to think capping benefits at 2 children is a good idea

[moogstera1]

Child-related benefits may be 'capped' at two children"
*Iain Duncan Smith said the current system, where families get more benefits the more children they have, was among changes being considered.

Families on benefits were often "freed from" the decision of whether they could afford more children, Mr Duncan Smith said, and must "cut their cloth".*

yes yes, before I get jumped on, if both your arms fall off and a previously hard working wage earner is jobless, there should be ( and I imagine would be)a safety net for those who then need benefits and have more than 2 chidren; but, in principle, I agree that working families seem to have to make much more difficult decisions regarding how many children they have than long term non working do, and it's mostly about finance.
The suggestion is that this would not be happening till 2015 and then only to new claimants so no comments about which children should be sacrificed, please.
The idea seems to be to only factor in 2 children wrt tax credits, child benefit

I was watching Question Time and I think IDS is trying to overhaul things so people working are better off than people on benefits. I think it is more complex than just CB.

on the face of it, I still think he is right and people shouldn't keep on having kids they cannot pay for when they are unemployed and haven't worked for a long time.

you do realise that they have allready capped benefits anyway dont you?

I pointed that out earlier in the thread *sock:

but nobody paid any attention

i expect not many people are actually intrested because the people who think 'im ok jack so fuck you' can be rather vague on the actual rules

Capped benefits in what way. I thought the new rules hadn't been brought in yet.

the rule is there will start to be enforced coming april.along with many other rules that reduce benefit income.

That's what I thought. I looked up a calculator and it seemed that people on Disability Living Allowance won't lose benefit. I think that's right. But the benefits system is so absolutely complicated that I wouldn't have a clue on what people with say 2 children are expected to live on per week. Also it does always seem people who have bought their own house are not protected very well by the benefits system if they suddenly find themselves out of work.

its correct that people in recept of dla are not going to lose money due to the cap and quite right they shouldnt.

as a genral rule a adult over 25 gets £71pw and a child gets about £62 and child benefit so £20 for eldest and £14 for every other child.

so someone with 2 kids gets £229 pw excluding hb/ctb remember it is urban legand that they dont have to pay bills like everyone else they still pay water/fuel/heating ect the only things they get free are rent and ct(however ctb is being removed next year and rent has to be for a house no bigger than
they need and no matter how expensive the rent they will only get the lha) and free school dinners.

the school uniform grants you hear about are not obtainable in many areas

alemci of course people who can't afford it shoudn't have babies.

But they will.

So, what do you propose? Let the children starve?

So somebody with five or six children will be getting £76 a week extra for each child. That sounds quite a lot to me. I don't think it costs £76 a week to feed and clothe a child. I certainly think the system needs to be changed. I wish Labour would have had the courage to do this. And it might have ended up a better system. But they didn't. And it looks like they never will.

you do know that the classic unemployed family with 6 kids thing is not very common dont you?

acording to dwp its actually rather rare.

and children do actually need more than just food and clothes.

its a very slippery slope to jump on whilst trying to get it right. unfortunatly i dont think they have got it right with the changes coming in so far combined with the uc i think its madness. but then again i also have no issues paying tax to support children out of poverty.

I don't know where you get those figures from. Dh and I had a scary few months when my freelance work dried up and his contract ended - so we were both out of work. We certainly didn't get £62 for ds, nor did we get £71 each. It was far less. Dh got jobseeker's allowance, I was added to his claim. We had something like £90 a week. Luckily I was able to find a job, dh has been out of work for ages (has got some casual work atm which is better than nothing but shit, because it's unpredictable and childcare costs leave us barely better off).

from the dwp and hmrc edam

is for a lone parent over 18 = £71pw (this year)

your dh claimed jsa as a couple if it was this year then thats £111.45pw they do not pay a couple twice as much as a single dwp does not work like that.

ctc (acording to hmrc) for a family with no other income to take into account other than benefit works out as about 62 pw and then you have child benefit.

please feel free to go check hm-treasury.gov.uk to confirm the figures yourself

Jenai maybe it will make people make more considered choices. no child would starve.

Co-incidentally, there was an article in today's Independent, reporting on a study that shows two children in every UK classroom are now going hungry and live in homes without enough food to eat :(

That's now. I can only assume that if benefits are cut further, the number of hungry children will rise. And I find that shameful: we're supposed to be a civilised society :(

The problem is most severe in inner cities but children all around the UK are struggling to get enough to eat because of chaotic parenting and chronic neglect.

The article does not mention benefits.

It is shameful. When I worked in education, the children from large non-working families who were neglectful visibly lost weight during the summer holidays. They needed that one hot meal every day. They would raid other children's lunchboxes whenever they could and the H.T would berate them for stealing treats as if they were just greedy [anger]

This was ten years ago. A colleague of mine once shared the secret of his success in disciplining the half-starved children who couldn't pay attention. It was to ensure that they were last in the dinner queue. The choice was pitiful at the end, it really was. No protein on most days. Said colleague was also male and for the same money that the rest of us paid would get his plate piled high. And he was a really lovely man! He just had no clue, at all.

