To think that a 23k benefits cap will drive some families in the SE

[Minifingers9]

... Into destitution?

I live in a pretty unappealing and comparatively cheap part of greater London but you can't get a 3 bedroom rental for under £1400 a month.
If we lost our jobs we wouldn't be able to live on 23k a year as a family of 5. Not when 15k of it was going on rent.
Why don't they have regional benefit caps?

"To my mind contraception not education prevents multiple births you can't afford."

What - forced contraception?

All women currently have access to family planning services.

However, a proportion of women still choose to have children they can't afford to raise.

The poorer and less educated the woman is, the more likely she is to have children without being in employment or in a stable relationship.

Some people believe that we can 'starve these women out', ie, make life so intolerable for them that they will voluntarily stop having children/have smaller families/delay childbearing. I have seen no evidence that reducing women to outright destitution makes them less likely to have children they can't afford.

Problem with that Mini, is that parents need to do some educating. The state simply cannot provide all the education a child could possibly need, some of it has to come from the families.

If a single parent is struggling on government money, she is likely to tell her children to wait to have children and is likely to encourage them to work hard at school so that they have a chance of a better life. She's going to be more inclined to engage with sure start and the like because she will be able to see that she needs more.

If a single parent is quite happy and living a comfortable life on government money, then her children will grow up seeing the benefits lifestyle as a reasonable choice and school as a waste of time because you can just get pregnant and get a house and an income whether or not you make any effort to do well.

The thing is mini that like it or like it not the easier it is the more people will do it. So generous benefits for large families = more large families to care for. Its just people behaving rationally. But either way you have children that need looking after (and yes they do) one way or another.

I think the example you are giving she should be incentivised to have the contraceptive injection and this should have happened earlier.

I prepare to be flamed

But Mini - dropping £3000 a year is not destitution, is it?

I 'took home' £26,000 a year when my taxable pay was £40,000 a year. I certainly wouldn't have had any sympathy about London prices then!

I see your concern is sincere and I commend you for that. But do you think just giving more money helps?

No not forced mini, but that's how most of us stop children being born that we can't support.

How do we care for these families? The Coalition government isolated 100,000 particularly bad problem families. They tended to have a huge range of problems usually linked to drink and drugs or very low IQ and could not easily cope. It wasn't that benefits were too low but that they did not have the organisational skills to feed the children etc. Extra resources were directed at them in one Government programme but they are hard to deal with.

What is clear is that the £26k benefits cap has worked. A lot of those people have got back into work and some have moved to areas where they can afford to live so the £23k cap will also work fine too. It is a side issue as most of the cost of benefits goes on smaller families and there remains an issue of incentivising only part time work because of how the benefits system operates - why bust a got working full time hours (one of my daughters was saying she was working very long hours on something at the moment and that is full full full time as it were, never mind 40 hours a week) if you get as much money working 16 hours plus benefits?

five, I get that people don't always like emotive language and to some, having £3000 less to support your family may not seem a big deal. But if it's the difference between being able to stay in your home or being moved into a B&B while temporary accommodation is found for you, I can imagine "plunged into poverty" is exactly how it would feel.

But then I have a problem with the phrases "behaviour change" and "moving into work"; the first because it makes families sound like unruly school children and the second because it makes starting work seems as straightforward as moving yourself bodily from one place to another. As if the job is right in front of you, but you are to lazy to step towards it.

It isn't that I don't see it as a big deal Surburban - I understand that of course it is, but that at the same time, families are not being left with nothing at all which is what 'plunged into poverty' suggests.

Mini fingers- it's not a phrase I particularly like, but the answer has to be a mix of carrot and stick.

Carrot by raising NMW, widening access to affordable housing and childcare etc

Stick by the benefit cap, and perhaps limiting CB to two children.

I completely understand the cycle of deprivation you describe, I think most of us probably get that, but it's poverty of aspiration as much as financial poverty. Sometimes throwing money at something isnt the answer. An uneducated woman whose only validation in life is having child after child, is hardly going to improve her situation by having money thrown at keeping her in that situation. Even pretty grim situations can feel like a 'comfort zone' to people. A woman who feels that the Only thing she can 'achieve'is to have baby after baby is operating within her comfort zone- and by that I don't mean it's a desirable situation to be in- but it's what she knows, it's familiar to her. People usually need a mix of carrot and stick to incentivise them to move out of that.

