The thread isn't a comparison to the 40's in terms of how relative poverty is to then, but the attitudes to poverty and how the public respond to those in need.

Wow, amazing post, well said and even if I was looking to, which I am not,I could not be able to find a thing to disagree on as to it.

Your last paragraph totally spot on and a really fair presentation of the issue.

My take on it is that no matter if the country is in boom times or recession, there will always be those that are homeless or not know where the next meal is coming from.

On top of that we have aspirations and expectations today that just weren't a consideration in previous generations, but as poverty bites, it all boils down to basic survival in the end.

Governments were considered uncaring and aloof in previous generations and the same applies today - conservative or labour, we really haven't progressed, we just wrap it up better in sound bites and give an illusion of care, but the same contempt exists.

So my conclusion is that poverty is just as bad as it was in the 40's and it really hasn't changed in generations since, nor is it likely to change any time soon in the future

Right, I think the public have a better attitude in some ways.
The food banks show that the public are charitable and try and help people who are struggling.
Soup kitchens and charity cafes try to help as well. So some people are making an effort.
Back in the forties the work house was still going strong, it changed name at some point but didn't shut fully until forties.
Family and friends were in similar situations back in the workhouse days and couldn't help out in a lot of cases.
The benefit system, while not being fantastic, has to be better than the options back in the day so attitudes will naturally be different nowadays.

...obviously none of us can compare through actual experience of the 1940s because t'was before our time but whatever our own 'back in the day' is, it's still hard to do because we tend to look back more with nostalgia and of being younger/rose tainted glasses, type thing..so of times/decades when we were children, our view of less or more poverty would be through a child's eye or a young person's eye, whereas now we're looking through the eyes of adults, so more 'reality/more responsibilities', I guess...as a child for instance, I never really had much 'new'..t'was the world of second hand Rose for many people, which still is as well, siblings inheriting from older siblings/clothes/toys etc...but obviously getting new stuff more..I guess an equivalent to 'second hand' now, would be Ebay..not everyone Ebays, some people give to someone they know for no return financially but many people do Ebay, so selling rather than giving...nothing was wasted in terms of food and many other things etc...but many people owned though in terms of their own house/flat etc...at a much younger age than they do now...now it's much more difficult to own at young ages and even for those that are fortunate enough to, it'll most likely mean a huge mortgage/debt...and on top of student loans debt as well...and because people did own back in the day at much younger ages, that's meant for many a generation of 'inheritance'...which I doubt will be the case with the younger generation now and a possible inheritance for their children ...



...anyways, these are just some musings and have no relevance at all to the article but one part of it is quite interesting...


Children were reported as dirty, inadequately clothed and badly behaved, and their parents were blamed as lazy and incompetent. Politicians and media reports supported this analysis.



..this was about evacuees, so still even in a 'pulling together' of wartimes, such judgements of parents/parenting and those judgements of 'laziness' being supported by the media..sound familiar..:laugh:...so not a lot really changed then from that view...and when we look at minimum paid jobs and things like that/exploitation type things of today...that could also be compared (maybe)...with those evacuees of the 40s, in that they weren't all homed through a sense of caring, some children were treated extremely badly/very bad living and care conditions for the only purpose of being 'free help'...and had some very wrong/cruel and unhappy experiences...and they had them old 'yanks' back in the 40s as well, coming over here, charming our ladies with their nylons and chocolate...'taking what is ours'.../and completely different again but still the 'old foreigners' coming over and taking 'our benefits' etc...


..anyways, there are just musings and thoughts more than anything else because comparisons are quite difficult..one of the big things though is the power of the internet and judgements being enabled to be made more en masse, rather than more, just within a community..but as the article says, there was still media influence to add then as well...I personally don't think media influences most people unless it's their leaning to be influenced anyway/their own personal thought process...but yeah, just musings really...

[QUOTE=Toy Soldier;8523727]And there are "starving kids in Africa" who would kill for a deep fried battered potato or a bit of bread soaked in gravy.

Yes - and there were "starving kids in Africa" who would kill for a deep fried battered potato or a bit of bread soaked in gravy" back in the 40's and '50's, only far, far more of them, and because we did not have widespread television and the internet, 'Public Perception' and 'Awareness' was extremely LOW, and because Beveridge's 'Welfare State'' was in it's infancy and the poor here had their very own 'fight to survive', the 'Working Classes' ability to 'contribute' aid to "starving kids in Africa" was virtually non-existant.

