Seriously though, there are a variety of reasons why people might not drive, and not all of them are related to poverty - living close to good transport, being walking distance from work, environmental reasons, medical reasons, just not liking it, etc. Poverty is only one of them (and a more obvious issue in the US than here).
But the only damn reason for anyone to be on benefits is because they NEED THE MONEY. So people on benefits are automatically poor by at least some definitions - they're poor enough to submit themselves to the brain-shattering mystery that is the benefits system (and it's getting worse all the time). Therefore, benefits use *is* a clear measure of a certain kind of social grouping, and I would argue that it indicates a social group most desperately in need of attention and support. Any decent representative of the people therefore ought to make some effort, at the very least, to acquaint themselves with the merest shadow of a whisper of an idea of what it's all about.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2008-05-08 06:26 pm (UTC)Seriously though, there are a variety of reasons why people might not drive, and not all of them are related to poverty - living close to good transport, being walking distance from work, environmental reasons, medical reasons, just not liking it, etc. Poverty is only one of them (and a more obvious issue in the US than here).
But the only damn reason for anyone to be on benefits is because they NEED THE MONEY. So people on benefits are automatically poor by at least some definitions - they're poor enough to submit themselves to the brain-shattering mystery that is the benefits system (and it's getting worse all the time). Therefore, benefits use *is* a clear measure of a certain kind of social grouping, and I would argue that it indicates a social group most desperately in need of attention and support. Any decent representative of the people therefore ought to make some effort, at the very least, to acquaint themselves with the merest shadow of a whisper of an idea of what it's all about.