-analysis-of-the-uk-income-distribution-fye-1995-to-fye-2022
Let's look at the actual report https://www.jrf.org.uk/uk-poverty-2024-the-essential-guide-to-understanding-poverty-in-the-uk
XLSX included, let's check the data:
|Household type|Median income||Poverty threshold (60% of median)||Deep poverty threshold||Very deep poverty threshold||
:--|--:|--:|--:|--:|--:|--:|--:|--:|
||||||(50% of median)||(40% of median)||
||Weekly|Annual|Weekly|Annual|Weekly|Annual|Weekly|Annual|
|Lone parent with two children, one aged 14 or over and one under 14|£600|£31,300|£360|£18,800|£300|£15,600|£240|£12,500|
|Couple with two children, one aged 14 or over and one under 14|£810|£42,200|£486|£25,300|£405|£21,100|£324|£16,900|
|Couple with two children, both under 14|£700|£36,500|£420|£21,900|£350|£18,200|£280|£14,600|
|Single adult, no children|£290|£15,100|£174|£9,100|£145|£7,600|£116|£6,000|
|Couple with no children|£500|£26,100|£300|£15,600|£250|£13,000|£200|£10,400|
Right, so it's not £21.9k as an average for a family in v deep poverty, it's the poverty line itself.
Snapshot of _Millions of people in UK would need to double their income to escape poverty, new report warns | UK News_ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://news.sky.com/story/millions-of-people-in-uk-would-need-to-double-their-income-to-escape-poverty-new-report-warns-13053978) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://news.sky.com/story/millions-of-people-in-uk-would-need-to-double-their-income-to-escape-poverty-new-report-warns-13053978) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
£1820 after housing is damn good though. As housing does nornally take 30 to 40% of your salary. If you take into account for housing cost their salary would be above the national average salary. Say their rent is cheap at £600 to £700. That would put them on a 40k plus gross salary. Now we don't know if both parents are working and child care cost are involved but I do agree the maths doesn't add up to put them in poverty.
Rent hasn’t been that cheap where I grew up for a very long time.
>According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, six million people were in very deep poverty in 2021-22 - 1.5 million more than 20 years ago. >This means they received less than 40% of the country's median (middle) income after housing costs. >These people would need an additional £12,800 a year to reach the poverty line, which is defined as 60% of median income. Yes, but if we could somehow get them to earn that extra £12,800, then simple maths will tell us that the median income will rise, which means the poverty line defined as 60% of that will also rise, so they'll be under the new adjusted poverty line. It's always worth remembering that this figure is primarily a measure of inequality, not specifically poverty. And it's a pretty flawed measure, too - if nothing else, you see people laid off during a recession, causing the median income to fall, which means that low earners are suddenly taken *out* of poverty even though their circumstances haven't change.
Technically simple maths doesn't show that, the median (not mean !)will rise just because values below the median has gone up (only true if in this example adding 12k would push them above the current median) Mathematically you can have different distributions with the same median. It's why different countries can have different relative poverty measures, even if their median incomes are the same/similar. Now in the real world, it would be difficult for the bottom 10 percent (or whatever) to see a 10k increase of their income, without seeing at least some increase for the median earner as well.
Shit, you're right. That shows me up for trying to be clever and snarky!
Equality is poverty in developed countries. Adam Smith coined this in a wealth of nations over 200 years ago and it's been used as the international standard for measuring poverty in developed countries ever since for good reason. The logic is that once you move too far away from the median there is a high probability of becoming a poor sub class that can't operate efficiently within the society. I.e. If you don't have money for child care and transport you *can't* operate within sociaty even if you have more than enough money to eat. The cost of living within a society impacts what poor means in that society.
