To think that people who complain about not getting child benefit because they earn above the threshold can fuck right off?

[CosetteFauchlavent]

Firstly I should say that I am applying this to people who are coupled up - it's very different for single parents.

I have an acquaintance, friend of a friend, who I'm not particularly keen on but my friend insists on inviting to group outings etc. She describes herself as "the girl who has everything" and has said several times that she's going back to work after maternity leave even though her DH earns enough for her to be a SAHM.

Anyway, the other day she came out with "It's so unfair that people on benefits get child benefit for doing nothing, we earn too much to qualify WAAAH." The "WAAH" is not my addition, she actually said it.

AIBU to think SBU?

I don't recollect anyone saying anything about struggling on 60k vivienne, I think the issue is a matter of fairness.

We are not struggling on 60k but living in the south east 60k doesn't go as far as you think when you factor in 1k for mortgage and when you factor in commuting costs of some £300 per month. And this supports 5 people.

We are the same adventure, £1300 mortgage (ex council house), £500 commuter costs for dh and 3 dc. We are not starving in the gutter, but we aint living it up either.

Plus wear and tear on car due to 100 mile round trip commute. We would actually probably be better off of he worked locally and earned 49999.

Dh and I have agreed, that when dc3 goes to school, I am going back to work and dh is going to get a much less stressful job closer to home. We'll be much better off financially then

" the child - who has the same opportunity regardless of his parents' income et"
unless this was sarcasm I really have to pick up on this. childrens opportunities are very much dictated by how much money their parents have (or don't have)
on the cb issue I don't have an issue with it being scrapped but I do think it's been implemented unfairly

I own just over half of our house, we pay £700 mortgage on the remainder which will rise when rates go up, £800 commuting costs, £290 council tax, that's £1790 out straight away, I think DH gets something around £3000-3100 after deductions, so say £1310 left, then take from this rest of our gas, electricity, phone, internet, TV, water, tv licence, food, mot/tax/insurance/service/fuel costs for my 54 plate car that is essential as we live in a rural area, property management fees for the communal green areas on this housing estate, insurance policies etc, clothes and toys and presents, hair cuts, dentist, toiletries and you might realise that living on £50-£60k isn't as comfortable as some seem to think. We haven't had a night out since August and not had a holiday since the children were born. Mortgage is our only debt.

t loopy people who earn less also have to buy those things, most people spend on toiletries and hair cuts

I'm another that is annoyed with the child benefit change - how on earth can it be considered fair that two can earn almost double what one earns yet they can still get CB but the individual can't? As a single parent we also have to cope with everything else - the juggling of child care etc whereas with two that can sometimes be easier. I'm also self-employed and no, to whoever said it, your accountant can't hide your income and very little gets offset. Also got one at private school as for various reasons I had no choice. So I might be earning £90-100k this year (had a good year) but I've got a 16 year old car, my shoes have holes in them, we had a weekend away recently and that's it on the holiday front for the last year (UK weekend away). No way am I living it up. Not on the breadline but with mortgage of £1000 school fees of similar amount by the time tax is paid there's no much left. Cash flow is a big problem as on paper things aren't too bad. The reality is something else. What a c**t David Cameron is - not just for this but the squeezing of everyone.

"Only" £1310 left per month after paying mortgage, council tax and commuting costs? MN really is like a whole other world at times...

From reading this thread I get the general impression that people in comfortable circumstances, earning 60,000 or more, a larger income than the vast majority of people in the world, believe themselves to be gifting the poor by paying taxes and in need of £13 extra a week per child. You are the lucky ones. You have the occupations that society has chosen to value financially. You have been given the money. Do you not believe in taxes at all? Because everybody (all employees) pays the same rate of tax. It goes up once you earn a certain amount but everybody pays the same rates for the same amount.

wish those salaries don't just fall into people's laps with no effort on their part. People who earn £60k plus have generally chosen their careers carefully, made strategic choices to improve earning capacity, undertaken additional study, worked long hours/abroad. Generally they have developed skills that not many others share, hence the financial value placed on those skills. It doesn't just happen through luck, not for most people anyway.

I don't believe people have to be grateful - they've often worked their arses off the engineer the salary they earn.

