I was speaking to my team yesterday about the dangers of balkanising poverty into 'fuel poverty', 'food poverty', 'digital poverty' etc. and today i saw this article so i wanted to share a few reactions (long rambling thread) https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/21/poverty-food-child-fuel-britons-action

There is definitely a problem here. If we focus on solving symptoms or aspects of poverty without addressing the deep causes we at best come up with incomplete answers and at worst do things that are counterproductive, stigmatising, or divisive. So i agree with a lot

But the article treats the balkanisation of poverty as though it all comes from cynical political motives. That's part of it. But in my experience it often comes from the people who care most about poverty and who see urgent problems like hunger that need fixing

Often it comes down to striking a balance between focusing on the deep structural issues that are most important but also the most intractable and slowest to change and the more immediate good you can do now by focusing on one piece of the jigsaw

I grappled with this all the time @ImpetusPEF. Yes, educational disadvantage is a symptom of poverty and inequality. And yes the best answer would be to eradicate poverty and we should be part of that fight.

But I don't think we can wait for everything to be better before we make something better. So we worked on things that would help children from disadvantaged backgrounds have a better chance of succeeding at school and in work now

We think about this all the time @ImpUrbanHealth too. Health inequality is, of course, a manifestation of underlying inequalities of money power and status. But health is the bit we are close to so we focus on the points where those inequalities and health collide

What i'm getting at is that most of the campaigners to end food poverty, or fuel poverty, or period poverty know full well that it's only part of the picture and absolutely think that radical change to the welfare state is needed too

Like the Child Poverty Action Group example in the article, they hope that getting attention for one part of poverty will lead people to care about the whole. In the same way that @MarcusRashford started with food poverty but understands that we need adequate benefits too

But I worry all the time that we're wrong. That focusing on parts of poverty makes it easier for politicians to avoid talking about poverty. Or that we end up with narrow approaches that are ultimately counterproductive

I've just never been able to come up with a better answer than 'we need to do both'. Keep arguing for the big long term changes that it will take to make the world better and more equal but don't wait for the big stuff to be sorted if you can make some things better now

(Sorry, i hadn't realised how much this would turn into self-therapy)