To think people who CHOOSE to be SAHPs should not claim income related benefits

[DixieWest]

I wholeheartedly support benefits for SAHPs and believe they should be able to live adequately without working if they can't work. When I say can't work I mean when one of their children is SEN, they'd have less money after childcare than they would claiming benefits, they are disabled etc.

What really annoys me is the following situation:

Husband earns 35k, wife earns 25k, they have a baby and wife decides to stay at home and therefore is able to claim 5k in tax credits.

They are just example figures as I don't know how much tax credits realistically are.

IMO if you choose to be a SAHP then you foot the bill.

I will repeat I have no issue with those who need to as they'd be worse off working. Do have an issue with those who'd be "slightly better off" working, don't and still claim. AIBU?

As you're asking me, I would have to say that if I were in charge of the system then I'd make job seekers allowance much more generous than it currently is, and I'd include an element that gave extra payments attached to JSA to support up to two children.

That way there would still be a safety net for people that lose their jobs, but there would also be the expectation that they still have to be very active in looking for work.

I am chuckling at the idea of an experiment where all those in low incomes were prevented from breeding. Only those comfortable be allowed to produce offspring. 40 years of that would show some interesting results when these people realise they won't be able to have vision for their kids because there would be no service workforce.. nobody to wipe their arses when they get old. Nobody to serve their Starbucks or open supermarkets. Then their kids wouldn't be allowed to breed and provide them with grandkids because they'll be stuck in low wage jobs.. because somebody will have to force them into that workforce.

Still It might trim the population down a bit.

Not a correct ins and out thought but amusing anyway

Its people who have kids just so they dont have to work are the ones that should be tackled.

The population needs to be trimmed down a bit!

At the moment we have a huge surplus of unskilled workers, hence the high unemployment figures.

If we ever got to the stage where we didn't have people to do the low wage jobs, then we could recruit from other parts of the world.

The argument that we need more people to do the low wage jobs is ridiculous at a time when we have so many people fighting over those jobs.

My DH & I chose for me to be a SAHM, honestly never crossed my mind to claim benefits when we had chosen this life!

It wasn't an argument... read my post properly.

Yabu for not bothering to research your figures alone. Even based on the 25k figure 1k tax credits alone is hardly giving a huge subsidy. Plus many people in work claim tax credits too.
Personally I would have been £20 a day better off going baCk to work with 1 child. So I didn't bother. However, I didn't need support from the state so in your eyes op Thats ok. Yet if my dh earned less I couldn't have that choice withour being judged. That is imo unfair.

My husband earns 31k, at the minute I'm a SAHP, we've 3 kids & don't qualify for tax credits - we get CB.

Just to put it into perspective for you OP, when dh earned 22k two years ago, and I was made redundant at 7 months pregnant we were entitled to just 20 quid per week.

Our rent was 750.00, our outgoings overall were 1200.00 pm. And that was BEFORE the benefit cuts.

Picking figures out of the air is not a helpful exercise.

erm I'm a single parent bringing home about £28,000 and I am not entitled to anything but child benefit so you're friend with a husband on £35,000 won't be getting anything but that either.

Maybe your whole outlook on having children needs to sway from purely financial considerations to thinking more about the purpose of starting a family. It is of course a persons social responsibility to manage and work hard at their own money situation but personally I can't see the point in having children if you don't also take responsibility for their upbringing. Which I would say means investing a lot of your own time and effort into educating and nurturing them. What's so bad about one of you doing the majority of the earning whilst the other does the majority of the parenting.

No state help or support is free, that's what taxes and national insurance are for. We ALL dip into this insurance pot at some point in our lives and I don't see why raising children isn't a legitimate reason to do so. Having children is not a selfish, economy draining, terribly bad thing to do. And neither is wanting to take personal responsibility for bringing up a healthy, decent member of society and not leaving it to someone else to take care of.
Why is it that people continue to insist on the importance of being able to 'afford' having children whilst at the same time openly dismiss the importance of a parent's responsibility to ensure their offspring become useful members of society.
I'm sure SAHPs do a very valuable job, but I'm sure a nursery/childminder could also - For example

Agree with a lot of others, you need to get your facts right and look at the bigger picture; of the society you're living in and the way it works for instance.