Over the past 40 years Africa has received $400billion of aid from the developed world and that figure does not include the hundreds of millions of pounds of 'non official' donations given by the public and raised by events such as Band Aid etc.

The "past 40 years" means from the late 1970's onwards, not the 40's, 50's 60's and early 70's - and this is solely due to the reasons outlined above - because 'Public Perceptions' to poverty HAS increasingly greatly improved over the past 40 years.

"Comparing ye-olde-timey poverty to modern poverty in an attempt to make it seem like poor people today "have it easy" is both arrogant, and completely pointless. The social and economic contexts are completely different. You're right in that it "doesn't compare" but only because it flat out can't be compared. It wasn't "as bad as" or "easier" OR "harder" - it was an entirely different situation."

I'll tell you what is 'arrogant' T.S. - 'Arrogant' is when one person denies, or denigrates the GENUINE DIRECT PERSONAL EXPERIENCES of another person without having shared those experiences.

I LIVED through the end of the 50's and through the early 60's and I was not some unintelligent or unread or unaware little kid trapped in a unique 'bubble' of poverty - I was POLITICALLY AWARE from a very early age, and aware of the great SOCIAL INEQUALITY which was prevalent at the time.

MY EXPERIENCE of poverty was not 'peculiar' to my family, because there were countless rows of squalid Victorian crumbling red brick, 'two down three up' terrace houses where families existed in poverty - DESPITE one or BOTH parents working hard for a pittance.

The windows were draughty Victorian sliding sashes where ice clung to the INSIDES during Winter. The interiors were lit by gas mantles, and hot water - such as it was - was provided by a tiny steel box back boiler heated by a coal fire in an open range fire.

And a 'Bathroom'? LOL. A galvanised tin bath half-filled with tepid water (the best that the small coal-fired back boiler could do) placed in the only living room in front of the coal fire, and a piece of old flannel and bar of carbolic soap was the 'Bathroom'. Oh, and we kids HAD to get in the previous kid's bath water.

Coarse old khaki army blankets and even a couple of army greatcoats were used to keep warm in bed - because shared body heat from 2 to a single bed wasn't enough to do the trick.

A coal fired 'Set Pot' - a huge cast iron inverted bell - was used to boil clothes one day and for cooking potato 'stew' in the next. Wet clothes were put through a hand 'mangle' wringer prior to being put out to 'dry' on a washing line strung across the rear access 'road' because we had no back gardens - just a 'coal house' and OUTSIDE toilets, where the 'toilet roll' was cut up squares of old newspapers hung by a nail on the ill-fitting planked door of the loo.

All cooking was done on two cast iron paddles fixed to the fire grate on which one stood pans or the kettle and which then were pushed over the fire.

Baking was done in an oven which was incorporated into the fireplace.

No fuel - no cooking.

There were NO fitted carpets, just 'damp, uneven, Yorkshire slab floors over which 'Peggy Rugs' - home made rugs fashioned from cut up strips of old clothing punched through a piece of old gunny sackloth - were laid.

There was no central heating - just the coal fire which filled the dingy rabbit hutch of a room with toxic smoke every time the wind blew down the chimney.

Mice, cockroaches and 'bed bugs' were prevalent - in the cleanliest of households.

I will never forget the chorus of severely violent coughing at 4.30 am every morning as numerous miners awoke to get ready for their shift at the local 'pit', or how I clutched a mug of tea with no milk and no sugar as I watched from my window at them them cycling down the street under the street gas lamps on their way to work with their metal 'snap tins' of pork dripping sandwiches, or 'potted beef' if they were really 'well off', in their saddle bags.

Mortality rates among the poor 'working class' were much higher then than now - I lost two sisters, one at birth and one in early infancy - and it was never due to heroin overdoses and rarely due to chronic alcoholism. Diseases which killed the poor in their thousands do not do so now.

TV's, Playstations and Designer Fashion clothes and accessories were unknown, as were take-away meals and holidays.