Equality is obviously linked to poverty, but my point is that it's a flawed measure. Because a recession will cause the median wage to drop and therefore the poverty line to drop - and it is completely absurd to argue that poverty is falling when people are being laid off from work. And on the flip side; if a load of high earners move from New York to London, then suddenly the poverty line for everyone else increases too. Plus, in a country where everything was going brilliantly for everyone, you could still have people in poverty under this definition because they could "only" afford two foreign holidays a year, while everyone else is having five or six. A better measure for poverty would be "can people afford the basic necessities".
Measuring "can people afford the basic necessities" is literally the point of relative poverty. It's saying "the average person operates in the 'standard' configuration for a given economy, therefore does not have an income significantly above or below affording 'basic necessities' as defined by the economy based on what we know about how inflation and average incomes work. Therefore a person earning a statistically significant sum under that will not be able to afford the 'basic necessities' as defined within the socity". It's setup using percentages so that it avoids the pitfalls of trying to measure a member in society a needing service x and a member in society b needing service y where x is significantly more expensive than y so the definition of poor in society a is higher than society b.
Yes, I understand that this is what the calculation is *trying* to do. My point is that it does it *badly*, as you can see in the examples I gave. The line shifts based on external factors, not related to whether someone can actually afford basic necessities or not.
But none of those external factors apply in our case? Like yeh it can be theoretically a bad measure but pretty any measure of anything can be bad given certain set hypothetical scenarios. Relitive poverty is almost always the optimal measurement, that's why it's been the gold standard for over 200 years. Currently it highlights the current state of the UK quite accurately and I've seen no independent national or international analysis that suggests otherwise. If you do I'd love to read it.
Why wouldn't they apply in our case? Do people not move to the UK, affecting the median wage? Do recessions not happen in the UK, affecting the median wage?
Not in a statistically significant way, no. Like I said if you have analysis that shows otherwise I'd love to read it.
Sure. Here is a government report saying exactly the same thing as I am, by comparing to an alternative method of calculating poverty: >The number of people below the Minimum Income Standard and people in relative low income have followed different trends over time. The number of people below the MIS increased between 2008/09 and 2013/14, then fell back slightly and stayed stable. The number of people in relative low income decreased between 2008/09 and 2013/14 and then began to increase again. >These differences can be explained by the fact that the relative low income threshold is set with reference to median income, which is not the case for the MIS. >After adjusting for inflation, median income was lower in 2013/14 than in 2008/09, which pushed down the threshold below which someone is counted as in relative low income. Meanwhile, the income required to meet a minimum acceptable standard of living, as measured by the MIS, increased. So, while fewer people were below the relative low income threshold, more people were below the MIS threshold. Since 2013/14, the situation has reversed as median incomes have increased faster than the MIS. https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN07096/SN07096.pdf Median income fell after the 2008 recession, so the line for what we count as being in poverty using that calculation dropped too.
Yeh the government used to classify poverty relitive to the 2008 adjusted median. Must admit I always found it funny when people arguing the validity of using a relitive poverty statistic tried to argue using the same statistic but fixed years in the past is more accurate. Seems to kind of miss the point to me. To the original point, yep the 2008 crash was absolutely a statistically significant event that created an interesting situation that kept the statistitions entertained. However a) was a bit long ago now, and b) you can easily correct for it by measuring the trend. Doesn't matter if you use the 2008 adjusted or the international definition. They both say poverty is skyrocketing in the UK. I think that's why I haven't seen a 2008 adjusted one in a while.
The concept of having a national poverty line is nonsense. Everyone should use international standards, otherwise you're just measuring inequality. ie. if the people at the bottom remain exactly the same and the people in the middle get better off, the poverty metric increases.
Now we just wait for the inevitable "You dont need to be poor, just double your income and stop being lazy" comment from a Tory backbencher.
The article's mostly talking about people who work 2 days a week.
