5 ms·

That was a weak sentence, but the following one is stronger: > One million of these children are destitute, going without their most basic needs of staying war

• whimsicalism 11mo ago
  I simply do not buy this. I don’t know the UK context very well, so cannot comment on this - but I do know the US context and we vastly inflate malnourishment numbers relative to what is actually measurable by relying on self-survey with misleading questions and overly broad criterion.
  • sc68cal 11mo ago
    So your entire case boils down to "people are lying about being poor"
    • whimsicalism 11mo ago
      You cannot trust self-survey data, I don’t know how many times this has to be hammered in. “One-Third of Americans Making $250,000 Live Paycheck-to-Paycheck, Survey Finds” [0] [0]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-01/a-third-of-americans-making-250-000-say-costs-eat-entire-salary?embedded-checkout=true https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-01/a-third-o...
      • hexator 11mo ago
        Living paycheck to paycheck is not the same thing as being in poverty
        • whimsicalism 11mo ago
          Agreed, this was an example of a similar phenomenon as to why you can’t trust self-id economic situation surveys. FWIW, we see similar effects in food security surveys with six-figure households being classified as food insecure.
          • hexator 11mo ago
            I can definitely see a situation where a renting single-earner six-figure household in a place like SF may require assistance. It's all about the relative cost of living and financial situation, you can't really make ground pronouncements like this without ignoring the data.
            • andsoitis 11mo ago
              > a situation where a renting single-earner six-figure household in a place like SF may require assistance. You think someone in SF earning six figures should be considered poor?
              • fragmede 11mo ago
                It made the news a few years back: > Single-person households making under $105,000 a year are classified as “low income” in three Bay Area counties by California’s Department of Housing and Community Development. https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/under-100k-low-income-san-francisco-18168899.php https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/under-100k-low-income-s...
                • andsoitis 11mo ago
                  Ok I’ll answer. They are not poor.
                  • fragmede 11mo ago
                    Are you saying that based on the semantics of "poor" vs "may require assistance" vs "low income", or...? My comment has a link that's backed up by a government website. If we look at $105k in San Francisco, minus federal, state, and local taxes, you're looking at roughly $6,400/month take home pay. If you make a budget out of that, you get $3,000 for rent, $800 for groceries, $250 for transit, $250 for medical, $150 for Internet, $600 for entertainment, $900 to retirement, and then finally $400 towards an emergency fund. If you do not have all those things in your monthly, you are poor. Now, there are certainly people who have less than that, and we could argue the semantics of being destitute, vs simply poor as colloquially defined terms, but the brackets that California’s Department of Housing and Community Development has are: acutely low, extremely low, very low, low, and moderate income. We can use https://saul.pw/mag/wealth/ https://saul.pw/mag/wealth/ and say that even with a $105k/yr salary in SF, you're sitting at ↑3 or ↑4 or so, instead of using the emotionally loaded term poor if it would contribute to having a more thoughtful and substantive discussion.
      • koakuma-chan 11mo ago
        One-Third of Americans they surveyed, or did they survey all Americans?
        • whimsicalism 11mo ago
          of Americans surveyed
    • deleted 11mo ago
      [deleted]
    • mikkupikku 11mo ago
      Do you really believe there are a million destitute starving wet and unclothed children wandering around outside in the UK? Obviously there is some gross exaggeration going on, like most of those million are "cold" because they have worn out hand-me-down jackets and maybe go without dinner sometimes, mostly because their parents are junky pieces of shit who can't be bothered to open a box of slop for the kid even though they're on government programs to pay for the food.
      • n4r9 11mo ago
        I don't see why parental neglect suddenly makes it okay.
        • mikkupikku 11mo ago
          Nobody said it's okay, but it's not the same thing as poverty making kids go hungry.
          • n4r9 11mo ago
            So? One million kids going without food, shelter or warmth is scandalous. It's scandalous if it's because welfare payments are too low. It's scandalous if it's because we're failing to identify neglect. Scandalous either way.
