[Closed] Nasty Tories at it again

yep, their plan to drive people into insecure, low skilled, low paid jobs with uncertain working hours is working a treat.

Never fear, Brexit will be along shortly to put paid to all the good work the coalition did.

We'll all be able to have 3 jobs each when they send the immigrants home. I'm planning on being a plasterer, fruit picker and surgical registrar.

that fruit picking is skilled work muppetWrangler - don't overreach yourself.

37000 more folks having to work than this time last month

Is that the new civil servants they've had to hire to deal with brexit? Or is it the number of poor sods who've been forced to take up unpaid work on 'training' courses, or sign off because they've got a nice zero hours contract job which doesn't give them any work?

Lucky people!

yep, their plan to drive people into insecure, low skilled, low paid jobs with uncertain working hours is working a treat.

Even though this narrative is not supported by the facts....apart from that

But forget the nasty Tories with "their" rising employment and wage trends the real question is for the Brexshiteers who need to reconcile, immigration tends with positive trends in both employment and wages. Hmmm, that doesn't quite fit the story does it?

Interesting stat on public sector employment levels at new lows - missed by the headlines so far.

Meanwhile in the real world, 12 points of note from the last week or so...

1. The homelessness charity Shelter reported that 120,000 children will spend this Christmas homeless, and that the new lower Tory benefit cap will end up impoverishing an estimated 319,000 children. If it wasn't obvious before, it's crystal clear now that Tory austerity policies end up economically punishing children for the "crime" of being born into poor families.

2. The Tory assault on children's rights suffered a setback in the House of Lords where peers voted against the Tory plan to allow local governments to opt out of child protection measures. This Tory effort to build a "bonfire of children's rights" is clearly designed to make the privatisation of child protection services more appealing to corporate outsourcing giants like G4S, Capita and Serco. This vote in the Lords is more of a setback than a defeat though because Tory ministers can always simply reinstate the clause to scrap child safety standards when the child and social work bill returns to the House of Commons.

3. The latest figures from the Trussell Trust food bank showed that the increase in food bank dependency in the UK is still continuing. The charity handed out a record number of food parcels in 2015-16 and their evidence shows that two of the three leading causes of food poverty were benefit delays and Tory welfare cuts, accounting for over 40% of referrals between them.

4. A long-awaited report from the United Nations absolutely hammered the Tory government for their savage mistreatment of disabled people. Not only did the report find that Tory welfare cuts have disproportionately impacted disabled people and hindered their rights to live independently and be included in their communities, the report also found that disabled people in Britain have suffered a barrage of right-wing anti-disability propaganda that has routinely portrayed disabled people as "dependent or making a living out of benefits, committing fraud as benefit claimants, being lazy or putting a burden on taxpayers".

5. Theresa May's government suffered a humiliating setback in the Supreme Court where the High Court ruling that Tory "Bedroom Tax" discriminates against disabled adults and children was upheld.

6. The Brexiter argument that the collapse in the value of the pound has been a great thing for exports took a massive blow when it was revealed that the UK trade deficit has widened significantly to £12.7 billion. Not only did the vast gap between imports and exports grow dramatically, the volume of UK exports actually fell by £200 million. The Brexiter argument that a collapsing currency is great for the economy is utterly daft because the UK continues to import vastly more than it exports, but when the economic evidence shows that the collapse in currency value has coincided with a significant decline in exports, even the argument that it's good for the export sector begins to look incredibly weak. Even though the economic evidence shows that this Brexiter delight at the collapse in the value of the pound is misguided, we can look forward to Theresa May and the Tories continuing to spread the ludicrous myth that a weak currency is good for our (import dominated) economy.

7. The Bank of England responded to Theresa May's ignorant blame-casting rhetoric at the Tory party conference by releasing a report on the relationship between inflation and interest rates that demonstrated that Theresa May simply doesn't know what she's talking about when it comes to monetary policy (which is no surprise given the economically illiterate myths about monetary policy spread by her predecessors Cameron and Osborne).

8. The Institute for Fiscal Studies identified a £25 billion black hole in the UK public finances.

9. The Crown Prosecution Service are considering a "corrupt practices" case against the Vote Leave mob (which included high profile Tory government ministers like Boris Johnson) for lying to the electorate over claims like the "Let's give the NHS the £350 million a week ..." lie and their false claims that "Turkey is joining the EU".