Just square the circle, if you want to escape poverty you need to escape the UK. Buy a house outright for some ridiculously low price (even in France), keep the rest invested/saved. It's harder without EU FOM but even then you can still stay in a house in the EU 180 days a year, maybe spend a few months in another nearby country like Turkey/Balkans or Morrocco, few months back in the UK. Or just get a visa by setting up a business like a language school, even if it only exists on paper. I've done my calculations and if I keep at a low paid full time job and save well I can basically retire at 40 in a cheap overseas house. UK only for family visits and perhaps temp work if I want more money.
the reverse Poland strategy
I basically got inspiration for this idea after from working alongside EU migrants. They mostly just wanted to come to the UK, make a fast buck and go back to their homelands and buy a house outright. there's always been a stereotype that they are motivated and hard working, and when I heard about how cheap the houses were in their homelands I could see why. I worked out I could literally buy a house over there after working for a year, you can get houses for under 10k euros out there. Though I'd prefer to live in south/west europe rather than Eastern Europe.
Provided your boss allows you to do that of course and doesn't reduce your salary as well, aye.
The only way to fix this is to raise levels of immigration, obviously
Cutting immigration would reduce the people available to do necessary roles, increasing the costs of goods and services, and making these peoples lives even worse if they don't work in an industry with a shortage.
Short term maybe, but a tighter labor market with no cheap labor to import would force wages higher and force companies to invest in productivity hiking advances, which would eventually make the average person’s life better. Importing low-paid labor just prolongs the current status quo and puts the UK further behind on a global scale. There’s no painless way to get society-level change, but I’d rather a higher quality of life for your average Briton in 20 years rather than an even larger underclass who is even more hopeless and poor.
I don’t want to be callous with this comment. I want someone to explain to me what I’m missing. The article says that a family of 4 with £21,900 a year after housing costs is living in poverty. That’s £420 a week. Thinking about my bills, that doesn’t seem all that bad?
Take food, bills, commuting/transport costs, clothing etc out of the £420 and see how much if left…
Ok. £420 a week is £1820 a month. (£420 x 52 / 12) Food: £400 Council Tax: £150 (I’m assuming this isn’t included in housing costs) Energy: £150 Water: £30 Broadband: £20 Mobile Phones: £40 House Insurance: £15 Tv License: £15 That’s just over £800. That still leaves £1,000 a month. Have I missed anything?
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2 people on the minimum wage working full time hours make over £43k a year. So based on that; both parents aren’t working full time - so childcare costs at a minimum would be largely reduced. We are a family of 3 and eat pretty well for £400. Add £100 to that then. That still leaves £900 a month. I didn’t expect people living in poverty to have a mortgage to be honest. Owning a house and being in poverty doesn’t compute to me; but fair enough. My B&C on a large mortgages house is £20. So add £5; still not much.
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Yeah that’s definitely all fair to incorporate. Remember it’s £21,900 after housing costs though. So other than life insurance I can’t think of any additional costs associated with having a mortgage.
What about childcare? Car costs? Savings? Dental costs? Clothes? Haircuts? Childcare for one will be more than £1000 a month. It "doesn't seem that bad at all" because our expectations for income in this country have become so low.
Childcare cost is the big one. But 2 people on the minimum wage working full time hours make over £43k a year. So based on that; both parents aren’t working full time; so it certainly wouldn’t be full childcare costs. I’m by no means saying. That these people are flush. I just don’t think having that much money would put someone in the “poverty” bracket.
We had 2 kids that were 1 and 2. I worked full time, my partner did 2 days a week so that they could maintain their career when the kids got older. Childcare for the 3 days per week per child was £1300 per month. It would have been far higher if my partner was full time. I don't think you understand that if both parents are full time the childcare costs would likely be double the mortgage.
This is the answer I was looking for. Thanks. Yeah that makes total sense. I was thinking school age children. I’ve got a lot of stick for my comments; but a reasoned answer like this was all I was looking for.
Even with school-aged children, the childcare costs don’t end. Wrap around care is £18 per child, per day at my kids school and then camps during term breaks can be several hundred pounds per week, per child.