High unemployment is so much more than too many people looking for unskilled work. It has an awful lot more to do with the ridiculous amount of cuts to services and jobs in both private and public sector. Plus the rise in the pension age, which leaves many older people now having to work more years or having to look for work. Do you know many employers chomping at the bit to employ and train 60 year olds? Because I don't.

Many people are not paid a living wage.

So you'd have the working poor not allowed to have children? People don't claim tax credits for the laughs and holidays you know. It is so they can eat and heat their homes. How about capping energy prices and stopping the massive profits? How about the government stops 'tinkering' with the inflation figures and puts wages up accordingly?

OP the example in your opening post is totally different from the single friend scenario you mentioned in your following post.

What a silly uninformed thread.

Child care costs force people to become SAHP. We don't qualify for credits but we just about manage. It's a factor for me not going back to work.

The system is shit, I'm glad there is a cap. People who have children with the knowledge what they will be entitled to before had isn't so great.

People that need to have credits because of unforeseen bad circumstances are fully entitled to it.

People that have dc with the intent to never work make my blood boil.

in the OP you refer to a hypothetical DC who is SEN

I know it's boring, and semantics, but please remember that the child is not their special needs. In the same vein as someone with a physical disability who uses a wheelchair isn't 'wheelchair-bound'.

As you were.

THIS has got to be the most fucking stupid thread ever.

" oooh errr ahhhhhrrrrr, I um, disagree with um wimen 'aving babies through choice and then stayin at home,.....I um arghhhrr dunno how much my taxes pay for...the scroungers.....um, not sure what they get um errrr arghhhrr but they um get sommat - um maybe they don't get anything, truth is I no nothing but I want to get all hoisted of my bosom over it... blardy squeezed middle people who may or may not get tax payers money - knit some lentils you barstards"

custy I have proper guffawed at your post

I have no lentils

I shall have to knit peas instead.

I have yogurt , shall I share it out

Regardless of the ignorance of the OP over the most basic info about tax credits and benefits, etc., could people PLEASE stop peddling the fucking lie that people become SAHMs are ones who can easily afford to do so. Every family with a SAHM I know, myself included, has made enormous financial and personal sacrifices to facilitate this. No-one is asking for a bloody medal, just that people stop with the bullshit about it being some luxury lifestyle choice, FFS.

As for the idea that a childminder could do exactly as good a job of looking after children than the children's own mother, do not make my arse laugh. It's not like it's terrible for children to be in childcare, but a parent will always be better for them than some outsider paid to care. In all this talk about who should or shouldn't claim what, or work, or whatever, where are the questions about what is best for the children? Or is financial gain the only thing of value nowadays?!

People pay taxes so we can support each other when it is needed. Every time you have seen your Dr, OP, you have done so at the expense of other people's taxes. Why not get angry about the real reasons behind the massive disparity of wealth and wealth distribution, and the financial mess in this country? Because it is not down to SAHPs claiming benefits that they are legally entitled to, or any other sort of benefits recipient.

For the record, my partner earns £22K pa and we are entitled to £5 a week tax credits. I go on sprees in Harrods on it every week

AnyBagsofOxfordFuckers agree with you 100%. in fact i think i love you for posting that.

Yabu and it sounds like like you have an axe to grind about SAHP - a WAHP can get help with childcare costs. Some children need a parent at home and a nursery or childminder is not the same. I would prefer to work and we would be better off but my son was desperately unhappy when I worked and his behaviour was terrible - is that just another 'lifestyle choice'?

YADNBU I think that tax credits should be abolished and the income tax threshold raised with the savings. Tax credits are a mechanism through which the Government chooses to financially reward certain client groups at the expense of others.

I'm a SAHM and get nothing in benefits.

It pisses me off no end that this government pushes people to go out and work so that somebody else can provide the childcare.

The first thing society shouts when a child has committed a crime is 'Where were the parents?' At work, that's where! Schools are expected to take on the role of educating children in life skills, rather than academic subjects, that used to be the responsibility of the parents. The school day isn't any longer to support these extra topics and standards in traditional subjects are falling, I believe because schools are being forced to spread themselves to thin thanks to a crouded curriculum.

The value we place on childcare today is though of only in terms of cost, not in terms of the family unit and investing in the people of our future.

Perhaps sahm who feel they can't work should look at jobs that can be done when other half is home. I know this doesn't apply to all.