Okie dokie, we're actually going for this line are we? The number of people living in poverty where at least one person in the household is working was at about 56% before the pandemic, that's a 17% increase over the last 20 years. 1/
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/feb/07/uk-live-poverty-charity-joseph-rowntree-foundation https://twitter.com/RobertSyms/status/1318843628840755200
72% of the roughly 4.2million children living in poverty in the UK, to save time @RobertSyms that is a third of all children in the country, are in a household where at least one person is working. Now once again, these are pre-global pandemic figures. 2/ https://cpag.org.uk/child-poverty/child-poverty-facts-and-figures
Unsurprisingly at the moment unemployment is rising, with an estimated 1.5million people unemployed, and liable to continue rising for the foreseeable future due to the impact of Covid. That means more families pushed into poverty. 3/ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52660591
But hang on I hear you cry @RobertSyms, surely those who are unemployed can get universal credit? Why should they get more money? Well, yes. They can receive UC, but, setting aside payment issues and small amount it is, it only covers up to 2 children. 4/ https://www.gov.uk/universal-credit/what-youll-get
This cap therefore directly pushes more households into poverty, and makes it harder for them to feed their children. Now, unless you are advocating for something like taking children into care, at a rather great cost, then you start to see an issue 5/ https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jun/26/two-child-benefit-limit-pushes-families-further-into-poverty-study
But wait, I said 72% of children living in poverty come from working families. So why aren't those families paying. Well, there's a funny little trick of language coming here. Despite government renaming minimum wage "living wage" it doesn't mean it is. 6/ https://www.livingwage.org.uk/what-real-living-wage
So we have families working and otherwise who genuinely can't afford to feed their children, and that's getting worse, but I appreciate that cost is more important to some than humanity @RobertSyms. After all what do children starving matter in the face of money? 7/
You then factor in the long term implications, not just on careers and employment, but also general health, mental health etc etc, all of which lead to increased costs for guess who @robertsyms? That's right, the government 9/
http://www.if.org.uk/2017/09/01/new-evidence-highlights-serious-long-term-effects-britains-child-poverty-crisis/
It could cost billions in future @RobertSyms, but for now you are looking at £20million per week, or a little over £180million until Christmas, and even were the cost to go into the billions, it's a far cheaper price than the long term effects. 11/ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54579549
In fairness it isn't just @RobertSyms who completely fails to grasp the reality of the situation. After this tweet @BBradley_Mans also has to be in the running for out of touch MP of the day, and there is some stiff competition. 12/ https://twitter.com/BBradley_Mans/status/1318867413895696384?s=20
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