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?