To remind you there is no cap on child benefit

I been trying to tell people this for years. Child benefit does not have a 2 child cap.

I don't know about other benefits as I worked full-time as a single parent but I was grateful for help like the additional personal allowance (as a single parent I had a tax allowance equivalent to a married man!) and an extra bit on my Child benefit for being a single parent. Family allowance was not normally paid for the first child.

I thought there were other benefits for low income families ,
What was supplementary benefits?

It might not be a bad idea tbh especially universal credit and disabilities benefits!

Yes it was - maybe that is why I know it was family allowance by another name - I claimed it for my son when there was no such thing as UC!

As a over 75 grandmother - I make it my business to know how things work in government - even I knew this.

It is really important that so many 'but no-one told me about this' complainers to educate themselves about how things work.

Of course lazy reporting and lack of thorough training for those who need to convey information to the masses - journalist, politicians etc - need to stop using sloppy emotive language.

Keep it simple but lay out accurate information - many have difficulty in understanding things and believe what someone on social media trots out.

Maybe MN should have an 'explanation of benefits' topic (I jest).

It was renamed Child Benefit in 1977...

I only found this out recently. The problem is the name, didn't it used to be called family allowance?

It didn't help that it was reported on the bbc as child benefit when it should have been reported as universal credit/child tax credit.

Wow, thank you for this! I also consider myself fairly politically aware and up on what's going on in the world, and I had no idea.

Why on earth is this so badly reported in the media?

Again you are not understanding, you can claim child benefit for any amount of kids as long as you are under the earnings limit

It's the extra tax credit/ universal credit you can't claim for which can be worth hundreds ,not a measly £20/ week
.

For anyone claiming child benefit for an under 12 while also working enough hours to get NI credits, you can gift your child benefit NI credits to a nominated family member. You have to sign to say they support you with childcare, but this can be anything from a school run a week or occasional babysitting in the holidays to full-on set days with preschoolers, under the Specified Adult Childcare credit scheme.

In my case, my mum has 3 years of gaps in her NI record (though she's still under state pension age) so I give her my NI credits for doing some after school care. It's a simple form available on the gov.uk website.

I can't believe so many people don't realise it's not about child benefit. I don't even have children and I knew about it before it came into force

Exactly it's nearly £300 extra UC for a third child plus child benefit so around £370 a month plus potentially extra bedroom entitlement on rent element

I have always wondered this.

Surely nobody would have extra kids for £20 a week. But also, if you can’t afford your third because you’re not getting that £20 a week, you really cannot afford that third regardless.

Yes there must be people who think they can't claim it and can but also people are probably thinking why are the government being so stingy about not paying an extra £17 a week for a third child not realizing that it's the child element of tax credit or UC which actually is around £277 extra a month which is a big difference, especially if families are having four or five kids that could be up to an extra £900 a month on someone's UC ? People need to know understand figures that the debate is about. The government will already pay childcare costs and disability elements for unlimited children ( and rightly so), I actually don't think it's unreasonable to say no to unlimited child elements. Appreciate this thread is not a debate though .makes me wonder if all these Labour politicians calling for the cap to be lifted actually understand the sums involved or are they thinking it's just an extra £17 a week?

I think it’s really important to clarify in the media due to the implications for national insurance contributions. When you claim child benefit you automatically get your national insurance covered towards your pensions until the child is 12. This obviously impacts many women who may not work fulltime while their children are young.

It worries me that so many women don’t know this and may not be claiming child benefit for all their children. Their pensions will be wrong

Exactly. People talking about a few pounds a week when actually paying out the child element of UC is an extra almost £300 a month. Big difference !

It's like the electricity/gas 'cap' where some people thought that the cap was the maximum they would pay no matter how much power they used. Took months for the media to start reporting this properly.

Shocking level of misreporting on this. I wonder how many people are not claiming something they are eligible for.

Another one here who thought they were relatively clued up on this sort of thing, but had no idea it didn’t refer to child benefit!

Thank you. I’ve been saying this on every thread about the cap. The terminology is aggravating and misleading and the amounts in question are hugely different. If it was £16 a week the total wouldn’t be over £3billion!

I was listening to something on the news about this last week and even the journalist got it wrong going on about child benefit cap. Awful !