to think that 20 grand on benefits a year is loads

[MrsBucketxx]

considering they dont pay any income tax.

just watching we pay your benefits program and worked out that this is over 30 grand if it was a normal tax paying salary.

why was this not mentioned.

All these women saying it would not make sense for them to work as the childcare would be the same as their wage, so they'd "be working for nothing" make me

If you give up work for years, say 12 years until 3 kids are all at school you miss 12 years of contributions to your pension, both state and private and are thus completely dependent on your DH for support in old age.

If you give work up for good and become a SAHM then that is even more the case.

Let's hope all the women doing this are married to men who won't die/leave them for 30 year olds when they are 50...

I like to know I am paying my taxes, NI and building up a pension pot independent of my DH's income, so my potential poverty in old age doesn't entirely depend on someone else staying married to me/staying alive.

If you give up work for years, say 12 years until 3 kids are all at school you miss 12 years of contributions to your pension, both state and private and are thus completely dependent on your DH for support in old age.

No you don't. Child benefit provides state pension contributions for those years ( I cannot remember off the top of my head exactly how many years but I'm pretty sure it is 12 it used to be more but that changed a few years ago)

As does carers allowence if your a carer.

Far better that a percentage of childcare is paid for a few years than to pay for a parent to stay home. At least the person is trying to self support, outcomes for the child/children are better in non benefit households and if the relationship goes wrong they still have a job and recent work experience.

Scrap all child related benefits and invest the money instead in childcare would seem the ideal situation. That way new jobs are funded, parents have no excuse not to work and childcare costs could be kept very low. If a parent then chooses not to work, it is done so on the understanding that this is a choice they have to fund themselves. It would put everyone on an equal playing field.

bob benefits only for those who've had a UK passport for a decade? So no benefits for people who are too poor for foreign holidays then?

filee long term contraceptives as a condition of benefits? Aside from the human rights issue you've acknowledged, what happens when contraceptives fail?

Well thats the beauty of it i suppose, when contraception fails we can still support the children.

I would always rather see adults regulated than children denied benefits.

I know its a human rights issue, i just dont understand how childrens rights always come after parents rights.

O so we have gone from benefit bashiing to sahm bashing. What joy. With my previous example the single parent working 16 hours was probably tearning aboy 7k gross so not exaxtly giiving lot back. Yet at the time the only support we received was child benefit and minimal tax credits. Yet dh was a hrt putting loads into the pot.
So no the state is not paying me to sahm.

Barring those individuals who have different circumstances because they are caring for others or are disabled I think that if there is to be a cap then it should be universal.

If the household cap and therefore maximum benefits a family can receive is £25k or £20k as some have suggested then that must be replicated across the rest of the system.

Added to that we need flexibility for occassions when someone has a life changing event. Benefits should be there to cradle you in such circumstances. Treat you well and support you to get your head around it and allow time and the finance needed to get back on their feet.
This means for a yr or two. Not for ever.

If tax credits were scrapped and 100% child care vouchers provided for each of your first two children we would be in a better position.
We wouldn't talk about working 'for nothing'
We'd have a chance to study or look for work or career change
The govt could ensure that child care facilities knew that they'd get a voucher AND NOTHING MORE.

It would then mean that SAH parenting was truly a lifestyle choice. Not wrong or questioned but done as an actual choice.

I think that paying 100% for child care would make a huge difference to women, families and the country.

We'd have a workforce of women available for careers and innovation that are currently held back by costs of child care.

Scrapping tax credits could easily pay for such a move forward.

As a sahm who attends groups filled with childminders and mindees, I feel sorry for them. I have had to witness a 4 month old baby screaming blue murder (on several occasions) for her mother & toddlers constantly vying for a minutes attention from their minder. I would rather miss out on a full state pension & the niceties in life than have my children suffer.

filee I can see some sense in that idea. But it's not regulating adults, is it? It's regulating women. On a practical level your idea can only be implemented in a discriminatory way, with men claiming benefits regardless and women having to agree to medical intervention first. I can't see that going down too well, and rightly so.

I hope they put more money in to childcare. I think we.are extremely lucky that we can work and have children now, and hope by the time my dds are older that childcare help will be expanded further. I think it gives people on low incomes a chance to better themselves, and I much prefer it to a life on benefits.

stormy

I actually dont think even Womens Rights are more important than childrens rights sorry. While we have families who are quite happy to have loads of children they cannot afford, often in overcrowded situations at great detriment to those children, we must look for a solution

the only two i can see is in regulating parents (or women if you want to be gender specific about it, i see no reason myself)

or cutting benefits to children.

I know which one I prefer.

Ronald in theory your ideas might work. But in practice? I don't think it would quite take off. What would happen to existing families in the process?

I'd prefer a middle ground that recognises the rights and needs of everyone rather than protecting one at the expense of the other. Depends how forceful you want to be though - you're suggesting the state controlling fertility, whereas I'd prefer increased education and opportunities so less people are inclined to go down the babies on benefits route. Tempted to take that one over to FWR because it's an interesting topic but I'm a bit too ill to think it all through.

JakeBullet - in a situation like yours, the money you need should be given in reaction to your child's disability and your responsibility as a carer. They should not be there because you are a non working single Mum.