Do not make me laugh by accusing me of arrogance or by maintaining that the poverty we know in the UK today is worse, as bad as, or is 'different' to that which I KNEW in the late '50's and early '60's, because THERE IS NO COMPARISON. What is deemed poverty today would have been sheer 'middle class' bliss back then.

:clap1::clap1::clap1: Superbly written.

I've never seen a person here in the US that was on food stamps (welfare) that looked like they were starving. in fact usually they are more obese than rich people.

I specifically said that it was different. That's my entire point. And that's why using it as an example to make it seem like modern poverty is "nothing", or even "luxury", is arrogant and completely ignorant to the differences between the two situations.

Its just one big "lol what are people moaning about they are lucky" when they are anything but lucky, and often live miserable existences.

You initially misinterpreted the article Ammi in the OP the reports in the Guardian in 1943 did not fuel public perception of the poor they changed it. Due to those women travelling to the areas the kids were being evacuated from seeing ,where,when and how they lived and worked.
As you say we view those in poverty through the magic of television and trust what we see is a true representation instead of seeing the issues faced like these women did in 43 for themselves.
It's not a case of are you influenced, but to what degree.

..I didn't misinterpret anything, I posted some thoughts and musings/some possible comparisons that could be made or not etc...to be either interpreted or misinterpreted as anyone chooses...

Sorry but you did, as the reports in the media were not supporting they were exposing which to all intents and purposes is the opposite of what we have now in some newspapers.

..there are many 'exposing' balances now of any slanting, we just have to choose to and be inclined to look at all of those balances...which is why it's so great to have access to so much more information in the present day...and of course, 'see for ourselves' in so much as we're able to/gather our own information...anyways I could choose to pass the while away in dissecting my musings further or I could not and get along with my day...I choose the not to, ya'll have a good day....

It is interesting that the unlike the 40s there is all this new media with which to help shape attitudes. Yet unlike the 40s when confronted with the truth and the reality of situations many aren't compelled as they were then to advocate change.

Its a very neo-liberal attitude and I'm not surprised its happened. Margaret Thatcher once said, "you all middle class now". Those words really didn't help the 'working poor'. What Margaret Thatcher did was open the door to the working class and invite them to join the middle classes but inevitably some people were going to get stuck in the cracks.

Our aspirations changed. Most of us believe the worlds our oyster and we all have the opportunity to achieve great things if only we try, therefore, those at the bottom of the pile are the undeserving; the none tryers. If however, we find ourselves in that 'undeserving' category its because policy has put us there and if we find ourselves unsympathetic towards the poor, its the way modern society has been designed.

People don't choose to be poor so how do they end up there?

Whilst our parents and grandparents may of struggled to pay the accumulating tab at their local butchers or greengrocers, in today's Britain, borrowing is far easier. Back in our grandparents or even parents day, credit was small and bank loans were difficult to obtain, so although they were poor, their debts were small.

In modern times even a poor earner can have credit debts amounting to many thousands of pounds and modern day aspirations have ensured a fairly high percentage of people have what could quickly become crippling debt if they had to take a pay cut or god forbid, become unemployed even for a short time. Easy borrowing has allowed most of us to buy the goodies we want. Credit cards, finance agreements, pay day loans and large mortgages are what affords us the big house, the new car, the fancy clothes and a home furnished with every conceivable gadget.

We can build our castle on borrowed money, unlike back in the 30s, 40s and 50s when what you had is what you usually owned outright. Now we can appear to have everything whilst having nothing; we can be poor with an outward appearance of being comfortably off. Most of us are okay so long as we can keep borrowing but once our line of credit is cut off, we would quickly fall into the poverty trap.

Here’s a question: If our banks were to stop lending money from tomorrow onwards; if all credit, finance and pay day loans and mortgages were to cease which meant people could only buy something if they could pay for it outright, do you think people would adapt? would we all have considerably less in the way of material wealth?

Exactly DR, like I said the situations are entirely different and neither is "better" or "worse", they can't be compared.

As Kirk says, yes, people might have had to bundle up in bed because it was so cold, but how often did they find themselves terrified to leave that bed because of what might be waiting for them next to the letterbox? Fearful of small debt demands that quickly become large amounts, of constant payments to dozens of people, missing just one of which could cause a debt spiral ending in bankruptcy?

