this isn't a great surprise. Tory austerity has had a much harsher effect on poorer areas throughout the UK. and there are more of them in Wales.
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Levels of child poverty rose in nearly every council area in Wales in the past five years, a new study has found, prompting charities to warn that low-income families' finances are being pushed to the brink.
At least one in every five children is living below the poverty line in every part of Wales, and the nation now has the worst child poverty rate of all the UK nations, according to research by Loughborough University for the UK End Child Poverty Coalition of charities.
https://www.thenational.wales/news/1...ales/?ref=ebln
this isn't a great surprise. Tory austerity has had a much harsher effect on poorer areas throughout the UK. and there are more of them in Wales.
https://www.expressandstar.com/news/...inds/undefined
Here's some more detail that is less focussed on wales and more UK as a whole.
The north East of England has seen the highest rise.
Wales is on 31%, England as a whole on 30%
Also the measure is defined as a family living on 60% of the median national income after housing costs. - presumably that means that the worst hit are those in lower-wage regions who are in rented accommodation. The younger generations are finding it increasingly difficult to get on the housing ladder, so I'm sure that has a big part to play in this.
Its a terrible situation
In the past, I have struggled financially, growing up my mum struggled, i knew boys in school who had nothing, so its always been around
During lockdown my both daughters were of course home schooling, one of my youngest daughters friends was sharing a laptop between 3 children, 2 were from the same secondary school and the school had provided the laptop, but how could 2 in secondary school share 1 laptop, I dropped of a chromebook for them to use
I know this family struggled and I have in the past supplied football kit ( boots and GK gloves ) i know it isnt the thing to do ( its one of the biggies on the FA Coaches course, it can be used for grooming ) but sometimes you have to help others, during lockdown, we would drop food parcels down, just unhealthy stuff, chocolate, cakes etc etc , 1st trip with goodies the mum cried, its easy to forget the less fortunate, maybe if we all did a little it might make people smile, sure its not going to fix the issue, but a nice treat is great
It shouldn't happen in a wealthy country though. There are now many jobs that you an work pretty much full time and still not earn enough to live on and need to be supported by the taxpayers - this is just a subsidy on the wealthy business owners via the back door and we shouldn't stand for it.
Aren't the Welsh government responsible for this? Wales has better funding per capita and the Welsh government has more powers than any English region yet we fall further behind. Austerity would impact all of the UK, not just Wales, and yet Wales falls further behind.
At what point do we start holding the Welsh Government accountable and stop blaming Westminster for our own shortcomings?
Wales is the worst effected Nation, but not the worst effected region. Parts of England are worse effected, but England as a whole is slightly less - due to it having more richer regions.
It is well established that Tory austerity cuts were aimed to cut harder in poorer constituencies - and we have more of them here in Wales.
Shouln't we be questioning why child poverty is rising in one of the richest nations on earth, instead of why there is 1 percent more child poverty in Wales compared to England, and blaming it on the welsh assembly?
My problems with the story its running alongside we need extra minsters headline and cost to the country , how many other non critical projects are there that could be channelled into key poverty areas ??.
We can obviously blame any circumstances like austerity etc , however before that argument is applied surely we examine how much our funding is distributed , managed and prioritised ?
firstly, it is relative poverty. So in real terms, living standard could be increasing, albeit for those at the bottom standard won't be rising as fast as everyone else. So care needs to be taken about what relative poverty actually means. It is not defined as lack of basic amenities, such as food, heat, light, clean water, instead incomes are compared. So another way of looking at this is that incomes are rising faster pretty much everywhere else than in Wales.
As for blaming the Welsh government: you started your post by blaming the Tories so brought political parties into it, and secondly, the Welsh government is responsible for economic and social wellbeing of the nation. Despite being better funded and having more powers, the welsh government has failed the Welsh people.
Not exactly
The tories control tax and benefits , not Cardiff
Most people on benefits......tend to figure high in poverty rates
The rate of benefit is way less than the minimum wage
Better funded ? Can you reference this ?
The formula from Westminster is hardly a pot of gold
As for being failed by labour who won the recent election ?
but Labour control education, health and transport - the drivers to a successful economy.
I don't disagree
is this relevant?
Barnett funding for 2018/19
England £9,296 per capita
Wales £10,656
Scotland £11,242
N Ireland £11,590
but Wales still gets more per head than England yet England outperforms Wales.
Welsh Labour won 30 seats in the Senedd and have control. you know this.
Wales per head of population is generally poorer than England
Some of the poorest areas in Western Europe are in the Bridgend valleys
If someone is out of work or ill why should they get an income less than someone working on the minimum wage ? Ensuring people have a decent level of income is a sure start to tackle poverty .
If you don't have much money to spend on education , wealth and health you are a busted flush before you start
The reason I am so anti independence is because Wales is post industrial and recovering from reliance on heavy industry . Its on its are and so is the health and wealth of the people . No wonder we need handouts
For all that negativity and labours obvious flaws they won the election so clearly if they are failing Wales the country would prefer Labour to try and redress things than the conservatives .
There's £6 to £12 million going spare down the bay, to help with this
Labour winning is more about mistrust of the Tories than acknowledgement of Welsh Labour.
As for spending (on health, education and transport), for the third time, we get more per capita than England. Wales just does not have a strong economy. No amount of public spending is going to change that
we get a little bit more than England per capita, but our demographics means that our needs are greater, and the extra we get isn't enough to improve things.
our people are poorer, older, sicker, less well educated, and the extra money is just about enough to tread water, not to significantly move the dial on any of those things.
infrastructure spending is more important in making changes and I'm pretty sure we don't get our fair share of that.
My Mrs is a teacher in a local valleys school. Some of the issues she comes home with are just unbelievable.
She also had to proof read a dissertation the other week regarding children in care - i'll have to dig the stats out.
no, it was the right decision. not a popular decision.
it was going to cost up to 2 billion quid, but only benefit the Welsh economy by about £24 million a year - so would have taken more than 80 years to pay for itself.
in 80 years we'll probably travel everywhere in tubes or teleport anyway.
it would have tied up pretty much all the budget for infrastructure for many years.
there have to be other projects that would have a better return than that - i.e. cardiff metro etc
I hate driving past Newport as much as the next guy, but the bypass isn't the panacea that some people think it is
How many of those in poverty are living in single parent households. I would assume a lot?
I'm not saying stay married but there has to be a responsibility on those brining children in who are unable to support them. It's easy to blame someone else but the mothers and fathers of the UK need to look at themselves. I appreciate this isn't the rule for everyone and there are circumstances but it's a dangerous circle of parents failing kids over and over again.
pubs are full though
Whilst i don’t doubt the figures, living in poverty in the UK is a million miles from living in poverty in places like Russia and India. That said, it is an absolute travesty, that people anywhere in the world are suffering like this.
For all the progress mankind has made since painting on cave walls, the world is a shambles.
The West is plagued by greed. The middle east are hell bent on blowing each other to bits, and in Africa, hunger is still rife.
Drakeford could live stream himself at a lavish party vomiting to allow himself to over indulge some more, whilst being carried on a Sedan chair by child slaves and the poor folk of Wales would still vote for them.
There is no challenge here, no healthy competition, their success at most elections, certainly senedd is taken for granted.
Education along with transport is another fine mess. There can be no accountability.
The poor do not visit pubs, in fact, in my experience, they don't drink that much alcohol, that's a past time for the middle classes and upper working class. Are you referring that poor people are spending their money in boozers? If you are, then i'd say that it's bullshit