10. Theresa May visited India in order to beg for some kind of trade agreement with them, but ended up getting her ear bent about her obstructive attitude towards Indian migration and the "detrimental" immigration policies she implemented during her time as Home Secretary. Additionally Theresa May didn't even bother to schedule a meeting with the Indian conglomerate Tata to discuss the ongoing crisis in the British steel industry while she was in India.

11. After returning from her failure of a trip to India Theresa May continued the Tory policy of sucking up pathetically to the Chinese communist government, even allowing herself to be lectured about the importance of "mutual trust" by the Chinese when one of the contractors they lined up to build the UK's rip-off nuclear infrastructure for us has been charged with nuclear espionage in the United States!

12. The hope that the Tories are finally going to bin their economically ruinous ideological austerity agenda in order to pursue a sane investment led recovery strategy took another blow with the announcement that the rail electrification project for the South West of England has been indefinitely suspended.

[url= http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/meanwhile-in-britain.html ]link[/url]

yep, their plan to drive people into insecure, low skilled, low paid jobs with uncertain working hours is working a treat.

Naughty bad, evil tory, tory evil "people" cutting the unemployment figures and expecting the poor-downtrodden masses to contribute to society.

Evil swines!

. The Crown Prosecution Service are considering a "corrupt practices" case against the Vote Leave mob (which included high profile Tory government ministers like Boris Johnson) for lying to the electorate over claims like the "Let's give the NHS the £350 million a week ..." lie and their false claims that "Turkey is joining the EU

Oh I like that one!!

Sadly all the others affect honest working folks or honest folks unable to work due to circumstances beyond their control..

I want this Government to fail, and fail dramatically.

Naughty bad, evil tory, tory evil "people" cutting the unemployment figures and expecting the poor-downtrodden masses to contribute to society.

Evil swines!

I think you misunderstood the point there. He's saying that the jobs that are being created are low pay low quality low security jobs. Whilst this is usually better than no job at all, it is not really good enough.

He's saying that the jobs that are being created are low pay low quality low security jobs.

which is not the case

Let's hear it then THM?

There's also the issue of underemployment, with part-time workers who want to work more not being counted.

so lets get this straight

being in the EU is REALLY GOOD FOR OUR EMPLOYMENT FIGURES!?

why are we leaving again?

More than one in five workers, some 7.1 million people, now face precarious employment conditions that mean they could lose their work suddenly – up from 5.3 million in 2006, according to analysis of official figures conducted by John Philpott, a leading labour market economist. Half of the biggest group – the self-employed – are in low pay and take home less than two-thirds of the median earnings, according to the Resolution Foundation thinktank. Two million self-employed people now earn below £8 per hour.

Work does not provide a guaranteed route out of poverty in the UK. Two-thirds (66 per cent) of children growing up in poverty live in a family where at least one member works.

It's threads like this that fill me with despair about the social attitudes of some forumites.

The belief that poor people must be bullied because the lack of public money is their fault, not that of tax avoidance and corporate brown-nosing still persists, sadly.

why are we leaving again?

We're very angry about something. Although we're not entirely sure what it is anymore. And so that Boris Johnson can be prime minister.

Just go and read mol - the stats are all there, beyond the emotive soundbites and false claims

Kimbers - the ONS report shows v nicely the correlation between increased immigration from EU and non-EU, falling UN, rising employment and rising wages. It would be fun (in a masochistic kind of way) to hear the Brexshiteers explain that one away.

The number of self-employed people increased by 213,000 to 4.79 million - 15.1% of all people in work.

self employed...right 🙄

There's your zero hours and insure job roles, right there.

plus the same organisation suggested that their figures for the rise of 37,000 are statistically correct with an error margin of 79,000...so more or less insignificant.

Meanwhile Channel 4 are still digging into the Tories' election expenses in their opposition to UKIP.

There's also the issue of underemployment, with part-time workers who want to work more not being counted.

Again - compare this with main increase coming in full-time, not part-time working

There's your zero hours and insure job roles, right there.

all 3% of the workforce???

This thread is starting to make Brexshiteers look honest 😯

also released today

Britain has a deep social mobility problem which is getting worse for an entire generation of young people, the Social Mobility Commission’s State of the Nation 2016 report warns today.

