Warning: Rage Ahead - Campbell Live and childhood poverty

sir1963:
Technofreak: sir1963
Where did it go wrong, thats easy.
When I was young my dad worked, my mom was home.
There was someone in my home who had the time to teach me how to cook, how to read, arts and crafts. We walked home, we walked with friends, we socialised. We holidayed together.

Now we have children who are becoming parents who never knew this, both of their parents were in work, they have had none of the parenting, home skills passed on to them. Worse parents are often working weekends now too. Their holidays are too often in different times of the year meaning the family never holidays together either.

So now people bitch about the "break down of family values" , how can you have them when the family is never together ?

Real wages in real terms have dropped meaning parent now have to work longer hours to earn the same income as their parents did. More and more people have multiple part time jobs, leaving them even less time with the family.

You make some good points.

However I don't think any drop in real wages is the total cause of the problem you describe where there is less family time and no one at home to teach life skills.

Today every family has to have two cars, the latest wide screen TV, boat etc.

Like you my Mum was a home executive, there was only one income. We didn't have the latest gadgets in fact the first TV we ever had came from the my Grandmothers house after she died, I was at high school at the time.

Yes we walked or road our bikes to school and a lot of places in between. I was lucky I got given a brand new bike for my 11th or 12th birthday. My younger sisters has to do with refurbished second hand bikes. My Dad used to often ride about 10 km to work so as Mum had the car for the day when she needed it.

We always lived in the same 3 bedroom house which my parents owned. Our parents made do with one income. Hire purchase was never used if went couldn't afford it we didn't have it. The family car which was bought new in 1961 was 20 years old when it was replaced. We didn't go on holiday every year, we didn't have a lot of the things that are taken for granted today, but we never felt we were disadvantaged.

If many families toned down their spending the problem you raised above could be solved.

I am presuming that "Family" means those earning over $100,000
But lets look at it. Both parents need to get to work, and 99.9% won't be working the same hours at the same place, especially those who hold down 2-3 part time jobs. So owning 2 sub $1000 cars is not unrealistic. None of them would own a boat.

In your "glory times" they probably got a state advances loan at 3% fixed, they got $7/week (when $7 was good money) for each child they had, milk and bread cost a lot less in real terms, so did housing , schooling, and power, people could afford to live on one wage and they were better off than families today, I know mine did and so were many families I know.

The "new car" lots of people are buying is 20 years old when they buy it.

And many have NEVER been on holiday with their kids, they can't afford it.

"Toned down their spending"..... ROTFLMAO, they don't go to the Doctor because they can not afford it, Dentist.... never been side they left school, School uniforms are 2nd hand, so are shoes, etc etc.

I have four kids we go on holiday twice per year. However our total income in the hand is less than $800 per week of which half goes in rent alone. Now I have to consider luxuries such as cafe coffee, bought lunches, movies etc but by thinking ahead we make it. If I was to go on the dole I would have more money than I do now.

We have two older cars, I need one for work and my wife needs the other for dropping off kids etc. Two of our children are considered disabled. We spend a lot of money on visiting specialists, taking them to lessons (such as speech, riding etc - not all subsidised) to help them maximise their potential.

How do we do it? simple, we make our own lunches with home baked bread (home made bread is less than $1 per loaf if baked in a bread maker, electrical costs included). We dont have a television but we do have a computer (cobbled together from parts for less than $250). we also have a new play station 2 - we got it for Christmas last year. It cost almost nothing. My kids enjoy playing dora the explorer, driving games etc, and we dont really miss the newest shoot em ups.

We make our food from scratch, buy veggies and fruit when they are cheap and freeze / preserve them. BTW our freezer and washing machine were both second hand, older but they do the job. we grow veggies etc.

Instead of expensive entertainment we go walkng in the hills, down to the beach, to the local pool occasionally. Our holidays are camping holidays - okains bay, arthurs pass, coes ford etc.

All this talk about families in poverty disturbs me. Chch is expensive to live in. But because I dont drink (much), dont smoke, dont do drugs and choose to get cheap weekly videos instead of new releases, play board games and do crafts instead of buying a $120 new PS4 game we seem to get by. My kids are well fed, they have warm clothes and while they would love more lollies, a PS4 and their own motor bikes they aren't really lacking anything.

like someone above said, we got our first bikes, probably second hand, when we were 12 - not 5. TV and other gadgets were fairly rare. I got my first watch when I was 10, my first transistor radio when I was 11 and saved up and went raspberry picking to afford my first electronic game (sports tronic).

I look at a lot of kids. They often have mobile phones - and not the $25 ones which txt and phone quite well but the easily broken smart phones. If they need phones to stay safe give them a $20 phone with a $20 2 degrees sim and renew it once per year. Dont spend $300 plus on a smart phone and $30-60 plus per month on a smart data plan.

Its not the big purchases that keep a lot of people in poverty but the little ones. $20 here, $50 there. look at a lot of houses phone bills. Its well over the $100 mark with internet, sky, mobile phones etc. And thats just the cheap plans.
The blenders and mixers, the ipads and pods, the phones, scooters, car radios etc. all little things but they add up. If most poorer people got rid of the electronic crap they would be far better off. Add smoking and weekly / daily beer to the list, soft drinks, mac donalds and the other stuff that robs them poor a couple of dollars at a time.

Our food bill is around $150 per week - including pull ups. That feeds six well.

Two coffees a week (2 x $5) would remove $500 per year from our budget (1.25%)
Maccas once per fortnight ( 6 * $5-$7) would add $1000 per year (and we would still be hungry) (2.5%) of budget
One new release movie per week ($8.00) would cost $400 per year - 1% of our budget.
One beer per week would cost $5 per week or $250 per year - almost another 1%

The above list isn't extravagant for two adults and four kids. but it is over 5% of our budget per year gone - on little things.

Poverty starts with lack of education and continues through lack of self control. If we take the basic necessities of life for our family then we are looking at food, clothing, warmth and shelter
$400 per week rent
$60 per week clothes and shoes ( $500 per year per person)
$150 per week for food
$65 per week for electricity.
$20 per week for medical
TOTAL $695

Everything after that is a luxury. There is not a family in NZ, with three kids who is not eligable for at least the amount shown in tax credits etc. At a minimum wage of $13 per hour a forty hour week returns $520. of which
424.71 is gotten in the hand after kiwi saver etc. Add $281 per week from family tax credits for a total of 705.71 Above list covered.

Now is that barely scraping by - yup. but it is not poverty. It includes expensive rent, health, clothing and the basics of warmth, shelter, food and clothing. The above calculations dont take into account things such as accomodation suppliment of over $30 per week, the fact that only one parent working on minimum wage is unlikely and over time etc.

What it does show is that the minimum wage for an unskilled person is too low and that our wage / costs ratio are all wrong - but poverty in NZ? not when you break it down to the bare essentials that the WHO defines as poverty. Show me one person in NZ who claims poverty that doesn't have a bunch of electronic crap, a car, tv, dvd, microwave, phone, mobile phone etc. Child poverry - yes - but normally because the parents are in poverty through bad choices and/or education - not because of lack of opportunity or money.

matisyahu

nunz