The post you are reporting:
GaryC - do not misrepresent what I have said. I have never said that 'those not as fortunate' do not exist. I was simply putting you right over that wildly silly claim about people on average household incomes. Many people do struggle but not everyone struggling could possibly be described as 'living in or near poverty'. Many people earning below national average incomes may be struggling but that is nothing to do with poverty, more to do with maintaining a particular lifestyle to which they have become accustomed. Those who are genuinely in real poverty, that means unable to afford shoes, not Sky, unable to afford food, not cigarettes, unable to afford rent, not an annual holiday.... true poverty, that is very rare in this country, which is not to say it does not exist but it is rare. Those being squeezed most are those on middle incomes and are having to struggle so to describe the people 'on or under' annual household income as you originally did as being in near poverty conditions is actually an insult to those who really are living in 'near poverty' or actual poverty. A cap at the level of the national average income leaves no-one in poverty and seeing the reforms will make it more worthwhile for them to work they will, at last, have a way out of benefits - but its up to them.