The impact is not just felt by the poorest in society but is also holding back whole tranches of middle, as well as low income, families - these treadmill families are running harder and harder, but are standing still.

The problem is not just social division, but a widening geographical divide between the big cities - London especially - and too many towns and counties across the country that are being left behind economically and hollowed out socially.

The State of the Nation 2016 report, which was laid before Parliament this morning, lays bare the scale of the social mobility challenge facing the Government. It finds fundamental barriers including an unfair education system, a two-tier labour market, a regionally imbalanced economy and an unaffordable housing market.

The Social Mobility Commission welcomes the high priority that the current, as well as successive, governments have given to social mobility and finds that some real progress has been made. But it concludes that the twentieth century expectation that each generation would be better off than the preceding one is no longer being met.

The belief that poor people must be bullied

expecting all those that can to work and contribute rather than just living off other people is not bullying - it is fairness.

And, it is immensely beneficial for people to be in work:

The evidence is compelling: for most individuals, working improves general health and wellbeing and reduces
psychological distress.   
Even health problems that are frequently attributed to work—for example, musculoskeletal and mental health
conditions—have been shown to benefit from activity?based rehabilitation and an early return to suitable
work.

Research shows that long?term work absence, work disability and unemployment are harmful to physical and
mental health and wellbeing.  
Moreover, the negative impacts of remaining away from work do not only affect the absent worker; families,
including the children of parents out of work, suffer consequences including poorer physical and mental health,
decreased educational opportunities and reduced long term employment prospects.

[url= http://www.insteplimited.com/pdf/Realising-the-health-benefits-of-work-May2010.pdf ]http://www.insteplimited.com/pdf/Realising-the-health-benefits-of-work-May2010.pdf[/url]

teamhurtmore - Member
Just go and read mol - the stats are all there, beyond the emotive soundbites and false claims

Love to. Where, exactly? Isn't it normal to back up claims with evidence?

You seem to know where they are, how about a link or two...

It's threads like this that fill me with despair about the social attitudes of some forumites.

The belief that poor people must be bullied because the lack of public money is their fault, not that of tax avoidance and corporate brown-nosing still persists, sadly.

Exactly how I feel. The complete lack of empathy from thankfully a minority is thoroughly depressing. The forumites in question come across as pitiless, self-centred individuals who take a perverse delight in the misfortunes of others.

expecting all those that can to work and contribute rather than just living off other people is not bullying - it is fairness.

Ah, the ****less poor. You do know that most of them are in work, right?

expecting all those that can to work and contribute rather than just living off other people is not bullying - it is fairness.

Everyone thinks that. Even Labour.

The problem with Tories is how they go about trying to encourage that. They take things away without a thought to how people will replace them. They assume that everyone is happily taking money out of the system out of laziness, and if they take the money away they will simply be able to start working instead. They don't seem to have any idea of the genuine misery their policies cause, and they don't appear to care.

If you want to get people into productive work, you have to HELP them, not simply punish them. That's what they don't get, and that's why they are the nasty party. Because they don't give a shit.

Seriously, this ever greater entrenched, tribal attitude towards 'them and us' helps no one.

Just because your team didn’t win the last election, it doesn’t mean every single little thing the team that won does is evil, nor does it mean that everything bad in the world is their fault.

The Lowest level of unemployment since 2005 is remarkable really, especially with the Brexit hanging over us. Yes, there is a problem with under-employment, but low unemployment shifts the balance in the jobs market from a seller to a buyers’ market, something that’s shown in the rise in wages, no it’s not the whole story, but why try to pretend it’s bad news, just because you don’t like the government who were in power when the people drive the economy.

[i]expecting all those that can to work and contribute rather than just living off other people is not bullying - it is fairness[/i]

Of course, we've a massive problem of dole bludgers nicking of the social. 1979 called, it wants its election soundbites back. There's also the issues around terminally ill and disabled people being harassed and harangued by the state.

Seriously, what I said about being depressed at some of the attitudes on here is true.

