Just been on a course about new benefit system

So you've been claiming CB, jupitercock? So you're a benefit family.

A working benefit family.

And that's the problem. We're in the middle of a concerted attempt to rebrand the welfare state as charity for the poorest, instead of the something-for-everything system it was set up to be.

Our welfare state has been about redistribution to people of their own money across their lifetime as well as from the richest to the poor. Education and childhood health taken care of. A bit of help in the younger child-rearing years when families are typically at their poorest. Then taxation as the parents gain promotion and earn more and the children leave home. Then retirement and pensions and personal care for those who need it. And all along the way, support for those who become ill sooner than 60/65 or who are made redundant and need to survive.

That's why child benefit was universal. And the state pension. Winter Fuel Payments. It's why prescriptions are free for pensioners - something Nick Boles MP has just suggested dropping.

Now maybe we want a welfare state and NHS that's only for the poorest and anyone above that limit should put in and never see a penny back.

But if we're going to have that change, shouldn't we at least debate it? Or even, acknowledge it?

I've seen time and again the assertion from politicians and some on here that benefits "should only be for the very poorest". And yet those very posters are themselves merrily receiving benefits. It was a helluva shock to a lot of higher rate taxpayers to discover that they were receiving a benefit like CB and it could be cut. Because like you, jupiterscock, they had divided the world into "benefit families" and "People Like Us". And completely failed to realise their part in the big picture.

Orwellian, not planet earth, Child benefit for 3 children is £188 pounds a month, wherever yo live, so no more than £2200 per year, I cannot say for the other amounts but get facts right.

Very nice comments thanks :)

There is no social housing??? There is social housing but it's not being used properly. Why are very well off people still in social housing. Or single people occupying three bedroomed houses. My DS can't afford to move out of here either. He would like to though.

What this government does not understand is that most single mothers and fathers do work, we rely on help with housing benefit, the majority have to private rent because there is no social housing, I live in a private rent house, my 2 boys 14 and 19 share, my daughter 17 studying for A levels in the box room. My eldest works full time but cannot afford to move out due to high rent in this area. By the way we live in the west country, so not London. What hope for the future of those that want to try!!!!! Please give me a council house, Who would have thought that it would become a dream.

I don;t get any benefits, no. My CB will be stopped. And we pay, between us many , many tens of thousands in tax.

To which I expect your response to be along the lines of , " Oh, well you can clearly afford it yadda yadda ".

Tilly, every post of yours here is spot on and ysome peopel still Don't Get It. So let's make it simple.

For every child a working perosn has, generally they get a bit poorer. for every child a non working person has, generally they get a bit richer. See??

Ok, just an example. Take a 3 child family in London where neither parent is working,living in a private rental in an average London suburb. They would get the following per year according to Turn2Us;

child benefit x 3 = £8,617
child tax credits x 3 = £2,455
Income support/jobseekers for a couple = £5,811
Housing benefit/Local Housing allowance = £17,728 (calculated for a 3 bed in Outer North London)*
Council tax benefit = £1,400

Total benefits per year = £36,011.

This is not including any of the satellite benefits (i.e. Free school meals, free prescriptions, healthy start vouchers, capped water cost).

That is more than someone on an income of £50k earns per year after tax and NI!

A family getting £36,011 per year to live in London when neither parent is working is not poor! I imagine many families with a parent earning £50k per year would love to get the same amount of money without having to work at all. Crazy!

but if you are not entitled to benefits, you are incentivised into controlling your fertility as your income will not increase with birthrate.

if you are entitled to benefits, you are not incentivised into controlling your fertility as your income will increase with birthrate.

I never suggested that people can't control their fertility because they were poor.

I said that people don't. That's fairly obvious. And nothing to do with income etc.

"benefit families"?!

Like yours then?

Unless you don't claim child benefit, child tax credits...

Many children in benefit families are being brought up in conditions considerably better than their working peers.

Which is precisely what this Govt has the guts to address.

And how incredibly patronising to suggest that because you are poor and on benefits you can't control your fertility! If the working and middle classes can manage to control their family size, why on earth can't those who don't work?

