Redefining our language
I just want to have a very quick rant about the deliberate and cynical redefining of certain words in common usage, as I've been listening to the radio whilst working out in our field, and been feeling increasingly irritated by it.
Caring is one that we've been hearing a lot this week, because people who are paid to be 'carers' are apparently undergoing the same fate as single parents, with regard to being forced into the work for welfare scheme. Ironically, those carers probably do care very deeply about the people they're looking after, but I heard a succession of politicians talking about 'caring' as if it was a career choice, rather than an emotion. I've heard some dodgy excuses for this work to welfare scheme being extended across the range of people who are already working hard all day for their money, but "Carers are increasingly telling us they need a break from caring" (so we're going to make them seek full-time employment and pay someone else to do the 'caring') from Ivan Lewis, just about took the biscuit.
Work is another such word. "Single parents want to work," is a phrase I'm hearing a lot these days. Anyone who's ever been a single parent - or indeed a parent - will know that we do work all day long, every day, and quite often all night as well too. But in this Orwellian newspeak, 'work' doesn't mean work any more. It only means doing something for money. So you can be idling your days away behind a quiet desk or counter in paid employment doing the crossword, and that's classed as work. Anything you do outside paid employment isn't.
Last but not least, poverty. The government's measure of poverty encompasses everyone living on less than 60% of the national median income. If half the people live below the average income and half above it, this therefore means that a third of the population will always be living in 'poverty'!! So it doesn't matter what policies are enacted, including the work for welfare schemes, while the measure of poverty is a relative one, a proportion of us will always be in it. But 'poverty' surely means not having enough? I have written about this at length elsewhere, but it was a treat listening to Ivan Lewis (again) making convoluted explanations for why it's actually a good thing that more people are now living in 'poverty', because it means that more people made more money last year, which raised the overall average income level accordingly.
You can't have it both ways, dear government. 'Poverty' is either desirable or undesirable, it can't be both at once in the same radio interview, though I see that won't stop you trying to tell us it can.
Caring is one that we've been hearing a lot this week, because people who are paid to be 'carers' are apparently undergoing the same fate as single parents, with regard to being forced into the work for welfare scheme. Ironically, those carers probably do care very deeply about the people they're looking after, but I heard a succession of politicians talking about 'caring' as if it was a career choice, rather than an emotion. I've heard some dodgy excuses for this work to welfare scheme being extended across the range of people who are already working hard all day for their money, but "Carers are increasingly telling us they need a break from caring" (so we're going to make them seek full-time employment and pay someone else to do the 'caring') from Ivan Lewis, just about took the biscuit.
Work is another such word. "Single parents want to work," is a phrase I'm hearing a lot these days. Anyone who's ever been a single parent - or indeed a parent - will know that we do work all day long, every day, and quite often all night as well too. But in this Orwellian newspeak, 'work' doesn't mean work any more. It only means doing something for money. So you can be idling your days away behind a quiet desk or counter in paid employment doing the crossword, and that's classed as work. Anything you do outside paid employment isn't.
Last but not least, poverty. The government's measure of poverty encompasses everyone living on less than 60% of the national median income. If half the people live below the average income and half above it, this therefore means that a third of the population will always be living in 'poverty'!! So it doesn't matter what policies are enacted, including the work for welfare schemes, while the measure of poverty is a relative one, a proportion of us will always be in it. But 'poverty' surely means not having enough? I have written about this at length elsewhere, but it was a treat listening to Ivan Lewis (again) making convoluted explanations for why it's actually a good thing that more people are now living in 'poverty', because it means that more people made more money last year, which raised the overall average income level accordingly.
You can't have it both ways, dear government. 'Poverty' is either desirable or undesirable, it can't be both at once in the same radio interview, though I see that won't stop you trying to tell us it can.
posted by Gill at
7:46 AM
9 Comments:
I think your comment is probably quite fair in real life, but it's not true (mathematically speaking) that "a third of the population will always be living in 'poverty'" if poverty is defined in relation to the median income.
The median is just the income of the people in the middle. Increasing the income of the poorest people doesn't necessarily affect the income of the middle ones, so you could in theory have a reduction in the number of people in poverty.
If all the people with an income below the median (as you say, half the population) had the same income, which was just slightly below the median, none of them would be in poverty by that definition.
Not that I think any of this current nonsense about single parents and carers being forced onto benefits has anything to do with reducing poverty. And I'm absolutely with you on that "work" thing.
Hi Dani,
My understanding of the mathematical logic is that if you increase or decrease the income of any group below or above the middle line, the middle line would move accordingly.
I'm trying to work out how you could have a reduction in the number of people in poverty on that basis..
I suppose if the statistics ignored the numbers of people and focused only on the amounts of money, so in this case they'd have to take the highest annual income in the country and every other possible income below it. The median income would then be exactly half the amount of the highest income in the land (!) and the definition of poverty would be 60% of that - a ridiculously high amount of money, surely?
But yes, if you measured it that way, the only figure affecting the median would be the income of the highest-earning person in the country.
Maybe there's a webpage somewhere explaining exactly how they work it out.
Hi,
No, the middle line would only move if the income of the people actually in the middle changed.
If they were working on the *mean* average, what you say would be true, but the median doesn't work like that.
Say you have a population of 20 people. 5 of them earn 100 pounds a week, 10 of them earn 50, and 5 earn 20. The median is 50, because that is the amount earned by the middle people. Even if the top five people doubled their salary, the median would still be 50, as long as the middle people didn't earn any more. Similarly, if the bottom five people doubled their salaries, the median would remain at 50 but the poorest people would no longer be in relative poverty.