We live in nasty times, with a nasty party in power. Social mobility is dead in the water, corporates and banks get all of the social welfare, while people are asked to pick up the bill.

expecting all those that can to work and contribute rather than just living off other people is not bullying - it is fairness.

whilst the principal is true, the method of evaluating who can and cannot is not.
for example (and apologies for the rag link):
[url= http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/a-slaughterhouse-sick-disabled-reporter-9260960 ]http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/a-slaughterhouse-sick-disabled-reporter-9260960[/url]

If we're assuming that the spongers are at it...

but why try to pretend it’s bad news,

It's not treating it as Bad News, it's just expanding on the superficial headline that encourages no thought to what those bland stats mean and how they are propagandised.

The Lowest level of unemployment since 2005 is remarkable really

If you can show me that this is actually because of what the Tories have done, then I'll gladly concede. I would love the Tories to be better than I percieve them to be, because then I would be a lot less depressed and a lot more optimistic, which I much prefer.

My complaint about this current lot is that they lack competence (as do Labour) and have done for years. The difference is that they are very clearly pursing an objective with which I do not agree, using methods with which I also do not agree. And they do not do anything to help the misery that people are feeling in the country they lead. I wouldn't mind if they'd tried and failed, but they don't try. Apparently because they don't think it's their job.

Love to. Where, exactly? Isn't it normal to back up claims with evidence?

Here's a challenge woppit - we are talking about the latest labour market stats, albeit under a tongue-in-cheek thread title, they are published by the ONS, and the ONS has a website - go on, be brave, have a look....

You seem to know where they are, how about a link or two...

If that's too difficult, I will post the link in 10m. Enjoy the challenge...

Mol - your point on causation (which I partly agree with) works both ways. So try matching [i]your [/i]comments on reduced income inequality and the highest employment levels since '71.

Careful clod/fred - that looks like some stats you are using there

"Just go and read mol - the [b]stats[/b] are all there, beyond the emotive soundbites and false claims"

😆

Ok then:

[url= http://www.cpag.org.uk/child-poverty-facts-and-figures ]Child poverty reduced dramatically between 1998/9-2011/12 when 800,000 children were lifted out of poverty. Since 2010, child poverty figures have flat-lined. The number of children in absolute poverty has increased by 0.5 million since 2010.3[/url]

'Stats', which you so dearly love THM, suggest that child poverty fell 'dramatically' under Labour, and has now risen again under the tories. Now, we can't argue with such facts now, can we?

There's also the issues around terminally ill and disabled people being harassed and harangued by the state.

We went through this recently, trying to apply for PIP. Long story short, I'm convinced that the entire system is designed to make you fail.

When the government get on their little soapboxes about how they've reduced the number of people on benefits, I'd urge you to consider that it's almost certainly not because they've clamped down on "scroungers," but rather made the whole process so obstructive and packed with outright lies at every step that the uncomfortable truth is that many disadvantaged people who should be entitled to help aren't getting it.

There is no doubt in my mind that if it wasn't for our relationship my wife would be homeless by now. So you'll excuse me if apologist comments make me a tad vexed.

The General Election is in 2020, until then the PR spin of charities and lobby groups will be just that

We went through this recently, trying to apply for PIP. Long story short, I'm convinced that the entire system is designed to make you fail.

My mum worked for Citizens advice for many years, and spent her days filling out forms like PIP. Her opinion is that we've gone back about twenty years.

Well here's an anecdote to back up that statistic.

I've got a job!

I'll take home about the same in November as I paid tax in June, but lets not let trivial details like that ruin things.

I'm a step parent to a teenager with Type One diabetes. I've been down the PIP route too.

I've a friend recovering from major surgery who has been shafted by his employer. He can't sue - because he can't raise the funds, he's been denied PIP and the most recent form he's been sent to complete is forty-nine pages long.

He's also highly qualified and very, very intelligent. But "the system" wants to force him into homelessness and ultimately poorly paid work with no support before he's fully healed. I sincerely hope that those politicians behind this one day get held to account.

No woppit, you tried to be a bit of an **** on two threads so don't be surprised that your request was only partially answered.

But since you find it so hard to use google, the source of today's discussion is here

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/uklabourmarket/latest

Enjoy the read.

I'm convinced that the entire system is designed to make you fail

Of course it is. You are not a person, you are a statistic and if you can be amended from negative to perceived positive, by any means possible, then the government will manipulate you. Unfortunately there is absolutely no credible opposition at the moment so the right wing can run rampant.

since you find it so hard to use google

I rest my case.