            • mikkupikku 11mo ago
              Why would a story about parental neglect be framed with discussion about Britain being one of the wealthiest countries, if not to deflect blame from neglectful parents onto society as a whole by insinuating that not enough money is spent?
              • n4r9 11mo ago
                I mean I agree that that's not the perceived thrust of the article. However, parental neglect is largely a product of the environment. Parents rarely just naturally don't care for their children. There's usually other factors; stress, debt, addiction, mental health issues etc... . These are things that a state can provide support with. It's very challenging to access good quality talking therapy, for example. And a well-funded welfare system could do more to identify children in neglected situations, and to work with the families to bring them out of it.
  • hexator 11mo ago
    That's a pretty radical claim. Do you have any sources? edit: so many downvotes from asking a simple question
    • whimsicalism 11mo ago
      Essentially nobody in the US (except the very elderly with dementia) dies from malnutrition. This would make the malnutrition profile of the US very unusual relative to other developing countries with similar rates of malnutrition as we claim on self-id survey. The reality is that, compared to other constraints (like housing), food is widely available in the US and even if you are really struggling you can generally get food. Our surveys classify many families making >$100k as food insecure. [0][1] 0: https://cosm.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Economic-Characteristics-of-the-Food-Insecure.pdf https://cosm.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Economic-Cha... 1: https://cosm.aei.org/why-the-usda-is-justified-in-ending-the-food-security-survey/ https://cosm.aei.org/why-the-usda-is-justified-in-ending-the...
      • hexator 11mo ago
        We're not talking about famine, we're talking about people living in poverty? What's your argument here? That because nobody dies of malnutrition we don't have true poverty?
        • andsoitis 11mo ago
          I think it is fine for different societies to consider the poverty level to be at different places (e.g. the “poor” in the first world are nothing compared to poverty in many parts of Africa, for example). Having said that, how do you think about poverty in Britain (or the US)? What, for you, is the poverty line?
        • whimsicalism 11mo ago
          I was not the person who changed the conversation from ‘relative poverty’ to hunger - the person who replied to me did and I just engaged in that on the merits. My argument is that you should expect a similar ratio between famine and malnourishment across countries if you are measuring the same thing when you use the word ‘malnourishment.’
  • n4r9 11mo ago
    The study's methods and definitions are described on page 10 of the full report, which can be downloaded PDF from their website: https://www.jrf.org.uk/deep-poverty-and-destitution/destitution-in-the-uk-2023 https://www.jrf.org.uk/deep-poverty-and-destitution/destitut... It boils down to whether people can afford basic essentials like shelter, heating, lighting, and clothing. They do check their income levels. Maybe some people would lie about this, but I don't know why they would.
    • whimsicalism 11mo ago
      We know the prices of shelter, heating, lighting and clothing - and we know how much money people make. I see no need in self-id here. The equivalent of these surveys in the US place some people making six-figures in the food insecure bucket.
      • n4r9 11mo ago
        In the UK at least, we don't generally know how much money people make, nor how much of it goes to debts or other dependencies. Income below £10k does not have to be declared.
  • smackay 11mo ago
    If you need an authoritative source, look no further than the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. https://www.jrf.org.uk/uk-poverty-2025-the-essential-guide-to-understanding-poverty-in-the-uk https://www.jrf.org.uk/uk-poverty-2025-the-essential-guide-t...
    • ed_blackburn 11mo ago
      A UK organisation with treasonous, multi-generational experience, that's cited in the article, that people refuse to read or believe? Thanks for re-sharing <3
  • moomin 11mo ago
    Friend of mine was gathering survey results for a kids programme in London. They take council estate kids to events and do childcare and a bunch of other stuff. When asked what they liked best, the kids kept talking about the food and how you could even have seconds. Meanwhile we’ve got food banks up and down the country struggling to keep up with demand. I know families with three kids to a room smaller than the one my youngest fills with books. I can assure you pretty is very real in London.