And you know what, if working people on a fixed salary get pregnant unexpectedly they either put up and shut up and tighten their belts or they choose not to go ahead. They DON'T expect the rest of us to pay for their slip up!

but you cannot give someone money out of proverty. my take is you need to put more pressure on adults (excluding disabled) and more provision for children in workless households.

so if you are born in a workless household, you get breakfast lunch & dinner at school, homework clubs, holiday clubs etc. others can pay to use the same facilities.

So that's it flatpack? That's the answer. Cut the benefits. Make the people already reliant on them even poorer?

So then their children are brought up in even worse conditions. Which often breeds a cycle of them alao being poor. And the children that do grow up to be inspired to get out of that cycle? Well, they can go to university nice and cheaply can't they? Oh wait, no they can't.

You can spit on fairness all you like. It's ok. You pay the street cleaners to clear it up after all.

Amber Leaf. Yes, I am serious.

Why is there such an issue with removing child benefits from workless families but no issue in removing child benefits from working families? Are middle class kids less deserving of child benefit (a benefit for the child, not the parents) than the children of workless families? Why should someone earning £60k be paying tax to provide for someone else's children when their own kids have been deprived of it? They are only responsible for their own kids, not other peoples!

garlic pays up according to need but what is need and when does it become want?

no one needs to have say 4 children.
a typical 23 yo does not need to leave home if they cannot afford it.

i want better service for people how have no choice e.g. ill, disabled, children. but adults who are well need to be responsible for their own lives most of the time.

What's fair? That people who live within their means have to pay for people who don't?

I imagine you think it quite fair that you received your education, your mother got CB, you got your medical & dental treatment, the nice policeman brought you home and so on while I was paying for it? While you were at school I was paying around £20,000 a year in tax + NI, using virtually no public services at all. I never resented it; thought I was contributing to a kitty system that pays up according to need.

Funny how you don't see it the same way now you're paying and I'm claiming.

flatpack those things aren't free - we already paid for them. Orwellian I don't support taking universal benefits from middle classes - means test what we pay in, tax, not what we take out.

Bob Diamond didn't take his £20 million, poor sod only got £2 million

Ha ha ha ha ha! Good one Orwellian!

Hang on...you weren't serious were you?

Dahlen - "And is it ever right to punish children for the 'sins' of their parents? Because who do you think will suffer most in households where benefits are reduced?"

Funny, nobody seems to have a problem with child benefits being removed from the children of middle class or wealthy families. Why should they be punished because their parents have worked hard and got a good job?

...And Metallima!

Agree Vagaceratops.

"I'm sure we all know people who have questionable claims. There simply is a MASSIVE amount of people who receive a lot of benefits and as a result have little incentive to better themselves or work. In fact often they find themselves trapped."
niceguy
terrible isn't it that the state has to help people who are disabled. often unable to work due to being disabled.
terrible that when you are too disabled to work you are trapped. yes trapped by your disability.
I assume you know nothing about what you are talking about.

The people who slam DLA as being too easy to claim have (99.99% of the time) never had to claim it themselves.

They are also normally mixing it up with IB/ESA

CharlieUniformNovemberTango

I agree that people need to start living within their means.

I just don't think it's going to happen like this. And children will suffer as a result.

There is no 'nice' solution here. There's no magic spell that can stop bad things happening, and no amount of money either.

I don't know how to fix it or break the cycle but putting more children into poverty will make it worse. It will put more strain on allready stretched services. And it's not in any way going to be fair us it?

What's fair? That people who live within their means have to pay for people who don't? OH and I are in our mid/late 30s, with a single baby on the way. That's all we can afford and we've scrimped and saved. Could've had six, seven kids, free housing, free education, free healthcare, and be on grandkids by now if we'd played the system, and never worked a day.

And the Left sit around and tell me it's "unfair" to limit benefits. I spit on their "fairness".

I agree that people need to start living within their means.

I just don't think it's going to happen like this. And children will suffer as a result.

I don't know how to fix it or break the cycle but putting more children into poverty will make it worse. It will put more strain on allready stretched services. And it's not in any way going to be fair us it?