...hopefully on the evidence - how was the read?

So try matching your comments on reduced income inequality and the highest employment levels since '71.

I am not in a position to really comment on the Tories economic policies. I dont' know of any, really, so perhaps they've been doing it in secret or maybe it's just me.

I'm commenting on the lack of compassion and understanding; the manifest desire to shrink government; and the lack of competence in managing society.

Well mol, I prefer not to give governments too much credit either way. They largely react to events rather than drive them, so can hardly take the credit or the blame

I'm commenting on the lack of compassion and understanding

Debatable - rhetoric v reality, but they have a PR problem for sure

the manifest desire to shrink government;

Hurrah - but painfully slow here, so yes black marks all round

and the lack of competence in managing society.

as above

Out of interest THM, how many people do you know who have fallen foul of the system through no fault of their own?

Quite a lot - I ran a marathon recently to raise money to support them.

Is it wrong that I always imagine THM dressed in his [url= ]Kate Kennedy[/url] outfit while he types?
Anyway,this is all good news,rising employment must mean lots and lots of exports from the UK.Jolly good.

Great photo Fasthaggis and shrewd choice!! I happen to know the Kate in that photo, so your choice is spooky!! Very, very eerie!! 😉

Bravo!!

Agreed - it is good news

Goes off singing the gaudie....

"Quite a lot - I ran a marathon recently to raise money to support them."

I'm sure they were all very grateful. Well done [i]you[/i]!

But do you [i]actually[/i] know any?

It wasnt for me - apart from the fitness gains, so no thanks required. Yes, do you want names and addresses? Are you going to help too? That would be great, more hands....

It's threads like this that fill me with despair about the social attitudes of some forumites.

[img] [/img]

It's threads like this that fill me with despair about the social attitudes of some forumites.

I wouldn't. It's mostly just laughable junk that's being spouted 🙂

From the ONS

There were around 3 million people in in-work poverty in 2013. This meant their household income (adjusted for household size and composition) was below the poverty threshold and were in employment themselves. The ten per cent of households with the lowest disposable income spent an average of £196 a week in 2013. Of this, half (£98) was spent on food and non-alcoholic drinks, transport, housing (including net rent), and household fuel and power.

As for out of work people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance and Universal Credit, there were 760,200 people claiming these benefits in January 2016. This number has decreased by 11.2% compared with a year earlier.

I think looking at employment/unemployment figures alone is pointless. Yes, more people are in employment than ever before. That is a tiny part of the story. Three million working people in poverty?
That's three million people who are NOT BENEFITING from being in a working family.
This narrative that, once someone has a job, everything is fine is nonsense.

£44 billion goes on family benefits, income support and tax credits. This includes benefits such as child benefit and support for people on low income. Around £3.5 billion goes to the unemployed.

I would suggest that poorly paid jobs are costing the taxpayer far more than unemployment. Are we subsidising the unemployed or employers who don't want to pay their staff enough to live off.

So yeah, great news, unemployment is down.

Let's have a ****ing party!

"It wasnt for me"

So why mention it?

"Yes, do you want names and addresses? Are you going to help too? That would be great, more hands...."

How do you know I'm not already 'helping'? You haven't a clue what I do, or don't do. Some people chose not to bang on about such things. But if you think it helps make you look more 'good citizen', then crack on. Well done [i]you[/i]. Have a medal.

So why mention it?

To answer a question, Fred

How do you know I'm not already 'helping'? You haven't a clue what I do, or don't do.

In this specific case, Fred, I do know. But I am sure that you are helping in other ways so - what's the phrase - well done, [i]you[/i]

edit for edit: thank you, a chocolate one if you dont mind.

Ahhh lifting children from poverty until 2010,children in poverty increases since. Don't like the sound of that?
Easy.

[url= http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/iain-duncan-smith-defends-his-plan-to-redefine-child-poverty-and-scrap-binding-targets-a6893646.html ]change the definition of child poverty [/url]

I'm currently contributing to crowd funding with the aim of bringing Ian Duncan Smith to justice for his disabled and homeless program, I suggest others do the same.

To be fair to IDS, the current definition of poverty is useless.

