Children in England ‘living in almost Dickensian levels of poverty’
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jul/08/children-england-living-almost-dickensian-levels-poverty
by acrimoniousone
Children in England ‘living in almost Dickensian levels of poverty’
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jul/08/children-england-living-almost-dickensian-levels-poverty
by acrimoniousone
34 comments
Current poverty levels, and the reality of modern poverty, are absolutely nowhere near Dickensian levels. Such needless hyperbole does the Children’s Commissioners’ argument no favours whatsoever.
What about OAPs though? Are they still able to go on two cruises a year and have the thermostat at 23c all winter?
When i see a boy selling matches individually to help his parents feed his family a quater piece of stale bread each a day while living in one room with three other families of 14 and they all have typhoid fever ill believe you in the mean time its a bit of a streach
Hmm , interesting trade off is it not ? Pensioners (who’ve objectively had the best of everything to date) vs children (who will objectively get screwed more as the years go by). Where do we invest ?
I haven’t seen data for other utilities, but real electricity bills (adjusted for inflation, that is) have been getting worse for decades
Isn’t this a scene from the last season of The Wire?
“Show me more of the dickensian aspect”..
What’s the TV show where a writer makes up a fake serial killer? Where the editor is a complete tool, that constantly says “dickensian”
Every time I hear that word used, I see that editor saying it because it’s coming from the mouth of another tool
“The commissioner’s report, based on the experiences of 128 children aged between six and 18 across the country between January and March this year, noted a range of concerns including lack of access to quality, healthy food, and living in cramped and poor conditions.”
Hmmm…sample size 128 children. Clearly accurate…
Poor kids.
Britain isn’t that rich though – we need to stop yelling about how loaded it is. A few very rich people doesn’t cancel out the fact that we have an unproductive and rapidly aging population and a LOT of debt.
As a country we either – look to seriously improve productivity, raise taxes for everyone (I mean everyone from lowest earning to highest, like France or Scandinavia) or seriously cut spending.
I know people who yell about how bad x is, but refuse to earn over 12k a year as they don’t want to pay any tax. We don’t have a magic money tree and we can’t keep borrowing money.
I volunteered in a school and the deprivation is real. A girl sloping down a hall wearing shoes two sizes too big for her. The older generations are so selfish. They’ve allowed this to happen with their greed, me, me, me Thatcher attitudes.
I’m working in a particularly rough area on social housing at the moment.
Honestly a lot of people have no idea how rough it is for some people. Immediately obvious mental health issues are rife, everyone is in poor health, employment rate is shocking. The houses stink, they’re damp and mouldy and dirty, everything in the houses is broken or old, the streets are filthy. Everyone just seems to have given up.
It’s especially grim seeing the kids and the elderly around there.
Definitely the migrants fault and VAT on private schools is barbaric ffs
Bottom line is don’t have kids until you are financially stable. Too many young women still having a child to get a free house. You can’t educate stupid.
Have the parents tried not buying so many Avacados and costa /s
I totally believe this. No sarcasm. I grew up poor as fuck and nowadays it’s actually somehow worse. Benefits you used to be able to live on, barely, but you could. You simply cannot look after anyone with 400 quid a month. 100 is electric alone. 90+ for council tax, 30+ for internet and that’s over half the money for the month gone already. It’s utterly not possible. Not hard, just factually you cannot stretch really 150 quid for a month. And that’s not even mentioning having a child in the mix. Cost of living has at least doubled, things like universal credit have maybe gone up 20-50 quid over 20 years. It’s nowhere near enough lol
The hell does anyone expect.
The UK is a failing country in a miserable economic situation. What was the statistic – delete London and we’re poor as a shit-poor US state.
We have had no effective government for decades and at some point something has to give, and it will give at the expense of the poorest.
Pretending ludicrous two-party, first-past-the-post politics can fix this is fantasy.
This also sounds like child neglect. No amount of money can solve a parent who doesn’t care about their kids.
Imagine what would happen, if Reform takes the power and the next they are going to do is to scrap Human Rights Act?
We all need to go to vote in 29′, otherwise this and the succeeding generations will be minced down, just like they did during WW1 and WW2. Its always the kids.
Dickensian kids had to work so this is just hyperbolic bullshit.
And the government are flabbergasted that the birth rate is at an all time low? FFS! The middle classes are struggling to afford to have kids, never mind the lowest earners
Isn’t that what the ultra rich want? A return to decadence and the peasant/noble divide.
I grew up without breakfast or lunch and I used to steal bread from the cafeteria. I traded homework for a babybel on more than one occasion. Found out later that it wasn’t that they couldn’t afford food for us, they just couldn’t be bothered. Any parent that’s trying their best has my absolute sympathy
My mum was on the incorrect amount of benefits and was seriously ill when I was a child. The result of this was extreme poverty. I used to eat food dropped on the streets and go days every week without food. I had to choose between school bus fare to get my free school lunch or food for home. I had holes in my shoes and clothes that didn’t fit. No bed, flooring or cooker. It was horrible, traumatic and has had lasting effects including on my mental health. It’s not a child’s fault thier parents are poor. Often it’s not the parents fault either. I wish we could help kids more.
Better to have OAP have their triple lock and warm home than children having food
Remember kids, the Laffer Curve means we can’t tax the rich!
Seriously, this *isn’t* a failure.
This is the system working as intended.
I’m wondering which one of Dickens’ works the headline writer is thinking of? The one where reckless adults have massive families they can’t possibly pay for and then spend their benefits money on scratch cards, vapes and weed?
People should take responsibility for their lives and not expect the state to give them ‘freebies’ because they don’t have all they need. That goes for pensioners too who take out far more than they ever contributed.
As a country we face a demographic time bomb and we have a strong vested interest in having more kids. It’s ridiculous we have prioritised the triple lock and disability benefits over child poverty and fixing the housing crisis. There are huge consequences for society when kids grow up hungry and ill and with lousy parents.
Maybe we’d have headroom for this if MPs and press could take a holistic look; and not go apoplectic at any suggestion budget tightening.
Triple lock? WFA? Brand new motors fancy through Mobility for ADHD and bus anxiety? Can’t cut those, would be cruel, feed the kids gruel!
“This all because of the imigrants and those muslamics, not because of government level corruption and investment in war, the muslamics, as I pass out in the pub toilets” /s
This is clearly referring to relative poverty because I doubt very many British families in 2025 have experienced absolute poverty where they are starving to death without access to basic sanitation or hygiene, as many were in Dickensian times.
There are so many safety nets and support services available now that would not have been around in the Dickens era it’s frankly insulting to suggest our country has not moved past the 1800s.
Dickensian levels of poverty. Definitely not.
Atrocious levels of neglect and bad parenting. Yes
Regarding the guy who has three children and a partner living in a 1-bedroom flat, with one of the children being a baby, who thought it was a good time to have ANOTHER baby? We have family planning in this country. Fucking use it.
Millionaires / millions of toothless folk
total societal failure
4.5 million children living in poverty. This info should be enough to mobilise everyone to demand that this is the utmost priority to tackle. The yearly cost of 3.4B is peanuts. But I’m sure people would much rather harp on about oaps, immigrants, and labelling protesters as terrorists.
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