Totally different situation, but a parallel I guess would be a typical work situation. You start at the bottom on low wages, and what incentivises you to move up, is wanting a higher wage, so you put the hours in for the longer term gain. If Id started work on the income I'm on now, I'd have stayed exactly where I was- why on earth would I work in a more demanding role with more responsibility if Id started work at the bottom of the ladder on the same wage?

Sorry, I just can't agree that the only way you could be "plunged into poverty" is by having no money at all.

they are fed clothed housed...until the cap comes in and people who private rent fall into arrears then get evicted and have no where to go...council wont help because the family fell into rent arrears so there for made them self homeless...or council cant help because theres no affordable housing

i might be talking crap above and this part to...there is a cap but why is there not some sort of flexability for people private renting.

people with larger familys...whats the point of the she/they should not have had that many children. its to late its been done. what about we will support you with the children you have because that cant be changed. but there is no more money if you have more children you will not be supported then if the person does have more children at least they are prepard. and its not rug pulling

all the above is crap anyway.as govenment will do what they want to anyway

It's not just because of that though is it? It's also because they don't work and expect to be able to live wherever they like at other people's expense. I'm sure no me would expect the working poor to up sticks and leave because their area has become desireable, were talking about people that choose not to provide for themselves.

It's naive to think that the working poor won't be affected by this.

From a social perspective, it's much better to keep non-working families in areas where the majority of people are in work, than ship them off to areas which are cheap because of problems like high unemployment.

The working poor aren't affected by the cap.

You have a good point about the social perspective, but a balance has to be found. From a social perspective, it's not good to continue to fund large unemployed families to have a comfortable lifestyle in an area of their choosing either.

i think its wrong to move people from where they are already living. its the place they know. where they may have family and a support system...why should they have to move miles away because they are in private rent. whilst jo bloggs also on full benefits is in council so can stay.

The thing which encourages women to delay childbearing and to limit their family size is EDUCATION. The more educated a woman is the less likely she is to be a single parent, to have her children young, to have children without the means of raising them

Education is seen as the answer in a third-world development context and statistically it is correct that there is a correlation between contraception use, first pregnancy and level of education (the higher the level of education, the more likely your first pregnancy is to be delayed). However, our educational experience and patterns in this country are not the same as in much of the developing world and I am interested in whether you have found statistics based on your affirmation above?

According to Gingerbread, for example, only 2% of single parents are teenagers (with the average age of single parents being 38) and 49% of single parents had their children within marriage (no stats that I can find on how many had children in long-term relationships without the benefit of marriage). In addition, the average length of time someone is a single parent is just 5 years. Gingerbread clearly states that parental education is the most important factor in a child's life outcomes (so being born to a single parent isn't in itself something that will have a negative impact on a child's outcomes) but I am afraid I can't find anything that suggest single parents as a whole are poorly educated/less educated than other parents as a whole.

So yes, I think education will play it's part in bringing up children with positive life outcomes, but I'm not sure there is anything that suggests being 'educated' means you are less likely to be a single parent or have children without the means to raise them. Otherwise, we are suggesting that educated people are less likely to think with their hearts than their heads, don't make quite so many mistakes in romance as non-educated people or somehow make better matches than non-educated people when surely, logically, relationships are very much 'the luck of the draw' in terms of how we deal with difficulties and what level of shit we're prepared to put up with. Statistically, you are as likely to be beaten by your husband with a PhD as you are your husband who left school with no qualification, aren't you? If we're not careful, we will be going down the 'but why did you have children with that kind of man route' and blaming the single parent for their status, rather than accepting that 'shit happens' and for the majority of children, watching their parents in a crap relationship is way worse than being 'the product of a broken home'.

I do agree with the benefit's cap (and I say that as a single parent who is helped very much by Tax Credits) but at the same time, I recognise that there will be many families (and therefore children) affected in an adverse way by the cap and that for them, already difficult lives will be made more difficult.

I feel incredibly sorry for her children, who are already suffering. I don't think she wants a life on benefits. She got pregnant when she was young and stupid, and is struggling to cope with her day to day life now. I think the effect of the benefit cap will be to reduce her family to destitution, and this will damage her children further - something for which we will all foot the bill for in the future.

As a child brought up in poverty, I would say without doubt it has been the number one driver in getting me into a position that most people would consider reasonably wealthy. Not "a yacht in Monte Carlo and a private jet" wealthy, far from it, but a family home in London with no mortgage, a range of investments, good pension to come, more money coming in each month that I need to spend, no money worries wealthy.