There's also the element of hope. Kirk describes the "real poverty" of yesteryear, my dad talks about his childhood the same way. He now does pretty well for himself, as does Kirk based on what he's posted. How many children living in modern poverty really have any hope at all of pulling themselves out of that and into a better life? Some will but it's a tiny minority and no, it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with how "hard they work". Generations of families are STUCK in these situations, with little opportunity to work out of it.

But they can buy new trainers on their "Very" account and they have central heating so I guess they live lives of plenty. Whoopeedoo.

We've lived both TS

We had the nice house in the outer suburbs of W London and all the niceties that went with the sort of lifestyle we lived. All those things come with a cost though. We both had to work long hours which meant we never got time to go climbing or sailing. We constantly worried about enough money being in our accounts to pay the right bills at the right time and we constantly fretted about the vulnerability of my husbands job.

After two years of him being on anti-depressants he made a joke, he suggested we should just sell up, pay off everything, do up the boat and go off sailing and climbing for a few years. I knew he was being serious, he just never thought I'd be prepared to do that.

We had two fantastic years being totally irresponsible. We spent hardly anything because our boats got wind generators, solar panels and a log burning stove. There's a great barter system here in sea gypsy world!, you climb and fix someone's mast and they keep you in baked bread for six months; but I know what its like to be so cold you have to get dressed before you get out of bed in the morning because the fires gone out. I appreciate its tough when you have to be frugal with water and electricity (so lots of candle lit dinners have been had in our humble abode) and I know what its like to run out of fuel half way through cooking and having to hand pump water because the electric ones failed.

My parents keep telling us how irresponsible we were to sell up and its time we started bettering ourselves again, but I always tell them, we may have little but we feel like the richest people in the world and now we can afford the time to do all the things we love doing.

I saw an article in the mirror saying something like we are a nation of Hyacinth Buquets... Never a truer word spoken for me, nation of snobs on finance.
Illness/injury, divorce, redundancy, 'restructuring' many are much closer to the breadline than they care to admit.

..yeah, this for me is the best comparison of 'modern day poverty' to 'back in the day' and something I see all of the time sadly, with many children having their lives almost 'mapped out'...in terms of materialistic things/possessions etc, people had less back in the day because there was less available to have back in the day/things that just didn't even exist...it was a much 'smaller world' before things like overseas travel/holidays became an availability to everyone for instance...now a family holiday to Europe for instance, can be reasonably priced/affordable for all and that's cool and fine for those who aren't on low incomes or are on benefits...which would be 'an equivalent poor to back in the day..'...but the problem is for those who are on low incomes, if that family holiday were to be something that they could consider, then there is a high likelihood that they could only consider it, if they were to go during school times when it's much cheaper....and why shouldn't they go/have that holiday..?..family time together (I think is essential to everyone/regardless of income..)...and a very valuable and important time spent for any family...but if they do go and during the school time, which is the only way it would be affordable, they then have to face fines for doing so, so basically being fined for not being able to afford in the first place/those very people who struggled to be able to afford a holiday, are given another 'debt' to pay/crazy.. if people who aren't on low incomes/parents make the choice of taking their children out of school because 'it's cheaper anyway even with the fine', then they're making a choice to do so..( I still don't think fines should apply though..).. but lower incomes don't have that choice because their choice would be that holidays would be unaffordable to them so they just couldn't have that leisure time with their family...

..it's not about, for most who have low incomes/are on benefits etc, having debt to have nicer 'luxury' things, I don't think either..(and it's all relevant to the present day, because many people also had debt back in the day to buy the larger things or things that were needed but wouldn't have been able to have been afforded outright/children's Christmas gifts etc.. debt in the form of things like Hire Purchase, pay weekly catalogues etc..also those who loaned money for interest...)...it's more about having debt for what's considered basic essentials now...how can for instance, someone look for employment without access to home internet in some form, so that would mean a computer/laptop/tablet etc...they're not 'luxury items'...would we expect someone on a low income to have no TV in their home/have no form of 'entertainment' if it wasn't an option to be affordable to go out... and as the availability of today, is of all flat screen TVs, then that's what a low income/on benefits person will probably have...would we expect them to hand wash nappies if they have children...?../no, of course not so a washing machine becomes an essential/a dryer becomes an essential/for parents working long hours, a microwave becomes an essential etc etc and all things that wouldn't have been available in the 40s but considered essentials of today because yes, a different world and a different world's needs....and of course, some form of central heating/all 'basics' because if these things weren't basic then we really would be sending 'the poor back to the 1940s' really...

