I’ve just picked up an article published by the BBC that says Food Banks are reporting a 9% surge in demand for help – all from families with children, between April and September this year.
In the same article, the Department of Work and Pensions is quoted as saying that ‘there are 1.7 Million fewer people in absolute poverty since 2010’, and it’s fair to say that anyone who hasn’t really had reason to think about this issue in any depth would be forgiven for wondering if both statements can be true.
The regrettable reality is that both statement certainly can be true, and depend very much on how data – and therefore the reality that real people are facing – is interpreted.
What was clear when a well-known Conservative MP recently declared that real poverty last existed in the 70’s, is that there are different interpretations of what poverty really is and how it can be identified,
Sadly, it serves the purposes of some to be able to declare that people who need help aren’t actually poor in a way that they can ‘hand on heart’ tell the world is right. But as I discussed in my recent blog about the hourly wage that the lowest paid single person really needs to earn before deductions are made, the difference between the figures the government is using to qualify people for help, versus the reality that people are living through when they genuinely do need help, are likely to be two very different things.
Food Banks are the acceptable face of a culture that believes for some to be rich, others must therefore be poor. And the fact that the need for them is growing – and very quickly too, is something that should give us all considerable cause for concern.
Who will need help from a Food Bank next?
Adam Tugwell 