>reasoned answer like this was all I was looking for. Getting one is like pulling teeth on here
£400 a month for food with kids? You’re missing clothing, shoes, school uniform, transport costs, possibly childcare if both parents are working and dependant on the age of the kids… Your take on this is pretty shit.
We spend £400 a month on food and have 1. And we eat pretty well. Add another £100? That still leaves £900. 2 people on the minimum wage working full time hours make over £43k a year. So based on that; both parents aren’t working full time with that income. I still don’t see how all that adds up to £900 a month? I’ve said I don’t want to be callous. I’m literally asking the question so I can better inform myself.
I genuinely don’t think you need to concern yourself over other peoples incomes and expenditure unless it affects you directly. This doesn’t affect you. Believe people when they say they’re struggling.
You must realise what a silly position this is to hold? If you want support for the things that affect you or that you care about, you need to be able to bring others who are not affected along with you, which means explaining things to those who lack direct experience. By only telling these other people to just take your word for it, you are doing yourself a significant disservice.
I literally said in my first comment that I didn’t understand and wanted someone who did to explain to me. This person isn’t doing a very good job of bringing be along.
Good work for trying to understand. Hopefully you've picked up that kids are eye wateringly expensive!
This is a platform that encourages discussion on the subject of the post. And this post is about people’s income. It seems exactly like what we should be talking about? Also, not talking about these things seems the exact opposite of what we should be doing. I’m trying to make sense of what I’m reading and you’re attacking me for it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Transport, for kids and daily food for school will be very expensive, clothes. The take away here is, don't have children as they are very expensive.
Those kids will be getting free school meals. Transport, yes, but I wasn’t sure how much time put for that because it largely depends. Certainly not £1k a month though.
Free School Meals threshold is household income under £616/month, and for example NHS help is under £935/month. The example is above both thresholds
Aah ok. Fair enough. So what’s that? £5 a day for each? There are 195 school days, that’s about £160 a month.
£150 a month isn't even keeping your house at 17° if it's old like a lot of our housing stock. Living somewhere colder than the south of England? Definitely will need to increase this - even more so if you have a prepayment meter. Our water bill is £45 a month fixed. Can't have a meter fitted so there's definitely variation in those costs. Growing children need clothing. School clubs so you can both work full time can run up a decent bill as well. Older children/teenagers, particularly boys may well not be eating enough with a food bill of £400 a month. And many do not have the option of getting to an Aldi or Lidl easily for their food shop to bring the costs down as low as possible. Dentistry is expensive. Repeat prescriptions are also another cost. Transport for everyone to be able to commute to/from school/work if it's available. Live somewhere even remotely rural or just not even on a bus route? Now you have car upkeep and fuel to pay for.
You seem to have lowballed on things (£15 insurance good for you but extrapolating that for all is incorrect) energy will depend partly on heating system which for the poorest will not be under there control (can't change for gas radiators if renting). Biggest issue seems to be childcare costs which can v high for a lot of people.
As someone paying childcare costs, yes they are high. They are highest when you get no funding support for childcare though (previously <3 years). For easier maths, let's say they start at 1. That's 2 years of crazy costs, but then they drop a lot. And you certainly won't be paying for uniform or school trips during that time of highest cost though. Summary: yes childcare is expensive, but the most expensive part is not applicable for everyone with a child.
The median for a couple with two kids under 14 is £700/wk. I pulled the data out here https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/19di1mb/millions_of_people_in_uk_would_need_to_double/kj7t7as/
It’s relative poverty not actual. A measure campaigning groups like to use because there will always be people in poverty if the measure is median income nationally.
Relative poverty is actual poverty in a developed economy. It's trying to see if you are able to function as a member within the society rather than some poor sub class, not measure wether or not you can literally eat (which is useless in a society with a safety net). That's why Adam Smith pointed out its superiority for measuring poverty in the UK the wealth of nations 200 years ago.
