The Poverty Of The United Kingdom Essay

Many professionals within education and other areas of expertise argue about whether or not government intervention is mainly a positive or negative thing. I intend to discuss and hopefully come to a conclusion regarding how effective interventions are within the United Kingdom and I am going to explore the success of such interventions. The government intervention that I will be studying is; Every Child Matters (2003) (ECM).

Before discussing the extent of poverty in Australia, it is first crucial to mention the difference between absolute poverty and relative poverty. Absolute Poverty is a situation where deprivation is extreme because people do not have access to the basic necessities such as food, clothing, and shelter. In contrast Relative Poverty is a situation in which the incidence of poverty is measured relative to things such as average weekly earnings or income per head. Therefore poverty, as talked about in Australia is the state where income is insufficient to meet the minimum needs of the household or individual.

These were put in place to ensure that all organisations and agencies invloved with children between birth and 19 years should work together to ensure that children have the support needed to be healthy, stay safe, enjoy and achieve, make a positive contribution and achieve economic well - being. The acronym SHEEP can help you remember this :

Following these proposals from Lord Laming, there have been developments in legislation and policy, which involve children’s welfare, one of which was the Green Paper of Every Child Matters (ECM) (DfES, 2003), a pre legislative document from the government of the day. This built upon existing plans to strengthen preventative services using the four key themes of: support, early intervention, problems addressed in the Victoria Climbie case and ensuring adults working with children are trained. The ECM Green Paper was the basis of a consultation between professionals, parents, cares and children about how the services for young people were working. Following from this, the government developed and parliament passed the Children Act

Poverty is a common social issue that has troubled nations for thousands of years. While nations like the United States of America have worked diligently to eradicate it domestically, it still widely exists.“According to the U.S. Citizen burow 47.6 million citizens living in poverty.With 20% of those households living in extreme poverty.”(PBS.org)

More than 800 million people in the world are malnourished, 777 million of them are from the developing world (Raphel, S., 2014). Poverty is an issue that must be addressed to the population loud and clear or everyone will end up suffering. There are many families trying to survive and live from paycheck to paycheck. Unfortunately, there are some families that are unable to support himself or herself or any family member. One important key issue of poverty in the United States is inequality. Many Americans blame the poor people for their own fate but you should never judge a book by its cover. There can be many reasons why an individual or families end up in poverty. For example, low wage jobs, discrimination and social inequality, vulnerability to natural disasters, war and political instability. Another big issue we face today is child poverty. This is a very critical issue because these young children are our future. If we let these children live in poverty, there is a higher chance they will drop out of school, look for work in order to support their family, or give up in life.

This influential piece of legislation arose from the Green Paper ‘Every Child Matters’ and identifies five outcomes for all children:

Child welfare services in the UK are funded by the ‘child benefit’ programme. Child benefit has been integral to the income of families throughout the UK for more than three decades now and it still prioritises poor children in the benefits and tax system. A universal child benefit programme assists in the redistribution of resources from taxation (Lewis, 2008, p. 126). Child benefit supplanted a tax allowance programme for parents, but was changed into a payment scheme due to the fact that tax allowances mostly give advantage to primary earners (Farthing, 2012, p. 4-5). Child benefit is given to the primary caregiver, generally mothers.

Department for Education (DfE), (2003a), ‘Every child matters’, [online] Available at webarchives.nationalarchives.gov.uk (Accessed 17 February 2014)

Supporting families in the foundation years, was published by the government in 2011 setting out the government’s intention for more families to benefit from parenting advice and support from pregnancy to the age of five. The parenting class trial was announced in October 2011, by Sarah Teather, Minister for Children and Families. These trial parenting class areas are Camden, Middlesbrough and High Peak in Derbyshire. Parents in these areas can download a voucher for £100. These vouchers will provide support with:

The issue of poverty in the United States seems to lie on the grounds of race education and family structure. As expected I found that educational levels paralleled poverty levels. Unexpected , research was found to prove that race did in fact play a substantial role in poverty. Family structure along with other influential factors either locked an individual into poverty or provided a means for escape from the continuing cycle. Other factors contributing to poverty was the location of homes or neighborhoods and the accessibility to better paying jobs.

Many reforms in the UnitedStates have been passed to help fight against the “War on Poverty”; but it has not been effective in eradicating poverty in the U.S. There are about 46 million people who are living in impoverished conditions and poverty continues to be a social issue in this country (Heritage Foundation, 2011) In the beginning, our country was formed under the belief that “this land is the land of opportunity and if we worked hard enough the American Dream can be gained” (Schwarz, 1997). People immigrate to this country today in hopes of becoming rich so they could gain a better life. In spite of coming to this country for a better life, many are faced with the lack of skills and money to succeed. In the end, most will end

Since the UK’s government hopes to reduce the deficit, it has altered the child benefit system on 7th January 2013. It will be a mean-tested rather than being a universal welfare paid to all households irrespective of the amount they earn. Specifically, families which include someone earning more than £50,000 a year will no longer to claim the full payment. It will not be entitled to any child benefit if households in which someone earn

The child benefits policy currently allocates £20.30 for the eldest child and £13.40 for any additional child. When this is added to the consumption function which is adjusted to the current income tax system, the function looks as follows;

This essay will consider whether the welfare state has eliminated poverty. It will examine what poverty is and how the definition varies from societies. The essay will look at the aims of the welfare state from conception and how it has changed to present times. The welfare state being analysed is the welfare state in the United Kingdom. It will discuss the nature of the social democratic welfare state and liberal criticisms of the problems this type of state brings. The recent changes to the welfare state will be reviewed and what the consequences of the changes may be. It will then look at recent statistics to determine whether the welfare state has eradicated poverty.