Poverty means failing in school

Children who live in poverty in Scotland are already failing before school starts, a new study from Save the Children report suggested. Youngsters from poorer backgrounds were twice as likely to start primary school with developmental difficulties.

 The study found poorer children were twice as likely to have emotional and physical development difficulties. They were also twice as likely to have problems with communication and expressing themselves or making themselves understood. The report's authors said poorer youngsters were 50% more likely to face difficulties mixing with other children and were 40% more likely to be behind in their cognitive development - the ability to gain knowledge and learn. Figures from later in the education system showed that these children begin their school life behind their classmates and never catch up.

Women in Poverty

Divorce and desertion are pushing Scottish women into poverty and debt spirals much faster than their male counterparts according to research. Women account for over 90% of lone parents in Scotland and 60% of unpaid carers. There are some lone parent families struggling by on less than half of the UK's median income, which is considered to be about GBP7,000 a year. Working tax credits have been reduced.  Lone parents with a child aged seven or over now cannot get income support either and childcare contributions have been cut by 10%.

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Women's charity Engender Niki Kandirikirira, Executive Director, said, "We know how many children, pensioners and households are in poverty but it's the statistics themselves that reveal why the numbers are proving so hard to bring down. At no point do we recognise the gendered nature of poverty. Measures to tackle poverty will fail to deliver until we recognise that gender inequality is in itself a root cause."

Socialist Courier would say that this is not the root cause but an exacerbating major contributing factor ino the cause of poverty. It is being a member of the working class regardless of gender that leads to poverty. 

 Save the Children issued warnings recently that the numbers of children living in severe poverty in Scotland will rise rapidly due to a lack of jobs. In Glasgow 18 people chase every vacancy compared to an average of 6 in England. However, even children with working parents are at high risk of poverty - the Joseph Rowntree Foundation reported in 2010 that half of children living in poverty belong to working families.

"There's only so long cash-strapped families can hold out with these sorts of figures to live on," said the spokesperson. "This is how chronic debt begins and increasing costs of living ends up driving desperate families into the arms of credit card lenders, pay day loan companies and loan sharks."

The Shame of Scotland

The number of children living in poverty in Scotland remains at an "unacceptably high" level. Save the Children found 95,000 young people, almost 10% of all children in Scotland, were living with families that had less than £33-a-day to spend. The charity found the poorest families were, on average, £113-a-week short of enough money to cover essential costs.Youngsters in single parent households were about three times more likely to live in severe poverty.More than two thirds of those included in the figures lived in families where no adults worked.

The charity described government promises to end child poverty by 2020 as "increasingly hollow"

Douglas Hamilton, Save the Children's programme director in Scotland, said: "We are absolutely outraged that so many children have to go without essentials - we're talking about winter coats and proper shoes, real basics that families just can't afford...."

Malnutrition in the UK ?

“We think we are heading towards malnutrition happening here in the UK.” - Save the Children’s Colette Marshall told the BBC. "Benefits simply haven’t been enough and with rising food costs it means that families cannot afford to give children proper decent food. "

Children are being deprived of dietary staples and instead are being raised on cheap packaged food high in fat, salt and sugar. The Grocer magazine shows food prices rising by almost a fifth over the past year, with basic essentials such as rice and milk among the worst hit.

Fuel Poverty Again

Another contribution to the exposure of the problem of fuel poverty facing workers .

Nearly one in five families with children cannot afford to heat their homes because of rising energy bills, research has shown.

Around 19% of people with children under 17 admitted they were unable to keep their homes warm because of the cost of gas and electricity, according to Save the Children UK.

The group found that a further 15% of households had been forced to cut back on food, while the same proportion spent less on essential clothing in order to be able to pay their fuel bills.

The problem was twice as acute among the UK's poorest families, with 44% of households living off less than £15,000 a year saying they could not afford to heat their homes.

It found that paying for gas and electricity in this way was on average 26% more expensive than paying by direct debit, leaving the country's poorest families paying an extra £215 a year on average.It said British Gas had the biggest price difference, charging 58% more for electricity to pre-pay customers and 47% more for gas than those who paid by direct debit.

UK poverty spokeswoman at Save the Children, said: "Fuel poverty is an outrage, particularly for children. It means that they are experiencing the effects of cold on a daily basis. Children find it more difficult to do their homework in a cold home, and are more likely to suffer ill-health."

Reforming Child Poverty

Child poverty in Scotland once again is in the news .

A charity has launched a campaign aimed at eradicating child poverty in Scotland. Save the Children said almost one in every 10 children in Scotland was living in "severe poverty" and that the problem was a "national disgrace "

Save the Children classes the worst deprivation as that which forces families to live on £19 a day, after paying housing costs. Previous research by Save the Children revealed that 90,000 children in Scotland live in severe poverty.

"Parents are being forced to make impossible decisions between such basic provisions as providing an adequate meal or putting on the heating..." said Save the Children's programme director for Scotland .

Yet , as always and as before , the solutions offered by the charity are aimed at only alleviating child poverty through tinkering with the system - more government money (£4 billion) , helping parents back to work, and a new scheme to give poorer families seasonal grants of £100 for each child in summer and winter - remedies that Socialist Courier place no hope in .

"The palliatives over which many worthy people are busying themselves now are useless because they are but unorganised partial revolts against a vast, wide-spreading, grasping organisation which will, with the unconscious instinct of a plant, meet every attempt at bettering the conditions of the people with an attack on a fresh side. " - William Morris .

We have seen many times how after all of the reforms obtained by "worthy" reformers who sought welfare aid for workers, the system simply creates new dimensions of poverty which undermine whatever apparent progress the reformers made. Capitalism as a social system cannot be humanised by reforms .

Save the Chidren Poverty Report

Yet again Socialist Courier posts a reminder that Capitalism fails to provide for all members of society for no more reason than that they are born into the wrong class .

Much to the chagrin of the government Save the Children said on Tuesday that one in ten children in Britain are living in "severe poverty" in families surviving on an average income of £7,000 a year .

Using a new measure that combines household incomes with adult and child deprivation, the charity calculated that 10.2 % of children -- or 1.3 million -- were living in what it called "severe poverty."

In the report, Save the Children said conditions were worst in London where severe poverty affected one in six families, living on incomes well below the national average of £19,000 a year.
It said 84% of families in severe poverty could not make regular savings of £10 or more a month. Three-quarters cannot afford to replace worn out furniture.

"It is an outrage that in such a wealthy country, parents are struggling to get by on such low incomes and children are missing out on basic things like living in a warm house, having a proper diet or going on a school trip," the charity said.