Ah yes. I see I need to check my maths text books before I rant in future! ;-)
Thanks Dani.
Parenting is not profitable work because it serves people who cannot financially reward the service provided to them.
To demand that the state continues to pay single parents is to turn parenting into public paid employment and a social service.
Psychologically, single parents might feel forced to work, but that's because they thought welfare was a good idea in the firt place and made themselves dependent on it.
(I know I stupidly did)
"Psychologically, single parents might feel forced to work, but that's because they thought welfare was a good idea in the firt place and made themselves dependent on it."
This is true, but single parents and their children need housing, fuel and food so must either buy them or get them in some other way.
Maybe it would have been better if Income Support for single parents had never been started in the UK. Without it, different decisions would have been made by many people. But now that it has, and so many do depend on it, it seems cruel and wrong to withdraw it.
I don't see how demanding its continuance changes its status in any way.
"Maybe it would have been better if Income Support for single parents had never been started in the UK. Without it, different decisions would have been made by many people. But now that it has, and so many do depend on it, it seems cruel and wrong to withdraw it."
Gill, I think that is a very wise statement.
But going a step further, I think IS for single parents was itself a response to social change which once introduced became a driver for further change.
Oh yes, and on poverty.
The easy way to reduce the number of people "in poverty" under the current definition is to drive down the median income by moving a higher percentage of total income to the very rich.
Or is that very cynical of me?
Well, prior to IS for single parents, mothers had to either give up their children to the state or adopters, or try to leave them with carers (or alone) while they went out to work. And/or they were dependent on their extended families. I think there was piecework available - very poorly paid, but it would enable them to work at home with their children. Or there was the workhouse *shudder* where they'd have been separated from their children anyway.
In the early 90s, when, between businesses, my husband was refusing to work because there were benefits available - but then spending most of those benefits in the pub so that the children and I were reduced to foraging for food, I realised I had little choice but to separate from him so that the money could be paid to me instead, and spent on what it was intended for.
I suppose I could have gone out to work full time and left the children with him, but he'd have left them on their own while he went out drinking and they were far too young for that at the time. Also, I needed to care for them myself so that I knew they were ok.
Yes, I had that option because of IS for single parents, or its predecessor. If the benefits system wasn't there, I believe my husband would have kept working and possibly drunk less and we might have been ok, but personal circumstances vary so much that I'm not suggesting this as a reason for benefits reform.
After the separation I trained as a teacher and was about to come off IS to start earning when Tom's school began treating him abusively due to his dyslexia - a problem that couldn't be solved despite regular meetings, bringing in experts etc, for 18 months. So I ended up HEing instead and have never looked back, but of course it wouldn't have been possible without IS. Tom would have ended up in prison, I think. (97% of the UK male juvenile prison population was dyslexic, the last time they checked.) He was certainly, at 10 years old, heading in that direction - something that was immediately cured by home ed.
And then two more children. Of course, once you are a single parent it's actually quite difficult to stop being. Potential stepfathers are usually unwilling or unable to fund your existing family, and as soon as they move in they're treated in law as the automatic provider for everyone in the house. (The absent parent's spouse, OTOH, is not financially liable for his children. I think there should be parity in this because my ex went on to marry a wealthy woman but paid us nothing because he had no income of his own.)
So unless you do trust the schools as a babysitter and go out to work or manage to work from home, you're a bit stuck in your single-parent-on-benefits position.
Though actually if I did go out to work now, I'd be a lot better off on the tax credits system, and the Treasury would be comparatively worse off. Also the children's school places/ childcare vouchers would need funding etc., so it does seem like a bizarre decision on the part of govt.
But I can see the thinking that stopping the payments will prevent the occurence of single parenthood, except where there is absolutely no choice. Parents in bad marriages will have to stay together. (Goodness knows what state my family would be in by now if that had happened.) And single girls who got pregnant would have to either abort or give the child up for adoption. (Though I suppose they are, up to press, stil agreeing to pay for the first 7 years which will mitigate some of those effects - until the age limit comes down to 6 months old, as it is in some countries. Then people will be dependent, in the end, on state nurseries, which seems pretty close to a workhouse situation in my eyes.)
People like IDS (and many others) blame single parenthood for most of the country's problems, but they don't realise how many problems have been averted by this benefit. Everywhere my older children go, people are amazed by their groundedness, sobriety and intelligence. The proof of the pudding is in the eating of course, and until they're all running profitable businesses I won't be able to declare a complete victory, but we're well on the way to that situation after which they'll end up repaying HM Treasury with plenty to spare, of course.
And no, not every child of a single parent has that kind of upbringing or can look forward to that kind of a future. I've taken the opportunity with both hands and used it to build the kind of family that will never need benefits again - fingers crossed - no matter what befalls it. But not every single mother has the maturity, grounding and experience to do that and the school and childcare systems certainly don't help her to do so.
I don't see these changes as being helpful to UK economy or society, as a result of my own personal experience, to sum up. This perpetual weakening of the family structure - which can be very strong, with a single parent - just isn't good for people. Turning absolutely everyone into a work drone and neighbourhoods into 9-5 ghost towns is not going to enrich our country one jot.
When every single person is institutionalised and there are no escape routes, what then? It's not a future I'm looking forward to. There will be no entrepreneurs, no brilliantly creative people. No fresh thinkers. (Or maybe there will, but only from those parents who happen to marry sufficiently well to enable them to home educate, which is largely a matter of luck.)
And yes, I'm slating the state education system there because it didn't do me or my children any favours whatsoever. It needs a complete rethink, as do so many things in this country now.
Phew. Has that covered everything? Have I finished ranting now? Yes, I think so. :-)
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