Now that's not to say that poor people are not appalling treated sometimes. They are. But the truth is, the money to keep the country afloat is coming from hrt payers and they are not always swimming in cash and are being asked to pay for more and more while not feeling as if they get much back. No one resents paying tax but they are starting to feel disenfranchised from the system, which is not good gor anybody.

this is not a socialist state

we are definitely not governed by socialists

if the better paid are systematically excluded from the welfare state, they are not going to support the welfare state. they will not support paying high taxes. they will not support parties that support the welfare state and high taxes

the post war labour, socialist, government understood this. the present day, con-lib, government understands this too

this will have more of an impact on those at the bottom than those at the top

Couple one man earns 60K woman 25K lose CB
Couple two man earns 49K woman earns 49K keeps CB
Couple three woman earns 65K man is SAHD to disabled child and cannot work lose CB
Couple four man earns 80K but takes minimum wage for himself as he's self employed, pays his SAHM wife a salary and "invests" the rest back into his business keeps CB

This is why is is unfair! Especially the first two examples both couples will have the same expenditure on childcare, yet one couple gets CB one doesn't just on distribution of income between them its unjust!

I'm quite certain this policy was only introduced as a way to completely remove CB further down the line. As sanfairy so rightly says, those systematically excluded from the welfare state will no longer continue to support it, so it will further impact the lower paid. The government knew exactly what they were doing with this. When they get back in, they will reduce CB further and further until very few people receive it and then it will be gone. Those that lost it 5 years earlier will not complain.

Faux - I don't feel like I 'earned' the right to have more money than others. I went to university because I went to a grammar school that cultivated the expectation that I would. I qualified afterwards as it was the natural progression on the career path I was on. I think I am fortunate that society gives more for my line of work than for many others. I haven't worked myself into the ground in pursuit of money. I only worked long hours for a few years before I had a family and didn't mind. A lot of people have very different backgrounds and can put just as much effort into a career and get very little in financial gain. Things are the way they are. But the least someone who has been fortunate enough to get a good wage can do is pay their taxes without spitting venom about how they are supporting society and getting nothing in return etc (I know you weren't. Others were). My point is that we have been dealt the good hands. We don't need to despise those who have not and wish that they would have even less.

Good post from sanfairyanne.

The other thing that gets me about the CB changes is where an adult who earns above the threshold moves in with someone below the threshold. If the person below the threshold has children they then lose CB, which means the person over the threshold is paying towards the children.

Of course they can "offer" to pay it back in Tax instead of CB being stopped.

I still think £60K is ample income for anyone to live without financial struggle unless they have overstretched themselves on a mortgage and we could all choose to do that. It was a post earlier in the thread by an SAHM who struggled on £60K a year. So no childcare presumably.

When you say overstretched themselves on a mortgage Vivienne, do you mean buying a flash house that you don't really need for 600k or are you referring to me who bought an ex-council house for less than half that? We bought the cheapest house in our area after we had to move out from our rented house, which incidentally, renting would cost the same if not more. If 60k is such an enormous salary, then you would think that it should be possible to be able to afford an ex local authority house, unless of course house prices are way too high, which of course we all know is the case. Inflating house prices is another stupid thing to add to this government's list of incompetencies.

Vivienne. The problem is that you could sign yourself into a 25/30 year mortgage and then your circumstances change. You may not have initially overstretched yourself.

universal benefits are meant to be exactly that. Get upset with the idiots who changed that rather than putting up income tax which is an already existing system of means testing contributions - so it is potentially fair,not an arbitrary cliff edge
CB can be (rarely, but it happens) the only independent source of income for women

I agree Julia, surely it would have been fairer to stick a couple of pence on HRT and that way all HRT payers would have shouldered the burden, rather than just those with kids. Osborne didn't want to do that though, he wanted to remove universal benefits unfairly for a small section of society. That way, there'd be no outcry as most wouldn't lose out. He also knew that having done that he could come back to it later for a bigger chop. I know exactly what they were doing. I'm still hoping for my tory MP to knock on my door in the next few weeks! He probably won't though, cos we're on the council estate!

People bandy about the figure £60k, but that's not what people are actually bringing home.

There is a lot of resentment towards hrt payers without any recognition that they are the ones supporting the infrastructure of the country.

All that's going to happen is the govt will continue to cut and the squeezed middle, having been on the receiving end of the 'you're minted, so fucking what if you pay for everything and get nothing' attitude, will in turn not care when cb etc is scrapped altogether because they are already cut out of the welfare state.

This isn't good for anyone.