CB - alternative solutions?

[CardyMow]

If cutting CB in the way that has been outlined is unfair, how else could/ should the government save money on this benefit?

I ask this because a columnist in the Daily Fail (I ^know!) said that he would rather they stopped CB for dc at the age of 16yo, regardless of whether they are still in education or not.

I always thought that the reason CB was paid to 19 was because, if, like our family, you are caught in a cycle of very low wages (£16Kfor a FT job), the only way out is more education. If you take away CB for poor people, they will also lose their TC's, and theefore have a dc in FT education that they get NO income for, and are therefore unable to feed or clothe them. It was done because otherwise, these DC would HAVE to go out to work FT, just to have money to eat, thus them also being stuck forever in a very low paid job, with no chance of bettering themselves.

Surely education is the way OUT of the benefits trap? But many more dc will be forced to leave school at 16 to work in min wage jobs if their parents cannot feed them while they gain better qualifications.

It would make any form of further education the preserve of the rich, surely that is a step too far back in time?

While I agree that the way of administering this CB cut needs to be fairer and based on household income rather than one earners tax bracket, surely if minimum wage is £5.85 p/h, then a lot of the country earn barely more than £12,000pa for a FT job, so wherever you are, whatever you are doing, £42K is a HUGE income...Why shouldn't CB be cut for anyone with a household income of £34K pa? My family certainly wouldn't need CB if we had an income of £34Kpa.

Asda pays its 16 year olds £6.15 an hour.

My DH is a higher rate tax payer, I've had to give up work because I can't afford full time childcare and can't in back parttime. We are losing CB.

My DSis and her partner earn the same amount as my DH combined but are both lower rate tax payers. They pay less tax than we do (DH has company car and health insurance through work) yet they get to keep their CB. It's being added to their wedding fund at the moment then will in into a saving account for my DN.

Please tell of how this is fair.

In April my DH will be paying a further 2% tax so our income is going down again. My DSis and her partner will be better off by a similar amount.

It would be fairer to restrict CB to first child or two children.

"My DSis and her partner earn the same amount as my DH combined but are both lower rate tax payers. They pay less tax than we do (DH has company car and health insurance through work) yet they get to keep their CB."

I think the point is that if 2 people earn the same as your DH combined they will still need to pay for childcare, but if just one person earns it the other can stay at home and no childcare costs.

The point of all of this is as Ken Clarke points out is that the middle classes do not yet understand the extent the gvmt cuts will affect them. It is going to be brutal and on first look not even fairly dished out with some couples who earn up to £80K keeping benefits whilst others who happen to be £1 over and therefore into the 40% tax break loosing out.

This is not right and needs to be sorted out.

On the other hand how many of you realise that in April you may well be owing the gvmt money in the form of overpayments to you Tax credits!

A 1% increaase accross the board on income tax is a fairer and equally shared way to address this situation.

The press are asking why Public School Boys are all currently in charge of gvmt. Its simple in the 70's we had a recession and they were the lucky ones who could afford further education. This gvmt is cutting funding for the middle classes so we will have to cut back drastically, ie tutors, college, uni, and so on.

Forever: CB has no childcare component, though CTC does.

625elf: in 1970s there were no tuition fees and a universal grant (minimum grant wasn't abolished until mid-1980s). Up until 1997, there had been a 20+ year run of state school educated PMs: I think you might need to look for other reasons in the state education system in the 60s onwards for the current legacy.

Further education in the 70s and 80s did have a cost I know as I was there, your grant did not cover everything, your family still had to help or you took on an overdraft or loan. That cost is now going to be very high and allready my daughter and her friends are considering not going to uni. It is again going to cause and unbalanced gvmt of the future with no real understanding of how most of the country has to spend its wages and how cuts affect us in real terms esp for those on very low wages and those in middle england who fall into the traps the gvmt have set for earning versus cuts levels.