"Poverty"

Once again there's something in the paper about poverty and it doesn't really reflect reality.
Obviously poverty is relative and measures change. I remember when my Gran didn't have a fridge. The milk bottle stood in a bowl of cold water. They had an outside toilet too.

My parents had a fridge and even central heating and they were always saying, "tut tut...young people these days...they have to have fitted carpets in their first home while we had to wait a few years."

They didn't think that they had something from an early stage that their parents didn't have.

Anyway, it's not that aspect I'm talking about. It's that the benefit rates for children have seen big increases over the last few years to the point that people already receiving benefits saw increases in their income and more people became entitled to the benefits than previously and their incomes rose too.

So now we have reports that more children of more households than ever before "have to rely" on these benefits but the real effect of this is that the poorest parents of children actually have more money for their kids. That's good isn't it?

The gap between rich and poor may widen but that doesn't mean the poor are poorer.