..the single biggest expense for most people is the purchase of a house/for those who are fortunate enough to be able to make that purchase... and many more homeowners back in the day, owned their homes outright, with either no mortgage at all or a very small one, so whatever their shortage in other things may have been, they had that 'biggie'/much more affordable...young people today/many young people won't ever have that or they'll have to burden themselves with a huge mortgage to be able to have it/a mortgage that they then are going to be looking at trying to achieve in income to match the debt...we know that there are many older people now who have worked hard all of their lives and come from a childhood of what would have been considered 'poverty' back in the day, but now are in a position of being able to 'downsize' and think about lifestyle changes because they have worked hard all of their lives and have 'built something'...but for those on low incomes/on benefits.. the struggle is to be able to even upsize in the first place/to be able to build anything to even think about the downsizing...it's not even the low incomes either, is it...it's that it's much more difficult today in 2016..(imo..)...than it was back in the day and considering all things of the differences...but as you say, the two are hard to directly compare...I just know that I would rather be me and being me back in my day, than being either of my sons in the here and now and this day...

People who are on low incomes or on benefits don't get in debt to have nice things?... They do, that's why the rise in brighthouse, perfect home and wonga, they offer whatever you like unsecured nothing like the 'layaways your parents did at the local toy shop, this is 3-4000% interest loans.
Is the discrepancy becoming more apparent, is it evident that most can't afford to buy a home?
I'd like to think everyone who has will join those that don't in questioning why it's getting so hard to achieve security in both jobs and living arrangements.

..for me in my experiences no, it isn't about what would be luxuries in modern society, family holidays/quality of time together which is just as necessary to a child, as school education, children of minimum wage and benefit families having Christmas/Birthday gifts/having a family computer/internet etc...the things that many people go into debt for...rather than to be some kind of aspiring Hyacinth Bucket show lifestyle as was mentioned...maybe we just have different personal experiences of a 'modern day poverty' .../struggling family...and what defines as luxury in the modern day v luxury back in the day...obviously there are always going to be exceptions to everything as well but I don't see a struggling family as aspiring to having a 'show' lifestyle as being a 'norm'.../in my personal experience..

..oh btw, just a slight off-topic thing...there was a government grant/large subsidy for benefit families/parents to all own a home computer, a while ago..a great idea, we had many parents at our school owning one for the first time... but sadly, only seemed to be a short lived thing, rather than a permanent thing..

Poverty is defined regardless of what you or I may define it as, it's a given amount/standard. The query is are attitudes towards the poor similar to in the 40's?
Is the media helping or hindering in their portrayal of those living in poverty?

Bet that computer thing was a looong time ago haha.

Its hindering. The media treats those on benefits like the scum they think they are and every time they make an example of them, we get a large amount of collective thinkers, who go online, share the story further and find hundreds, sometimes thousands of people all giving their own condemning opinions. Looking down ones nose at the poor was bound to escalate with the power of the media and social networking groups.

I'm sure we've always had Hyacinth Buquet types. I mean, Britain is inherently snobby regardless of class.
Inverse snobbery seems to be a thing of the working class but I think its always gone on. In the past though, you just found pockets of snobbery...the foreman who looked down his nose at his labourers, the shop keeper who didn't want those dirty bagabonds in his shop and the mother who told her children not to play with that poor family down the street; but that's as far as it went.
The poor were aware of the snobs and because they couldn't then hide their poverty, they avoided those people. Today, people hide their poverty because they know they can't avoid snobbery.

Yep that's my view too but why, why is this image being purported? What purpose does it serve to create this kind of division in society, what is the bigger picture, the long term goal?

I'm going to go off at a tangent here Kizzy because I know you understand quite a lot of the neo-liberal philosphy. Just remind yourself, this was a long term goal, this was meant to happen.

