EmailPoverty is all too often wrongly portrayed as a problem created by workshy people, scroungers happy to live off benefits. You rarely hear about the parents struggling to keep their heads above water in low-paid and insecure jobs, or parents desperate but unable to find work (Breadline Britain: 7m adults just one bill away from disaster, 19 June).
The real challenge in driving down child poverty is a labour market that isn't delivering anywhere near enough decent, well-paid and secure jobs to parents in deprived communities. At present, 58% of children living in poverty are in households where at least one adult works, and the number is rising. Record numbers of parents have to work part-time because there aren't enough full-time jobs. Tax-credit cuts and lack of support for childcare costs barely make financial sense for families bringing home a low income.
The government can start to tackle this by letting parents keep more of their earnings before benefits are taken away, and give more support towards meeting the extortionate costs of childcare. We have to put an end to the parent poverty trap.
Justin Forsyth
Chief executive, Save the Children
• Your coverage of children going hungry within working families makes for depressing reading ('I'm hungry': the cry that tells teachers to look out for poverty, 20 June).
The "bedroom tax" which comes into force in April 2013 and the overall cap on welfare benefits make this the first time since welfare benefits were introduced that it is now government policy not to give families enough money to feed their children. The bedroom tax will hit many working families. Of course, in theory, the government says that families can move to avoid these problems. However, in our housing organisation in south-east Wales we provide homes to 1,700 households who will be affected by the bedroom tax, but there is no accommodation for them to move to.
Duncan Forbes
Chief executive, Bron Afon Community Housing
• Amelia Gentleman's article is powerful evidence of the bad effect of poverty on being able to learn. It is a pity, though, that she didn't mention that in Wales the Labour government is committed to continuing the £8.3m free breakfast scheme launched in 2004, which now has 72% of primary schools in Wales signed up. This didn't prevent the Tory health spokesman in the Welsh assembly last October describing the scheme as "inappropriate" and asking whether it was better for children to have breakfast at home. Tells you all you need to know really.
Graham Price
Llantwit Major, South Glamorgan
• New analysis released by the TUC on Tuesday shows that long-term youth unemployment has risen by a mammoth 874% since 2000. For the rest of the population the increase was 50%.
This highlights the urgency needed to tackle the tragedy of millions of young lives wasted on the dole. Your articles on Breadline Britain reveal the millions more trapped in low-wage, insecure employment. The crisis across Europe threatens to swell the unemployment numbers even further and push those holding on by their fingernails over the cliff. The government's workfare policies and tweaking of Osborne's failed Plan A offer no hope. What we need is investment in real jobs before it is too late.
Mark Dunk
Right to Work campaign
• You report that some people on low wages are in poverty despite receiving state benefits. The other side of the same coin is the huge salaries and bonuses of chief executives and directors of major companies.
It is socially, economically and morally unsustainable for the state to subsidise low wages as a way of enabling captains of industry to enjoy extravagant lifestyles. Only if a workforce requires no state subsidy should the law allow chief executives and directors to pay themselves what they like.
Wally Harbert
Frome, Somerset
• I suppose the wealthy who avoid tax through the K2 scheme (Tax avoidance scheme used by wealthy under investigation, 20 June) don't see the link between what they are doing and the increasing number of children arriving at school hungry because of cuts in state benefits. Or perhaps they don't care to?
Richard Stainer
Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
• Breadline Britain (19 June): page 10, Laura, in full-time work, finds a £5 note that means she and her son can suddenly afford a lunch they have been "skipping" because the money has run out. Page 24: sales of wine costing more than £20 a bottle have increased by more than 18% in the year to 2 April (Report, 19 June). These are wines "you can have a real conversation about", says Majestic Wine chief executive Steve Lewis. I wonder what Laura would say?
Trevor Payne
Mold, Flintshire
• Housing costs are a major factor in the poverty of Breadline Britain. Here is a three-point plan to reduce housing costs. First, a land value tax to drive down the price of property, offset by reductions in income and council taxes. Second, fair rent legislation, and the removal of all tax breaks for domestic landlords. Third, a statutory debt reduction for all borrowers, proportional to the fall in the market, so that their relative position is the same on aggregate. The lenders (the banks) will get a deserved haircut, and their fantasy asset bubble will be popped for ever.
Brian Goodale
Holt, Norfolk
• "The rain, it raineth every day / Upon the just and the unjust fella / But more upon the just because / The unjust hath the just's umbrella."
Gron Edwards
Heacham, Norfolk
