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Old 03-03-2013, 06:05 AM   #1
DanaC
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Tackling the myths about poverty and the poor

Whilst reading a piece about recent austerity measures, I came across a link to a recent publication by a collection of church organisations.

The lies we tell ourselves: ending comfortable myths about poverty

Quote:
A report from
the Baptist Union of Great Britain,
the Methodist Church,
the Church of Scotland
and the United Reformed Church
It's really interesting. Here's the link: http://www.jointpublicissues.org.uk/...rt-smaller.pdf


And some highlights, beginning with a little of the intro:

Quote:
In 1753 John Wesley, the founder of Methodism
said, “So wickedly, devilishly false is that common
objection, ‘They are poor, only because they are
idle’.”Yet today many churchgoers and members
of the general public alike have come to believe
that the key factors driving poverty in the UK
are the personal failings of the poor – especially
‘idleness’. How did this come about?

The myths exposed in this report, reinforced
by politicians and the media, are convenient
because they allow the poor to be blamed for
their poverty, and the rest of society to avoid
taking any of the responsibility. Myths hide the
complexity of the true nature of poverty in the
UK. They enable dangerous policies to be imposed
on whole sections of society without their full
consequences being properly examined. This
report aims to highlight some comfortable myths,
show how they have come to prominence and test
them against serious evidence.
Quote:
The report begins with a case study, Troubled
Families and Troubled Statistics, showing how
facts and evidence were bent to meet the needs
of policymakers. The reputations of society’s most
disadvantaged families became collateral damage
in the rush to defend a new policy. Perhaps we are
not surprised by this but we should be appalled.
The myths challenged are not a comprehensive list
but were chosen because of their prominence in
public debate, and their widespread acceptance.

And here are a sample of some of the myths covered in the report:

Quote:
Myth 1
‘They’ are lazy and don’t want to work
The most commonly cited cause of child poverty by
churchgoers and the general public alike is that “their
parents don’t want to work”. Yet the majority of
children in poverty are from working households. Inwork
poverty is now more common than out of work
poverty. It is readily accepted that across the country
there are families in which three generations have
never worked. Examples of such families have not been
found, and the evidence suggests it is unlikely we ever
will. How did we come to believe these things
?

Quote:
MYTH 3
‘They’ are not really poor – they just don’t manage
their money properly
Nearly 60% of the UK population agrees that the poor
could cope if only they handled their money properly. The
experience of living on a low income is one of constant
struggle to manage limited resources, with small events
having serious consequences. Statistics show that the poorest
spend their money carefully, limiting themselves to the
essentials. How did we come to believe that poverty was
caused by profligacy?
Quote:
MYTH 4
‘They’ are on the fiddle

Over 80% of the UK population believe that “large numbers falsely claim benef ts”. Benefit fraud has decreased to historically low levels - the kind of levels that the tax system can only dream of.
Less than 0.9% of the welfare budget is lost
to fraud. The fact is that if everyone claimed and was paid correctly, the welfare system would cost around £18 billion more.
So how did we come to see welfare claimants as fraudulent scroungers?
Quote:
MYTH 6
‘They’ caused the
deficit

The proportion of our tax bills spent on welfare has
remained stable for the last 20 years. It is ridiculous
to argue, as some have, that increasing welfare
spending is responsible for the current deficit. Public
debt is a problem but why is it being laid at the feet
of the poorest?

The case studies are also very interesting, and set alongside the political rhetoric current in our culture they are powerful.

Worth a read.
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Old 03-03-2013, 06:10 AM   #2
DanaC
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Some more snippets:

Quote:
The comfortable story of poverty allows the
majority of people to live in comfort and security,
largely unaware of the diffi culties that many
others face. It neutralises our response to people
who struggle - not with criminality and anti-social
behaviour, but to cover the essentials of feeding
a family, clothing growing children and heating
homes. The comfortable myths about poverty
allow us to believe that people in poverty are
deserving of their poverty, and that it is neither
our fault nor our problem.

The conversation about poverty has concentrated
on fraud, addiction and a culture of entitlement.
The implication is that if you tackle these faults,
then you tackle poverty. It also suggests that
poverty can be confronted without impacting on
the lives of anyone else – except perhaps reducing
the tax we pay. Politicians and parts of the media
have reinforced this belief and told us what we
want to hear. These myths have been a distraction
from the reality of spending cuts that will
continue to have, a dramatic effect on the living
standards of the most vulnerable in our country.


The case study:

Quote:
The ‘Troubled Families’ programme was set up in 2011 to help some of the
most disadvantaged families in England. The aims of targeted intervention,
better coordination of public services, and marshalling resources to help the
disadvantaged will hopefully have a beneficial effect. However the
announcement and media coverage is a case study in the misrepresentation of the
poorest. The evidence used to support the assertions about the families was distorted to fit preconceived ideas and grossly stigmatised them in the process.
Quote:
Speaking in November 20112 Prime Minister David
Cameron said:

... today, I want to talk about troubled families.
Let me be clear what I mean by this phrase.
Offi cialdom might call them ‘families with
multiple disadvantages.’ Some in the press might
call them ‘neighbours from hell’. Whatever you
call them, I think we have all known for years
that a relatively small number of families are the
source of a large proportion of the problems in
society.....
... Drug addiction. Alcohol abuse. Crime. A culture
of disruption and irresponsibility that cascades
through generations. We’ve always known that
these families cost an extraordinary amount of
money but now we’ve come up with the actual
fi gures. Last year the state spent an estimated £9
billion on just 120,000 families. That is around
£75,000 per year per family.

