'Rape clause' row as Keir Starmer says Labour will not scrap two child benefit cap

Before child benefit one's tax code was changed for every child you had, so the more children you had the less income tax you paid.

@Haver74 So whats the alternative?

You either have to cut benefits to below the NMW or increase wages (which isn't going to happen atm)

Your figures are also misleading because it inc child benefit and doesn't take into account what a single parent (with 2 school age children) would get in working benefits if in work with 2 children.... which would be £152 EXTRA per week if this parent did 30 hours per week on NMW and had a parent who could help with childcare.
You can add in the How much better off would i be in work? further down on that 'site.

So work does pay.

I'm not talking about genuine hardship and people who can't work for legitimate reasons, I'm talking about the fact that for a large section of society there is no incentive to work when they can claim more in benefits. I just made up some answers on entitledto based on having 2 children and apparently I could receive £450 per week, doing no work whatsoever. That is equivalent to a salary of over £30K per year, which is more than a lot of people earn!
Clearly that's a huge problem, and one that I don't have an easy answer to, and nor do the successive governments over the years!

Spoken as someone who has no idea how low benefits are, not that facts should get in the way of a good rant about those no-good scroungers who are a drain on society. Scroungers like me. I'm a full-time carer for 2 older family members who need close attention and assistance with everything. I get £80 a week plus about £40 top-up and my weekly rent of £100 is paid. That's it, although it's obviously more than the vast majority of benefit claimants. I don't even get a bus pass to travel between their houses or to do their shopping so I walk miles. I also have a 1st class degree and am saving the local council hundreds of pounds every week.

I'd prefer not to be told I'm not living in the real world even though I'm the exact 'section of society' you're so eager to viciously attack. Perhaps consider how you're seen by others instead as I know full well the contempt you have for me - 'O wad some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us'

What a bizarre response! No. The post I quoted went beyond snobbery to sheer vileness. Mine is a honest reply to a poster saying the children of poor people are a drain on society but middle-class children aren't. An honest appraisal of the likely jobs of each - carers, binmen, cleaners, shop staff for one and middle management for the other, not to mention the standard of that middle management that unfortunately we all have to deal with every day - tells us who is the drain on society. Never forget the career path doesn't depend on ability or intelligence either as social mobility is extremely poor and contacts make a huge difference in both getting a job and in not being sacked. Direct any anger at the genuine nastiness.

Totally agree with this, and I'm a lifelong lefty. Yes our birthrate is falling, but there's no shortage of skilled and able migrants keen to come in.

Is that the definition of reverse snobbery?

Are they? do you know how low benefit payments are, excluding housing costs.

The section of society you re talking about is tiny in the grand scheme of things, approx 330k people are long term unemployed and probably unemployable, why should an employer offer them work when they know nothing/have zero willingness to learn/cannot read or write/serious health issues?

11% of adults are supposed to be illiterate.

The vast majority on benefits are in work, doing essential jobs that pay very low wages, such as care, still a pretty much a NMW job but simply cannot make work pay regardless of how hard they work or the hours they do.

So whats your answer? the work house? because thats the logical solution to what you believe in.

It's not vile, it's just a realistic picture of a section of society. You're not living in the real world if you can't see how true it is. No-one should be better off on benefits than if they were working.

I strongly suspect that by the time I reach retirement age, pensions will be means tested. I don't see how, with the level of debt the country has, there will be much choice.

What a vile thing to say about the children of poorer women. As for the rich women staying at home, they're not contributing to anything and will be consumers with a massive carbon footprint. Also, based on observations of the middle management level they'll become, their children are highly likely to be mediocre, expect everything to be handed to them on a plate and take up jobs, opportunities and spaces that should by rights got to far more talented kids.

Good for Starmer. This country needs substantial tax cuts for low income households, not yet more handouts & entitlements for the middle classes.

Well, they're not a drain on society, unlike those who expect everything handed to them. Funnily enough, those for whom benefits are a way of life have children who go on to be a drain on society too.

indeed.

We all remember the absolute meltdown in the media when it emerged the Tories weren't gong to scrap it either.

Don’t people realise that they will benefit from the triple lock as well when they reach retirement, it has been woefully undervalued for decades

I've seen this exact same post now on several social media sites. Starmer isn't being blamed for introducing the cap, he's being rightly held to account for planning to continue with it.

The other parties know that any noises about axing the triple lock would simultaneously axe their chances of attracting floating voters in the post-retirement age brackets.

I’m fully in support of the 2 child cap!

Very true. Especially when you look at the average age of Conservative members. Although I haven’t noticed other parties rushing to remove it.

No, it isn't a swap system, the UK is not sending great numbers of workers to the places migrants are looking to leave.

We don't stop people leaving the country because that would be deeply authoritarian and violate their human rights. They certainly have the right in a democratic society to go where they will be taken. So maybe they can immigrate to Canada and be a doctor, but maybe not to be a teacher, and probably not to Japan at all, at least permanently.

Most countries do consider it to be a problem when a lot of their best educated people leave to work elsewhere. It's a big deal in medicine, where the state pays for a lot of the training.

That doesn't make an economic policy that depends on attracting migrants to work here particularly ethical though.

As a matter of fact, just this month, it was reported that the government is considering how to force dentists to stay in the UK after they complete their training. That was casually dropped into an article saying the government sees no need to stop newly qualified doctors emigrating to Australia.

https://healthcareleadernews.com/news/no-need-to-act-to-stop-doctors-emigrating-to-australia-says-prime-minister/

Agreed. Have them, pay for them.

Funnily enough that is exactly what I encourage my kids to do.

Not so they don't vote against me but because this country doesn't deserve their tax.

I can't have been paying attention in lecture 4 but got the gist of it.

We don't force our own nurses/doctors/mechanics to stay in the UK just because we educated them here,

Don't you remember the fourth lecture ? About ensuring you encourage your own educated to piss off so they can't vote against you in future ? It was the module before the one about no need to be a citizen if you want to take advantage of the tax laws in the UK with Mrs. Sunak as a case study.

"It's harvesting the best workers from other countries, often after those other countries have paid to raise and educate those people through their own social systems."

We lose our own skilled labour as well. It's a kind of swap system.

It's all very well having a macro argument against immigration but if you are a skilled worker and can earn more overseas, good for you. We don't force our own nurses/doctors/mechanics to stay in the UK just because we educated them here, why be so elitist about it when they are 'foreign'