Why being poor is all relative

ONLY a week ago council chiefs were hailing the economic miracle that is York.

A study by the Centre For Cities think-tank rated York in the top five cities nationwide in terms of employment rate and population expansion.

The report put York firmly in the premier league in terms of economic growth, boasted council leader Steve Galloway.

Yet now a study by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has revealed that a quarter of the city's population is living on the breadline - and one in ten households are "very poor".

That doesn't sound much like an economic miracle. So what is happening? Is it simply the case that while York as a whole is booming, there is a part of the population that is being left behind?

"I think that is a pretty good interpretation of it," admits Ben Wheeler, one of the co-authors of the new Joseph Rowntree study.

It doesn't take a brain surgeon to work out who is being left behind. Last year alone, York was hit by a triple whammy of job losses, when it was announced 645 jobs were going at Nestlé, 450 at Norwich Union and 100 at British Sugar.

That continued part of a trend which has seen the city's traditional manufacturing base more or less collapse in the last ten to 15 years.

New, well paid jobs have come to the city in the bio-sciences, and the hi-tech and financial sectors. But the skilled workers made redundant from the carriageworks and chocolate factories were by and large not in a position to take advantage of them.

The jobs went to well-qualified newcomers, in other words, while York's once well-paid workers struggled by with less good jobs, or ended up on the scrapheap.

David Scott, leader of the Labour group on City of York Council, says there is a danger of York developing into a two-tier economy: one where the majority do well, but a significant minority fall behind.

One of the biggest problems the city faces, he says, is the loss of middle level, skilled manual work - the kind of jobs that once formed the backbone of the city's economy.

He isn't so much concerned about the younger generation, Coun Scott says - they are getting the training and education at school to enable them to take advantage of the new type of jobs.

It is the older, established workers who suddenly found themselves out of a job who should concerned us.

So what should we be doing to try to help them?

"We need first to see what happened to people after they left those jobs, find out where they went to," he says.

We then need proper retraining for those who need it, to help equip them for the changed jobs market, he says, which entails making sure the city council gives full backing to organisations such as Future Prospects.

The council also needs to do more to attract a wider range of new employer to the city, not only science city and finance jobs, but the whole gamut of employers. "We need to be saying York is open to all businesses," he says.

City council leader Steve Galloway has already said the council's social inclusion working group does more to ensure local people are not excluded from society because of poverty.

Green leader Andy D'Agorne adds we also have to make sure the new job opportunities that are coming to York are made accessible to local people.

Too often, he says, those made redundant from well-paid manual jobs find themselves trapped in low-paid, low-skill work.

He agrees with David Scott that proper funding and support for organisations like Future Prospects is essential.

Tory leader Coun Ian Gillies points out, however, that there is a difference between saying some people are less well off than others, and saying those people are in actual poverty.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation accepts that. The measures of poverty and wealth are relative, admits Ben Wheeler. As a society, almost everybody is better off in real terms than we were a generation ago.

But a significant section of the population is still excluded from things that most of the rest of society took for granted - regular holidays, new clothes and the like (see panel on opposite page).

While there may not be people starving on the streets today, there those who can see others leading a lifestyle far beyond their own. That can be demoralising, and can lead to disaffection, depression, and crime.

"I understand that people are on low incomes and there are a lot of people at the bottom end of society that we need to help, but that's different to being in poverty," Coun Gillies says.

"Some people get into that poverty trap through their own mistakes and others are there through unfortunate circumstances but I don't think we should be too judgemental about it.

"Everything costs money but we should be putting in an infrastructure to help people help themselves. What we should do is provide housing and jobs for them to work their way out of it."

The view from Tang Hall...

MIRANDA Legg doesn't hesitate when asked how wealthy she is. "I'm poor!" she says. "I'm a cleaner at York university, and I earn £500 a month for 20 hours."

She has a grown-up son who has left home, and a 17-year-old daughter still living with her, who is going to college. So it must be tough? "It is very, very difficult," the 46-year-old, who lives in a Tang Hall council house, says. "I don't get any help with rent or council tax. I don't think that there is much help out there for a lot of people."

The figure of one quarter of York households being on the breadline doesn't surprise her. What does make her snort with disbelief is the suggestion that York is enjoying an economic boom.

"I don't see it!" she says. "It is booming for tourists. I don't think it is for residents."

One of the problems is that all the new jobs coming into the city require qualifications people of her generation lack. She wouldn't even get a job as a shop assistant at Bhs now, she says, because she lacks qualifications.

She would willingly undertake retraining if she had the chance - but it would have to be local, in Tang Hall, not out at York College. "I cannot afford to go there."

It is definitely her generation who are missing out, Miranda says. At least her daughter faces a decent future. "She is in the second year of college, and she will have a good job.

"It is my generation that is being left behind," she says. "But there is no point in being angry. You just get on with it."

Seventeen-year-old Emma Darley is another who describes herself as "very poor". She is a single mum-to-be expecting a baby in 12 weeks, who lives with her nana, Maureen Darley, in Tang Hall.

"I can't go on holiday, I can't go shopping, I can't afford to buy new clothes or maternity clothes," she says.

So does she feel resentful about those who have more than she does? She resents people such as the Beckhams, she says, because their children have things her own son will never be able to have.

Maureen breaks in. "The money those footballers and such get! It is disgusting!" she says.

Maureen owns her own semi, and admits that in general people are better off today than when she was a young girl.

But that is not to say that life is easy. She may not have to pay rent, "but I pay everything else, and I haven't been on holiday since my husband died eight years ago. I couldn't afford it".

Parts of York are getting left behind, Maureen says. So what is the solution? Higher taxes?

Emma thinks for a moment. "You could certainly take a bit more from those that can afford it," she says.

Phil McGrath agrees. The 19-year-old electrician, of Selby, is in Tang Hall on a job. He has just bought a house with his wife and admits he is doing OK. "There are people that are worse off," he says.

He has no problem with people doing well for themselves. David Beckham? "He's got the talent. If I could do it, I would."

Nevertheless, while he pays more than enough in tax, he thinks there are those who could pay more. "If they can afford it, they should pay it," he says.

On the breadline?

IT SOUNDS shocking to be told that one tenth of York people are "very poor" and one quarter "on the breadline".

Those, however, are relative terms which do not imply that people in York are literally starving.

Breadline poor, as defined by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in its new study, indicates those who are "excluded in participating in the norms of society". In other words, those who can't afford to go on holiday, go out for a meal occasionally, go to the cinema or theatre or do the things most people take for granted.

They are contrasted in the Joseph Rowntree study with a group of people, the exclusive wealthy, who are equally set apart from society - by their wealth.

"They can afford to exclude themselves from the rest of society," says Ben Wheeler, of the foundation. "They don't have to use state education, don't have to use state health care."

The Joseph Rowntree figures don't therefore show that lots of York people are living in abject poverty. They simply indicate that a substantial group is less well off than the rest - and that this hasn't changed much in the past 30 years.

In 1970, 40.3 per cent of York's population was categorised as breadline poor or very poor. In 2000, that had fallen by just three per cent, to 37.2 per cent.

Those categorised as rich or exclusive rich, meanwhile, fell from 12.9 per cent in 1970 to 7.2 per cent in 2000.

The proportion of the city's people classified as rich fell, in other words - while the proportion classified as poor stayed roughly the same.

But that's only relatively speaking. In real terms, most of us are probably better off than we were back then.