Now there are some who say ‘yes, this is terrible,
but this ‘Shameless’ culture is now a fact of
modern British life, and there’s nothing we can
do’. They’re the same people who believe that
poverty and failure, like death and taxes, will
always be with us I don’t think people are preprogrammed
to fail because of where they come
from...

Quote:
The Prime Minister’s speech, and many other government announcements since, have linked these families to crime, drug abuse, irresponsibility and anti-social behaviour. They have been called “neighbours from hell” and blamed for a “Shameless culture”. Yet to be counted in the 120,000, a family had to exhibit 5 of the following 7 characteristics:

no parent in the family is in work
• family lives in overcrowded housing
• no parent has any qualifi cations
• mother has mental health problems
• at least one parent has a long-standing
limiting illness, disability or infi rmity
• family has low income (below 60% of median income)
• family cannot afford a number of food and clothing items.


Despite the Prime Minister’s claims of “disruption and irresponsibility” in his speech, there is no measure of criminality included in these categories. In fact at least 90% of the children in this group had no reported involvement in criminal or anti-social behaviour3. Neither is there a measure for drug abuse, or for whether they were the “source of a large proportion of the problems in society”. The largest shared characteristic of the families identifi ed was that the mother had mental health problems. By his own
measures, David Cameron’s “troubled families” are not “neighbours from hell” that he describes, but instead ’neighbours in need
‘.


There are not 120,000
‘Troubled Families’

In fact we do not know how many such families there now are. The figure
of 120,000 originally comes from a secondary analysis of data collected
in 2004, and first published in 2007 by the Cabinet Office. The margin of
error of this study is large - around plus or minus 200,000. This means that
the Prime Minister could be speaking about any number of ‘troubled
families’ between very few families and over 300,000. The later reporting
of the policy in terms of 120,000 actual families is statistically flawed and
highly misleading.


These families do not cost
£9 billion

Not only is the number of families not known, but the financial estimate is
based on a Department for Education study of a different set of 46,000
families identified by different criteria to the Prime Minister’s 120,000
families. The £9 billion number also includes the health, education and
welfare costs that any ’untroubled‘ family would normally accrue.
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Last edited by DanaC; 03-03-2013 at 06:19 AM.
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Old 03-03-2013, 08:24 AM   #3
Sundae
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Cheers babbalou.

I am not the ideal example of a benefit claimant.
1) because I don't claim benefits
2) because I have an alcohol addiction.
But I know many people (or at least I used to) that fall between the cracks. They work hard - as I did. But they can't get the help they need - same here.
They are a few breaths away from keeping their heads above water.
Ditto.

And after all I do get subsidised healthcare.
But the actual assistance I get adds up to fuck-all. Never seen a psychologist, seen a psychiatrist once ("No, I don't think you're depressed") no drugs, no CBT, no. I see a counsellor once a week - he's lovely. But he is only trained as a counsellor. He can't prescribe and he can't diagnose.

Bye-bye lady, heal yourself.

I know things are more difficult in different countries. And I have to admit I think America is one of them. Dwellars no longer online have had really harsh things to say about those who just can't make the grade. On the flip side, other Dwellars have shown levels of compassion I've not seen in this country. Swings and roundabouts.

I moan about being poor.
I moan full stop.
I'd rather be poor than addicted. It's all down to me, I get that.

But some help would be nice. It's becoming more and more apparent that I need it.
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Old 03-03-2013, 11:12 AM   #4
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Thanks Dana for this thread.

We have the same things going here in the US
... with myths about "work ethic", "Welfare Queens",
... and more recently with "illegal immigration", and now even with "sequestration".
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Old 03-03-2013, 03:24 PM   #5
IamSam
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Yeah, good thread, Dana!
Other myths we have in the US center around foodstamps (now called the SNAP program with benefits issued on a credit type card - NOT stamps). I don't know how many places all over the Internet, the news media and people IRL I've heard tell tall tales about SNAP recipients:

*The poor use up all their SNAP benefits buying junk food from the local quick stop store.

*Drugs are often purchased using SNAP benefits. (not sure how this would work since the SNAP card rejects any non food purchase).

*The poor are given more to spend on food each month than the average middle class family gets to spend on their food. (Oh, right! )

*Alternately, anyone should be able to live on the $30/week that is the true average SNAP benefit for a single person. (Ramen, ramen, ramen and more ramen - yum!)

*"I was standing behind a woman who used food stamps to buy (pick one or insert your own choice):

an expensive, fancy cake from the store bakery section
a cart filled with junk food
6 lobsters and a partridge in a pear tree
a dozen sirloin steaks
caviar

The resentment here over the food stamps/SNAP program is incredible.
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Old 03-03-2013, 03:39 PM   #6
Sundae
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F**k the partridge. I want five gold rings.
And I'm gonna go to UT's shop and sell them for drugs.
'Cos that's what we losers do.

























You know the weird thing?
I forget sometimes how lucky I am.
Mum can be a bitch.
But threads like this remind me I am privileged.

I don't have a fancy car, credit card debts, an expensive habit or children that need to be clothed and fed.
I'm lucky, lucky, lucky that I'm not on the streets.
And that is solely down to the 'rents.
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Old 03-03-2013, 06:31 PM   #7
ZenGum
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Quote:
Speaking in November 2012 Prime Minister David
Cameron said:
... a bunch of lies that, despite being torn apart by evidence based analysis, have got into the public mind and will never be removed from it.

Vicious bastard.
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Old 03-04-2013, 03:22 AM   #8
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[snort]
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