If you're household income is less than 60% of the median then you'll be classed as being in poverty. People will always fall into this definition whatever you do, thats just statistics. It could be argued that to reduce the poverty figure, we could just reduce the median income of the country. Recession anyone?

What would be more meaningful would be to define what Poverty actually is and then tackle those underlying issues which hold back social mobility.
Things like Education & Health.

the current definition of poverty is useless.

agreed, but not a popular opinion to hold! 😉

The IFS stuff on childhood income inequality is interesting material though

the saddest thing about this thread is that there is little or no middle ground the discussion is two sided and thus becomes a willy waving competition trawling the web to find facts stats and quotes.

that 37000 people have cause to celebrate a new job following unemployment should be good enough in itself..

the argument re social mobility is disappointing in 2016 western europe.. in a year we ve witnessed millions of people walking thousands of miles across the middle east and europe and record numbers of eastern europeans jumping on the bus or easy jet to seek work in a country where they barely understand the language we use the argument that its unfair on the unemployed of rochdale to expect them to travel modest commutes to secure work..

Chew - that's relative poverty. See clodhoppers link on previous page regarding absolute poverty.

teamhurtmore - Member
No woppit, you tried to be a bit of an **** on two threads...

Charming.
Don't you usually report people who address you in a similar manner?

"In this specific case, Fred, I do know. "

'Fred'? 😕

You don't even know my name. How the hell can you know anything else about me?

"But I am sure that you are helping in other ways so - what's the phrase - well done, you"

What I, or anyone else, does or doesn't do, is irrelevant to his particular discussion. It's not about 'I do a lot of work for charity' type willy-waving. It's about understanding what is causing the issues in our society. So far, all you've demonstrated is a lack of understanding, and an insistence on supporting tory ideology by producing carefully selected 'statistics' you believe support your argument.

I'm not interested in waving willies around. It's far too chilly for that sort of nonsense.

Producing some carefully manipulated figures to show 'oh look, employment is up!', whilst all the real evidence proves society is declining economically and socially, for the majority of people, is fiddling while Rome burns.

See clodhoppers link on previous page regarding absolute poverty

I wish that there were no Children growing up in poverty.

We [the IFS] refer to two main income-based measures of poverty. The first is the ‘[b]absolute poverty rate’[/b], which measures the fraction of individuals who live in a household with an income below a fixed (in real terms) poverty line. The precise level of this poverty line is inevitably somewhat arbitrary, but we follow the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)’s official Households Below Average Income (HBAI) statistics and d[b]efine the absolute poverty line as 60% of median income in 2010–11[/b]....

The second income-based measure of poverty is the [b]‘relative poverty rate’. [/b]This measures the [b]fraction of individuals whose household income is lower than 60% of median income in the current (contemporaneous) year.[/b] In both cases (absolute and relative), incomes are adjusted for differences in household size and composition (‘equivalised’) to reflect that larger households need more income than smaller households to achieve the same standard of living. To give a sense of monetary amounts, in 2014–15, the absolute poverty line (after housing costs) for a single person was £138 per week, while it was £332 for a couple with two children (aged under 14). The relative poverty lines were £141 and £340 respectively....

While the current cut-off points are similar, absolute and relative poverty are very different concepts, and they can give a very different impression of the level and trends in income poverty over time. For example, rising absolute poverty occurs when the incomes of low-income people are falling in real terms, meaning that more people are living in households below the fixed poverty line. In contrast, there can be a rise in relative poverty even if there is no change in the real incomes of low-income households: an increase in median income can lead to the relative poverty line (and therefore relative poverty) rising. We believe it is useful to track both absolute and relative measures of poverty. In the long run, society’s view about what is an acceptable standard of living evolves, and it seems plausible that it evolves roughly in line with the level of resources available to society as a whole.

Therefore it is appropriate for a poverty line to change over time in a way that relates to average income, as does the relative poverty line. However, in the short run, there is obviously interest simply in whether people are getting better or worse off in absolute terms. This has certainly been the case since the recession. More generally, it is doubtful whether society’s views about what constitutes acceptable living standards change year to year as median income changes. Hence changes in the absolute poverty rate are important too and, because we tend to focus here on recent trends, we largely focus on trends in absolute poverty.

