AIBU to think that people earning £960 per week don't really need Child Benefit?

[OldGreyWiffleTest]

Well, am I?

London the idea that my children's salary will in any any way subsidise you pension scares me.

Thank goodness Devon I thought it was only me seeing this!

By that I mean tax and NI. Yes, people have children because they want to but it is a benefit to society overall. After all it is our children who will help pay our pensions and the pensions of those without children.

My two pence:

the main complaint seems to be on the subject of fairness.

The benefits system is not fair...

there are cliff edges all over the place, bandings where a minor difference in circumstances make a huge difference in income (such as 24 hours vs 23 hours part time work to name but one)

the taxation system has plenty to offer in the way of similar...

complaining about arbitrary and unfair limits ....they are all over the place. that's the way it works.

to complain about the way one benefit is done being unfair...well They all bloody are!

if you are in that higher-rate tax bracket, you are at least better placed to suffer than unfairness than most.

Devon - Why? They will have received a lot of support from the state, free education, healthcare and in some cases housing etc Then they will contribute towards pensions etc as they get older much as my generation are doing now. In reality I doubt there will be pensions around as we know them now when I retire! The fact that I don't think that you should be given money simply for living your life has no bearing on it. Or do you think that you should in some way be rewarded for choosing to have children?

Devon -

"Yes, people have children because they want to but it is a benefit to society overall"

So because of this we should pay those people?

As others have said I wouldn't call £20 per week a reward when a child costs several thousand in the 1st year. It seems to me that the only people really rewarded for having children are those who receive tax credits and other benefits too.

Channel 4 news on this right now. This family is losing £60 a week due to gov changes. They would be better off not working.

Child benefit is for children not adults.

Personally I haven't been paid by anyone to have children. I worked for 20 years straight from school and paid in plenty to the pot. Now dh, a higher rate tax payer is paying into the pot.

They did say they were committed to reducing unfairness (I had thought this was part of the rationale for the UC).

Instead they have introduced more.

Actions speak louder than words?

You don't get paid for having children

You get support in recognition of the expense

Not read the whole thread but I'll tell you what he problem is. It's not that people earning over that amount are annoyed they wont be getting CB it is that in this country we are obsessed with what other people are getting. We are constantly looking around whining saying "not fair" "not fair".

Ahh so you think you deserve it because you paid in. What about people who have worked 20 years straight and don't have children, don't they deserve a little cashback as well? If you don't see it as a reward then why are you sop concerned that I ,for example, think it should be abolished?

starwisher - perhaps people in London should get some support "in recognition of the expense"

£20 is £20 when you have a mortgage to pay.
The question the OP asked was that surely households earning nearly 4k a month don't need child benefit.
I can think of lots of scenarios were that money is well spent
Mortgage, childcare and travel are expensive.

huh sorry you lost me London. I think what? I am concerned about what?

Um right. I will lose CB as a result of these changes. THat's fine by me. I think it shoul dbe abolished totally. Or maybe only for the first 5 years' of a child's life.

What I wont be doing is moaning about the family next door who will keep it but earn considerably more as a household than ours. I'll just get up tomorrow and work a bit harder.

Personally It doesn't bother me that I am losing it. What I take exception to is the attitude that the state was doing me a huge favour paying me it in the 1st place.
I have never complained that my Tax and Ni is subsidding the couple working on minimum wage or part time who are receiving Tax Credits to top up their income and free prescriptions etc. It's not just people with children getting funds from the state.

Sorry london ive just realised you were saying ahh and not referring to my usename

pushit - x post wasn't addressing you!

pushit -lol can see where the confusion arose

Well we have one income of just under £50, 000 (phew) and I challenge anyone to say we are well off! We live in a grotty area with a relatively large (but not unaffordable) mortgage, we shop for clothes etc...in sales and TK Maxx, we have no car and live relatively frugally. We save a bit every month but not the equivalent of our CB at all. I would say we just about get by in London, but the DCs don't do any paid-for after-school activities and we are shocked that we are expected to give a voluntary donation of £450 a year for DS's grammar school place - that will be painful!!

Devon - No of course it's not just people with children getting funds. Overall I am a person who believes in a small state and low taxation therefore for me CB and various other things aren't things I agree with.

They do it's called London weighting.

Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to get no benefits at all but I don't agree that my dds deserve to starve because we are failures.