It challenged participants in the seminar to take on the role of myth busters. So here is my contribution, drawing on facts and figures from the seminar and a recent publication, Truth and Lies About Poverty from the Baptist Union of Great Britain, the Methodist Church, the Church of Scotland and the United Reformed Church.
In 1753 John Wesley, the founder of Methodism said,
“So wickedly, devilishly false is that common objection,
‘They are poor, only be cause they are idle’."
Yet today many churchgoers and members of the general public alike have come to believe that the key factors driving poverty in the UK are the personal failings of the poor – especially ‘idleness’.
Myth 1
‘They’ are lazy and don’t want to work
The most commonly cited cause of child poverty by churchgoers and the general public alike is that “their parents don’t want to work”. The perception that most people in poverty owe their situation to laziness runs counter to the most basic of facts. The majority of families that live in poverty do so despite being in employment. Excluding pensioners, there are 6.1 million people in families in work living in poverty compared with 5.1 million people in poverty from workless households.
