Rebecca Reads has been reading Round About a Pound a Week by Maude Pember Reeves and I’m hoping that I can get it through my library because it sounds like a fascinating read for anyone interested in social history, you can read her very interesting post on it here.
I think that if you’re born in Glasgow, as I was at the back end of the 1950s, then you grow up with the knowledge that it was the most deprived area in the whole of western Europe, possibly it still is. In the 1960s there were over 3 million people living in the city and the population of the whole of Scotland was 5 million.
Earlier in the century the young people from the Highlands went there for work as did a large part of the population of Ireland, so it just wasn’t possible to cope with the numbers. Even before all that happened the housing stock was very poor with large families having to live in one room. The lucky ones had a sink and running water in it, otherwise they had to share a sink on the communal stair landing and the toilet was outside around the back and shared by who knew how many people. It’s no wonder that disease was rife.
Things didn’t get any better over the years what with the depression and then World War II when so many buildings were bombed. My own great-grandmother was killed by a Nazi bomb and she had been widowed early in life and brought up her 4 wee girls on her own with no help from anyone. In fact she was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic church for refusing to give a priest money for the poor, she wondered who could have been poorer than her. She had already given him money twice that week and his breath smelled of whisky!!
My mother’s friend moved from Ireland to a town outside Glasgow in the 1950s and she was already married with 4 children. She and her family had to share one room with another Irish couple who also had 4 children. By the time that one family got a room all to themselves the women had both had 2 more kids each! How they managed that I don’t know, there certainly couldn’t have been any privacy. Those hovels were pulled down in the late 1960s. Mrs. M eventually had 10 kids which was regarded as a normal sized family, I knew one woman with 17 children.
Thankfully those days are gone and although it’s practically impossible for people to get a council house nowadays, thanks to Maggie Thatcher who allowed most of them to be sold off, people who are unemployed don’t have to worry about rent because it is paid for them, even if they have a private landlord.
Anyway, back to Rebecca’s post. Around about a pound a week was apparently what many families in 1910 were having to survive on, and it equates to £75 today. The money had to cover food, clothing, rent, in fact everything. Some people have commented that unemployment benefit nowadays is only £65 per week but I think that that is being a bit unfair to the poverty stricken people of 1910. Nowadays you would have to add in the cost of your housing as you will get your rent paid. People with children also receive child benefit and a large amount of money each year per child for school uniforms.
In fact if you are a lone parent and you are unemployed nowadays then you are actually better off than many families with working parents. When my children were small it was a big shock to my single parent friend when she realised that although my husband had a good job in a supposedly decently paid profession, her benefits amounted to more than his earnings.
I never thought that I would ever agree with a Tory government but I have to say that I agree with them completely when they say that no family with working parent(s) should be worse off than a family on benefits.
Those are some shocking figures — I can’t imagine having two families in one room!
And I agree that no family with working parents should be worse off than people collecting unemployment. That’s not to say that people on unemployment don’t deserve it, the standards for EVERYONE should be better. Meanwhile, all the bankers that caused the financial collapse are getting rich from bonuses and none of them have gone to jail. What’s wrong with this picture?
Karen,
I agree completely. Even before they get their bonuses their salaries are enormous. This argument which keeps being put forward that they must have high salaries otherwise they will leave and go elsewhere is just nonsense. I say Good Riddance to the lot of them. Primary school children would have made a better job of running the banks.
We should also have some MPs in jail, many of them used loopholes in the expenses rules to get thousands extra. It’s just straightforward theft.
I am completely unfamiliar with unemployment benefits, so I really couldn’t comment on it! but thanks for the input here — so the government covers rent for the unemployed? That’s a nice deal…not that I’d rather be unemployed, but, just saying. Much better than the “Pound a Week” folks of 1910. They had no help from outside themselves.
Rebecca,
Being unemployed is an absolute nightmare for most people who would rather pay their way in life. The Welfare State came into being in 1948 at a time of utter financial destitution due to the war, but somehow they still managed to set that up then. Since then things have been so much better for people in the UK but I think sometimes they forget that unemployed people don’t only get money in hand but also rent is paid, free dental care, prescriptions and more. Of course we have our beloved NHS too and in 1910 people died because they couldn’t afford a doctor. Mind you in those days they probably killed more people than they cured!
Cash in hand, roof over head and free health care…all with no job.
So the incentive to actually go to work is … what?
It’s a good thing that enough of us have the inner gumption and self respect to work hard and earn the money to pay the taxes to foot the bills for the those who don’t care to. (Or can’t…but I’m not convinced that the former don’t significantly outnumber the latter. That’s the inevitable consequence of a welfare state – crippling initiative.)
And at the same time we have to brush up the wreckage created by the fat cats who haven’t seen so much as a wobble in their wealth while we watch our own savings dwindle and prospects for a comfortable retirement recede into the far distance.
We shouldn’t be called middle class — more like mushed flat class I say.
Better be careful not to turn an ankle as I descend my soapbox. This is one of my hottest hot buttons.
Pearl,
I have to say that I would not like our system to be like the US one but the welfare state has gone too far. It can’t be right when people get more money on benefits than people who are in work get. I don’t think it cripples initiative really, it just makes lazy people lazier. Mind you there is terrible unemployment especially in Scotland partly for geographical reasons and also the fact that Labour has such a hold here. It’s in their best interest to keep people unemployed because they tend to vote Labour.
The fat cats just seem to get fatter, with no conscience whatsoever and the politicians just say they can’t do anything about the bonuses. I would put a cap on their pay and tax any bonuses at 99%. Yes we’ve been squashed flat!
Be careful with your ankles and if you’re anything like me – your blood pressure!