FYI: IFS

And the latest numbers they use

In 2014–15, the absolute poverty rate in the UK when measuring incomes after deducting housing costs (AHC) was 20.3%, which corresponds to 12.9 million individuals. This was a fall of 1.3 percentage points (700,000 individuals) from 2013–14 and 1.8ppt (1.0 million) since the recent peak in 2012–13 – falls that are statistically significant.

As noted in the introduction to this chapter, relative poverty provides a different concept of how the living standards of low-income households are performing, where an increase or decrease in poverty is caused by poorer households ‘falling behind’ or ‘catching up’ with middle-income households respectively. Figure 5.4 shows the trends in relative poverty (measured AHC) since 1996–97. In 2014–15, relative poverty was essentially unchanged from 2013–14, at 21.3%, and slightly lower than its previous peak of 22.5% in2007–08. The main finding from this is that overall relative poverty is not very different from its level 10 years ago, with rises prior to the recession as median income growth outpaced growth in low incomes, falls between 2007–08 and 2010–11 as median income fell faster than low incomes during the recession, and little change since then.

Charming.
Don't you usually report people who address you in a similar manner?

Read the previous post that this was in reply to and you will get the context ie being called a bit of a c***. Then you will understand.

that 37000 people have cause to celebrate a new job following unemployment should be good enough in itself..

Only if the jobs they are doing are valid jobs (not zero hours contracts, not underpaid/demeaning jobs). The only benefit is to the employers.

Don't just look at a number and think all is good....

Ah, one rule for you and one for others.

What a surprise.

What I, or anyone else, does or doesn't do, is irrelevant to his particular discussion.

Agreed, so its odd when people ask this isn't it Fred?

It's not about 'I do a lot of work for charity' type willy-waving. It's about understanding what is causing the issues in our society.

True, which requires something that you seem to abhor - facts

So far, all you've demonstrated is a lack of understanding, and an insistence on supporting tory ideology by producing carefully selected 'statistics' you believe support your argument.

I have no need to support any party. The facts are what they are. In fact their trends seem to suggest that the party in power has little if any impact, so who is relying on carefully selected "anecdotes" that they believe support their argument?

You can see the levels of income inequality and absolute and relative poverty in the UK for yourself. If required you can also compare them with the party in power that the time, if you believe this to be relevant. You decide. Personally, I prefer to just get on with doing something about it, in practical and financial terms. That has nothing to do with willy-waving {although I am sorry if you are feeling the effects of the cold in that scenario)

that 37000 people have cause to celebrate a new job following unemployment should be good enough in itself..

I doubt very much that all 37000 have actually got a job. That figure will surely include those no longer in out of work/job seeking benefits.

Is this going the way you expected OP?

'Fred'?

You don't even know my name. How the hell can you know anything else about me?

I don't know about that, I think he may have a point.

😀

"I don't know about that, I think he may have a point."

I've revealed absolutely bugger all about myself, my profession, and my personal life. So, please explain how 'he may have a point'?

"You can see the levels of income inequality and absolute and relative poverty in the UK for yourself"

Yes, I can. Because I keep my eyes and ears open I see for myself what is actually happening to real people, not just bury myself in 'statistics'.

"True, which requires something that you seem to abhor - facts"

Ah, 'facts'. Please explan this then:

"In this specific case, Fred, I do know."

As far as I am aware, we've never met in 'real life', and our contact as been limited to this forum alone. So, please explain how you seem to 'know' about what I do, or don't do.

Now, we could continue with going down your favourite route of using statistics to prove a point, but I prefer to look at the actual, physical reality of people's lives. Such as the massive increase in food bank use, just to use one example. The 'facts' of this are that increasing numbers of people cannot afford to buy food to eat.

It's 'facts' like that I'm interested in THM, not your carefully manipulated figures.

Very simple Fred - none of the people that are involved are MTBers nor do they post here, hence, safe to conclude that you are not part of that group. The great thing about facts - they are so simple. 😉

I am well aware of the food bank issue. Have we met there perhaps?

I've revealed absolutely bugger all about myself, my profession, and my personal life. So, please explain how 'he may have a point'?

Dunning-Kruger effect?

Wanna take bets on that THM?

on what?

On the people being involved in these factual stats not being MTBers