I used to ask one particular child who had a chemically-dependent mother and many siblings to tidy my desk at lunchtime and get rid of all the loose staples, elastic bands and coins. He did. That desk needed tidying every day to clear it of those pesky coppers and silvers. A bit Lady Bountiful of me I suppose but I couldn't think of anything else to do

Well, we certainly didn't get that much. This was last year, btw.

Bad news is our car just died, and dh's crappy but better than nothing new job means we need a car. Impossible to get there by public transport (night shifts). Ho hum, at least I suppose we should be grateful that I have a job.

Sorry, pressed post too soon.

The point I was trying to make is that some people do have children they can't afford to supply with the basics and go on to have more. Some choose not to. That is terrible but it happens.

I was trying to highlight the reality of taking any even more money from those innocents who do not deserve to be in that position.

As I said right at the beginning of this thread, it's an attractive idea - until you see the faces of those who will suffer.

Auscreem, that's tragic but bless you for helping him.

People who think it's OK on benefits - you do realise the benefits system screws up and leaves families destitute? You do realise the job centre people can 'sanction' claimants and leave them penniless - and that mistakes are made (or job centre workers are even sometimes encouraged to find artificial reasons for sanctioning people)? Have you any idea what it's like for someone, to suddenly find everything stripped away and to be turned out on the streets without a penny in their pocket and no way of knowing when they might get some money again, or where their next meal is coming from? That kind of vulnerability is soul destroying.

Few years ago I invited an unemployed friend to stay with me for a break. God knows she needed it. I paid her train fare, otherwise she couldn't have come. She went to the post office to get her benefit - and the post office people said there was a note on her book and took it away. Just like that. Turned out without a pot to piss in. Terrifying.

When she got home again - no thanks to the benefits agency - she went to her local job centre and it turned out they didn't want to cancel her benefits, it was a simple admin job. People down my end should never have taken it away at all. That's the kind of horrible vulnerability you have on benefits - someone in authority can just whip every means of support away from you instantly.

I often wondered if I'd be sacked for that edam - was only young myself and just breaking even. But I had one cup of tea to everyone else's ten per day and had to pay the same amount into the kitty so I figured it was a better use of the money and drank water instead. I often saw the eldest child in the local shops (shocking prices) buying butter, bread and sugar for sandwiches on a winter evening

Benefits can and do screw up I agree. And this will get worse under Universal Credit. As it stands, a financially vulnerable person gets money from several sources. If income support decide to suspend, the housing benefit can buy food until it is sorted. If tax credits fuck up, child benefit can cover it temporarily.

There are lots of threads where people are juggling - I know this because DH's working tax credit hasn't been paid in this week and we have yet to receive the letter telling us even though there is a copy on file which was read out to me today. It is quite common according to the search I did.

If everything is joined-up with U.C as planned there will be dire emergencies. No matter how many children you have, or how "deserving"

My DD was in tears earlier after we saw a young homeless man by the petrol station. The staff came out and gave him a coffee so we knew he was approachable. She remembered that we had a fleecy Primark blanket and a silver beach mat lounging around in the boot and gave them to him. I am always banging on about people who have nothing but it wasn't until his face lit up and she was told that she had made his day that she understood.

I don't suppose they sang, "Streets of London" at David Cameron's school.

I agree that it might not save the amount of money that we're 'told' it will by the Tories but I also think it might go some way to help dissolve a culture that having more children = more money. Because this IS how some people think and the genuinely innocent children that are brought into this world by these people often don't end up as taxpayers; they end up continuing the circle.

We need to have some way of helping everyone that needs help otherwise this country and this society would be worth shit. At the same time, we can't ignore the face that our system does enable a culture that is self-defeating and it needs an overhaul. I know many people that genuinely need help through no fault of their own and I also know many people that manipulate the system and have children to enable their own lifestyle, where the children aren't the main priority.

If we want every person to have a chance of fulfilling their potential, we need to change something. At the moment, too many children are being born into a fate that they don't already know they will end up in, despite their innocence and it isn't fair on them.

All this debt is because of the banking crash, caused by people who were very rich and wanted to get even richer. So why does the current government think it's justified to cut the welfare bill to reduce the deficit? They are very divisive and like to manipulate people into hating each other, to the point where even those who work in the public sector are called scroungers, because it takes the focus off the real problems in society.

Let's all sing along: "It's the same the whole world over, isn't it a shame? It's the rich wot gets the pleasure, the poor wot gets the blame."

I think the government needs to make sure that corporations pay fair tax in the uk as their first priority as this is where the real benefit to the economy lies. I think nobody, on benefits or not,should receive additional financial benefits after their first child because our population is already too high.

yes I see what you are saying Auscreem but whatever money you gave the drug dependent woman she wouldn't spend it on her children. I think that is the problem. She may use it to buy more drugs.

Perhaps the DC should have been removed from her and social services involved.

I think it was great what you did.

Perhaps the food vouchers isn't such a bad idea if they have to be used for that purpose and not traded for other none essentials.