    • whimsicalism 11mo ago
      As I said, I don’t know the UK context. In the US context, I went to a pretty destitute public schooling system and we provided breakfast, lunch, and (to a limited subset) dinner - plus there is SNAP/EBT. > I know families with three kids to a room smaller than the one my youngest fills with books. Housing is much more of an issue for the very poor, at least in the US. But I don’t agree that it has gotten relatively worse on a large timescale.
      • drekk 11mo ago
        I volunteer my time with Food Not Bombs. 20% of American children do not know where their next meal is coming from. Many are simultaneously overweight and malnourished, because the foodstuffs the US government subsidizes are calorically dense but nutritionally destitute. Food banks, subsidized school meals, and SNAP/EBT prevent what would otherwise be children starving to death. As it stands though, the relief is insufficient. Many children from food insecure households have stunted growth and lifelong learning impairments from insufficient protein, calcium, etc. Source: https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/fo...
      • peppersghost93 11mo ago
        You should consider touring Appalachia, especially eastern Kentucky. The poverty there will make you think you're in a third world country. https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2018/06/contempt-poor-us-drives-cruel-policies-says-un-expert?LangID=E&NewsID=23172 https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2018/06/contempt-poo... I grew up in this area. My parents didn't have electricity until they were teenagers. (I'm 32 for reference.)
  • GeoAtreides 11mo ago
    >I simply do not buy this fair enough >I don’t know the UK context very well bro
  • array_key_first 11mo ago
    It's very cheap to get food, mostly because we can put out cheap junk. Whether or not this qualifies as 'nourishment' is, frankly, debatable. If a child is obese, they are not necessarily nourished. They might very well be deficient in multiple vital minerals and vitamins, and could be paying the price in terms of their thinking ability, strength, growth potential, and overall health. The US is actually a perfect example of this. Our government subsidized food, a lot, but a lot of that is corn. Most ultra-processed corn products are essentially nutritionally worthless.
• bko 11mo ago
  I'm skeptical of these descriptions. Usually it's something like kids that sign up for free lunch or some survey. You should look at something objective like underweight or households without heat.
• graemep 11mo ago
  Multiple causes Cost of living, accommodation in big cities in particular. ZIRP had a lot to do with this - rents rose in line with values. Working hours and conditions that are not family friendly. Pressure on couples with kids to both work full time, which then means a lot of money goes on childcare so they are not that much better off (but landlords and banks are happier with the lower earnings multiple anyway) - but it boosts GDP and profits so that is fine. A benefits system that reduces payments too rapidly when people earn. It means people keep very little of what they earn. Personally I think there is a good case for UBI as the solution. > Around 70% of children living in poverty have at least one parent in work. That should not be happening given there is a reasonable minimum wage. Its not a UK only problem. The article says. > De Schutter noted that the country conformed to a pattern of increasing inequality seen in other wealthy countries. I think a lot of it results from a shift in attitude. The people in power increasingly think poor deserve to be poor, and that they are all "gammon" (to use the British term) and untrustworthy anyway.
  • whimsicalism 11mo ago
    Your claim is that this problem is getting worse?
  • psd1 11mo ago
    Nitpick: "gammon" as a constituency refers to boomers and older Gen X, typically financially comfortable, who are declining in intellectual openness and increasing in strength of opinion. They are called "gammon" because their faces go bright pink as they rail against the EU, immigrants, woke nonsense, and the laziness of today's youth. They can come from any strata of society, but they are made by being insulated from economic reality during their intellectual decline. Their defining characteristic is that they are choleric about topics of which they know nothing, and this makes them easily led by jingoistic tubthumping.
    • wakawaka28 11mo ago
      It's awfully condescending to insinuate that these people are in mental decline just for having the opinions you don't like. You don't have the answers to these problems you speak of, any more than the older and wiser plebs. You might like woke nonsense, infinite immigrants, loss of national sovereignty, etc. but frankly you ought to know better or at least be open to the idea that you don't know it all.