Except that however rich society gets there will be people in relative poverty. It gets trotted out as a statistic when saying someone is desperate. It might be a useful measure for some things but it gets misused.
That's not true, if your bottom end stays within 20% of your median you'd have 0% poverty. So a society with a fairly equal bottom half would have no relative poverty. > it gets trotted out as a statistic when saying somone is desperate That's patently untrue, it's been the international standard for measuring poverty in developed countries for hundreds of years. The argument of it not being absolute poverty and therefore useless gets trotted out by apologists every time a country gets poorer though.
That’s a good point. I hadn’t considered that. Median is a better measure than Mean; but it still has its flaws.
20% of the population is currently living in the bottom income quintile. tHiNk Of ThE pOoR pEoPlE!
Did you know that the top 1% of earners currently earn more than 99/100 other people! How dare they!
> A measure campaigning groups like to use because there will always be people in poverty if the measure is median income nationally. Definitely doesn't have to be.
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all those salmon fillets and bingo nights
Stop buying those avocado on toasts and Starbucks. Easy smh
I mean you joke but yeah, if you were in this bucket, probably not advisable to have wasteful expenditure such as daily takeaway coffees, lunches out and expensive breakfast items. That's a pretty fair comment.
Oh can you IMAGINE the screaming from the Bank of England and the tories of people actually did double their wages to just be able to eat??? OH BUT INFLATION!!! INFLATION!!! Country is fucked! Will take strarmer 2 decades to just return us back to where we were in 2010
Are they talking about people who currently choose to work part-time? When these agenda driven think tanks try to use big numbers to push the narrative that there's lots of people earning low incomes, you have to remember there's 8.4m working age people who work part-time as a lifestyle choice. That's about 25% of the workforce and the other 75% are currently working 40 hours a week to subsidise that lifestyle choice.
Yes I'm sure every single working age person is working part time as a lifestyle choice. No such thing as education, child care, disabilities, those with care commitments, free lancing, retirement jobs, or just those that earn enough working part time. Yes clearly all these people are just lazy freeloaders!
Lifestyle choice 🤦♀️
Just trying to work out the numbers here > Giving an example of a couple with two children under 14 living in poverty, JRF suggested the average income for this type of family after housing costs was £21,900 - and they would need an extra £6,200 yearly just to reach the poverty line. So that makes it £28,100 for the poverty line. That's £46.8k for the median then (if 28k is 60% of the median) for *after housing cost, post tax income*? That doesn't sound right. Median household income AHC is about £500/wk or £26k/year. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/households-below-average-income-for-financial-years-ending-1995-to-2022/households-below-average-income-an-analysis-of-the-uk-income-distribution-fye-1995-to-fye-2022 Let's look at the actual report https://www.jrf.org.uk/uk-poverty-2024-the-essential-guide-to-understanding-poverty-in-the-uk XLSX included, let's check the data: |Household type|Median income||Poverty threshold (60% of median)||Deep poverty threshold||Very deep poverty threshold|| :--|--:|--:|--:|--:|--:|--:|--:|--:| ||||||(50% of median)||(40% of median)|| ||Weekly|Annual|Weekly|Annual|Weekly|Annual|Weekly|Annual| |Lone parent with two children, one aged 14 or over and one under 14|£600|£31,300|£360|£18,800|£300|£15,600|£240|£12,500| |Couple with two children, one aged 14 or over and one under 14|£810|£42,200|£486|£25,300|£405|£21,100|£324|£16,900| |Couple with two children, both under 14|£700|£36,500|£420|£21,900|£350|£18,200|£280|£14,600| |Single adult, no children|£290|£15,100|£174|£9,100|£145|£7,600|£116|£6,000| |Couple with no children|£500|£26,100|£300|£15,600|£250|£13,000|£200|£10,400| Right, so it's not £21.9k as an average for a family in v deep poverty, it's the poverty line itself.
My new moto of 2024 is “Stop Being Poor”