Neo-liberalism hasn't only changed the fundamental nature of politics; its changed the fundamental thinking of people. It was always meant to do this because for neo-liberalism to survive it has to trend toward radical exclusion of the poor and greater inequality of the poor.

Go and remind yourself what Friedrich Von Hayeks philosophy was and then think on, every PM we have had since Thatcher have been Hayek scholars.

Kizzy: because if you keep people distracted and squabbling with each other over various things (race, class, gender) it makes easier for the real villains who are sucking the world dry to fly under the radar.

I know :worry: Yet if anyone dare speak out they are seized upon, why is it not obvious.. Are we as a nation that blinkered?
It for me seems to be taking an even more sinister turn than the neo liberalists vision of a laissez faire society cast adrift to make their own way in the world free of the 'nanny state' and yet today it's passed even that. I'd say the 'big society' is anyone who falls through the cracks in the splintering welfare system, and god help them there's precious little aid as the state won't help and many charities can't.

In the 1940's many people were poor. My family was one of them. We were often hungry, but never starved. One thing that is a major difference between then and now is that poor people had pride in working hard instead of accepting handouts. My mother had to accept charity on a few occasions, but hated it.
Now so many seem to feel entitled to sit back and be 'looked after' by the state. I'm not bashing those who are genuinely looking for work or who are vulnerable in other ways, but the personal pride and work ethic that I grew up with is sadly lacking in today's society.

Is it though, how many do you know who love their hand to mouth existence?
Welfare was/is not charity, it was a hand up not a hand out.
The perception of this has changed, nobody is looked after by the state.
De-motivation I could see being a factor, lack of jobs in industry specific communities, contractual issues such as reduced hours, wages and job security.

Working people didn't used to still have to be reliant on welfare to top up wages when they worked, now poverty in work is the norm,which of course impacts on personal pride.
People were proud of the organisation they worked for or the industry they were raised with, what is there to be proud of now?

0hrs contracts, no holiday pay, no sick pay, no share scheme, no hospital fund, no social club, this is now the norm across all sectors. The state didn't look after you but your employer did with the help of unionisation. Employment has changed, not imo for the better for unskilled and semi-skilled workers. Is this taken into account when judging what are described as 'scroungers' in the media?

Call it the “Benefits Street effect” – the popularity of widely held preconceptions about unemployed people. And one of the most prevalent is that jobless people are more likely to be overweight than those in work.

While television documentaries and newspapers can help perpetuate this belief, academic studies also reinforce it. A series of studies have suggested that employers are biased against larger candidates when hiring staff. As a result, slimmer people tend to be employed first, leaving the overweight in the pool of the unemployed for longer.

But a study in the journal Preventive Medicine produces evidence that unemployed people are far more likely to be significantly underweight than the average person. The study’s authors, Dr Amanda Hughes and Professor Meena Kumari from the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex, believe their findings provide a corrective to popular misconceptions about unemployed people and should alert health professionals to the heightened mortality risks that come from being underweight.


Now people can effectively be seen starving to death, is it right to say our perceptions have changed?
https://www.theguardian.com/society/...ght-than-obese

Too many people using these services who shouldn't be as they have only taken out and not put in. Overwhelmed the system.

I agree with that. Too many people today expect an easy life - they sneer at the thought of working for not much more than they can get from the state as they have no dignity and self respect.

Taking pride in paying your way doesn't seem to count for much in today's society.

Yes but back in the 1940's Every Worked Hard

We never had Dossers
REFUSING TO WORK
like today

A Top TIBB Female Mod can fill us on
that

Even if it JUST sweeping leaves
its better than Doing FECK All
with the greatest respect.

So, if you are physically incapable of work what then, just die?

Neem is in her forties not born in the forties

:nono:

How many coming into are country are physically incapable or working. They should be forced to do menial work to earn their benefits and pay towards any medical care out of their benefits - that amount should be taken out of their benefits before they receive it.

I recommend you read a book called 'The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist' by Robert Tressell You would laugh at how similar your words sound to the struggling working class characters in his book.

It was published in 1911

That isn't the case though, working has always brought in much more than being on benefits.
I live on an estate in a large city, and can say that those on benefits I know have dignity and self respect, could I ask is your view from those you know or via the media?