I have seen and met countless families in the 'poverty' bracket who have more disposable income through benefits and not having to pay market rate rent or mortgages, than nearly all NORMAL working families that I know. Their kids have all the toys they want and all the fast food they can eat because they think it is cheaper than learning to buy ingredients and cook properly. I have seen families with have huge plasma screens and sky HD and yet they live in squalor because they choose to, despite endless visits from social workers or housing association staff offering them free classes on childcare or free education, or even how to actually look after yourself by cooking and cleaning and yet most refuse to take it up because they are happy. How hard is it to train the dog to crap in the garden provided free with the 4 bed house instead of on the floor and not cleaning it up? Poverty is not the issue any more, they choose not to work or help themselves because they don't have to. I have met loads who would actually LOSE money by going out and working for living. Getting £12k a year benefits (extremely modest in my experience) is equivalent to earning close to £30k if you take not paying market rent/mortgage, tax or NI into the equation, and so the appeal of working for a reasonable £16-18k a year just isn't there. My brothers next door neighbour is mid 20's, single, has 3 kids from 3 fathers (the oldest 14 with a criminal record including burglary, ABH, arson, GBH and vehicle theft, the middle one 12 and just learning the burglary ropes) and she she has never worked a day in her life. And yet she has the money to take them to Florida twice a year and has just bought a 15k car on HP which is fully covered by the benefits she gets a month and has no problem telling anyone who will listen, and she's not blagging it either. Throwing money at them isn't the answer, and as for social exclusion, if you want to live on an estate where your car is screwed every other night and people will burgle your home in broad daylight because they know nothing substantial will ever happen to them if they get caught then crack on. The class system of the 40's and 50's stopped many people who could have worked from doing so, but after the free society that the 60's created that simply doesn't exist any more. The people in the 'excluded' and 'poor' brackets have more opportunity to get what they want than ever before, including jobs because it looks good for the company who are seen to 'do something for the community' as advertised by my local Tesco in the paper recently.