The outcome of you receiving the money you rightly need would be the same, but the principle would be entirely different, and it would be better.

ok going back to my original point.

if a person who gets 20k benefits he effectively gets 6 grand more than a person working take a look at this page to do the sums

Darkest - what you are talking about can only be responsible for a very tiny proportion of unaffordable pregnancies, and the links you have provided are about America anyway?

Since when are we supposed to base our welfare state on what goes on thousands of miles away from us?

I can accept the possibility that in a small minority of circumstances, similar may happen in this country. But the answer would be to improve women's services and to give women easy access to support in leaving abusive relationships. Then when they are no longer victims, they have the same chances to provide for their children as any other single parent. The answer is not to just hand out money.

I think its wrong that tax credits are paid on unlimited numbers of children and the tax credits system makes it not worth parents of larger families working more than a few hours a week.

Its wrong that people can choose to work very short hours and have the taxpayer subsidise this.

For those who want actual figures, according to entitledto.co.uk, a relative of mine, who has 5 DCs and both partners work just the right amount of hours (about 2 days a week each) to maximise tax credits, get £21k per year in a combination of child tax credits, working tax credits, council tax benefit and child benefit. They own their own home with a tiny mortgage and have no disabilities or childcare to pay.

Its wrong that the tax credits system is used to subsidise poor wages, but it also means that those without children also have to work for poor wages without state help.

beastofburden

I think that one problem is a large amount of that £20k is going straight into over-priced social housing rental bills, making some not-very-nice landlords seriously rich.

The experiment of outsourcing our social housing has been a disaster. I do not understand why, if we are all supposed to be a nation of home-owners, the government doesn't want to own its own social housing, instead of renting it off some very greedy, untrustworthy and unsavoury landlords.

beast You really do not understand what ''social housing'' is, do you?

Social housing is not provided by private landlords, but by local councils and housing associations. Housing associations are not-for-profit organisations that invest any surplus in maintaining properties or buying new ones.

As I said above, of all those households getting housing benefit, two thirds are in social housing and only one third are in private rented accommodation. So most of these greedy, untrustworthy and unsavoury landlords are actually local councils and housing associations.

Clouds.

Enforced pregnancy is a very very usual aspect of DV woman's aid do conferences about it.

Women and children who have fled DV also do not have the same opportunities as other single parents often for some years after fleeing.

Putting more money into the services costs more than going via the benefits system.

sock fair enough - but this depends on what type of benefit you claimed, I have a couple of friends who left the city to become SAHMs and they don't claim any CB as they say they don't need it. If they break up with their husbands, esp. if this happens in 15+ years time then they are screwed in old age as they have missed out on so many years of work.

Also, the state pension barely provides a decent standard of living and a SAHM is still missing out on contributing to a private/workplace pension which could afford a much better standard and avoid them being dependent on the state/destitute in old age.

I still find it a bit [confusing] that people claim financial reasons for being a SAHM if their wage equals or is slightly less than childcare as the benefits of staying in the work place are so numerous i.e. stay on the career ladder, keep moving up the pay-scale, gain more experience, be in a position to be promoted rather than trying to re-enter the workforce after 12-18 years out of it.

If people want to stay home, fine that's great, do it, but the financial "I'd be working for nothing"argument just doesn't stack up.

You're working to contribute to your pension, secure your old age, show your children that women have a place in society outside the home and that mothers do not have to stay at home to be good mums etcetc

Every parent can still make a choice to claim CB if you are over the financial limit and still want the sahp to claim the working parent just does some jiggery with hmrc and the money paid gets sorted out in tax.

And how interesting that unemployment benefits are deamed to be huge but state pensions are not afaik the state pension is higher than Jsa and if that s your only income you can claim the same support Jsa claimants can with housing ect.

isn't part the reason why some men want more children is to increases their household income?

so the state is enabling these men.

Putting more money into the services costs more than going via the benefits system.

Maybe, but surely the outcomes would be better?

Personally, I don't mind paying tax to fund things like that. There are some things that are worth spending more money on.

Funding people to have children they can't afford, or paying for their choice to SAH when they could work is not worth spending money on IMO.

It's about people's attitudes, and I agree with a welfare state that supports people who need help because they are disabled, they are carers, they are trying to get through the few years where they have pre school children and can't afford childcare, they are fleeing domestic abuse or they have been made redundant and are desperately trying to get another job.

But I strongly disagree that the welfare state is there to support people that have the wrong attitude and make selfish and thoughtless choices.

The difference with pensions is that they are needed because people have become too old to work. We don't give out pensions because people have made bad choices, therefore pensions are worth supporting.

sock yes, I know that. My point is that many, many middle class professional women with husbands don't do this as they blithely assume everything will be fine and that they will be supported by DH all their lives.
It astounds me that so many women are so naive - almost 50% of marriages end in divorce and yet women are still the ones who, seemingly by default, give up work to do the child care.

And even if they do do this, they still only end up with a basic state pension and no workplace pension. So if the DH leaves them, they could end up with no house, and only a state pension to live on. So they are still very financially dependent.

How many times have you heard a man say that he is leaving work as the cost of childcare would mean HE is working for nothing? Why is it always the woman whose wage is seen as the one linked with child care?

I see it as a joint family income, out of which childcare comes - I don't think either party would be "working for nothing" you'd both be paying cc costs and both contributing tax, NI and pension payments.