I vowed to myself from about the age of 7 or 8 that I would not be poor as an adult. I knuckled down at school, a deprived primary, and got into a good secondary. Did well, good job, worked hard, moved in different circles to my parents, married a shrewd cookie, made some good investments in property and business, and so on.

So we may not end up footing the bill in the future for all of these deprived kids. Everyone gets to make choices.

The state must provide a safety net. A real safety net stops you from falling to your death when you fall of the tightrope. But it isn't comfortable, it's made of thin netting and because it's not a nice place to be, you want to get off it asap. It is temporary. The welfare safety net should be no more. It should provide the bare minimum needed. No one in this country should starve, be homeless, or not have access to free education and healthcare. But people who make bad choices should be (relatively) poor, and their children, whilst clothed, fed and watered, unfortunately have to grow up in poverty.

Any other way just makes people content to accept the safety net as a permanent means of support, and in the long run will be bad for children, and with more children in that position.

It should not just be benefit caps that should be regionally based, even if there is just a London one and one for the rest of the UK. A higher minimum wage and maybe even personal tax allowance are two that come to mind, assuming practicalities can be overcome.

I actually think the 23k cap is still way too high and we will probably see it creeping down more in the coming years.

I'd advocate a benefit reduction system overtime to reduce how much people can get the longer they are claiming benefits eventually ending at a figure that's lower that the national minimum wage (excluding elderly and disabled) so 12k max? If this were done alongside non monetary assistance in developing skills and attitudes appropriate for getting a job, budgeting advice and assistance then we wouldn't be in this mess where people are so used to claiming they can't see any other option and the ridiculous scenario of people being better off not working.

Benefits can no longer be a choice

I don't think that's quite true TTWK. A safety net shouldn't IMO be made of 'thin netting' at all. It should just be targeted fairly and appropriately. I don't want our safety net to see disabled and sick people live a life any more uncomfortable than it has to be. I don't want widows in my situation to only receive the bare minimum either. When there is no option of moving off that net because illness isn't going to improve, disability isn't going to be magically cured and husbands and wives aren't going to be raised from the dead, then in terms of money, it should be relatively comfortable.

Benefits don't only apply to people who have made bad choices, and I'm sure you know that really, and don't expect your thin netting to apply to those people who had no choice but to be in the position they're in.

Utterly brilliant post TTWK.
My DH comes from a similar background and has also done very well.

The thing is you can't say that the benefits cap has worked as more to the point we don't know. Yes there are more people in work, but as the economy has picked up that would/could have happened anyway, you can't attribute that specifically to the benefits cap. Councils now have discretionary funds to top up housing benefit, they still have to house people and don't have enough housing to do it. The pilot in one of the London boroughs saw very few return to work, most received discretionary payments as council had no alternative accommodation. I think out of the 797 households affected 11 found work as a result.

Several things need to happen, firstly those on carers allowance should be exempt they are currently still subject to the cap and save the government a fortune in social care. For that alone, they should be exempt. I also would like to see widowed parents allowance excluded or at least for a few years to allow the parent time to get back onto their feet.

We need councils need to build more social housing. We could have the bizarre situation of a council having its council housing miles away, when do those people who have opted to move become a different council's responsibility? Housing benefit needs to be able to be paid direct to landlords again. Landlords used to be happier to accept housing benefit when it was paid direct as it was guaranteed income, now they are less willing as they are worried that housing benefit recipents will default. Less housing drives up prices.

We need to educate and give support to those with large families and have been unemployed long term. I'm sure some people make a calculated choice to live on benefits, but most need help. The benefits system is so complicated, that I suspect some of those don't work as trying to fathom it out and then worrying about sanctions, it is easier just not to try. The benefits system needs simplifying.

I'm in favour of making sure that working is always better, but introducing a cap without giving councils time to make alternative provision isn't on. This is the real issue is that it is yet another policy introduced very quickly without giving councils time to sort out their housing.

This debate seems to have become more about benefits in general than just the gap, essentially we are paying for you so you don't have any choices. We are always going to need to support vulnerable people in our society, long term illness, disability, redundancy and they shouldn't be stigmatised or made to feel bad because they have to claim benefits and they should be entitled to a good standard of living and choices. We are all one car crash/accident or illness from a similiar situation. However we do need to look at those who are long term unemployed and who make living on benefits a choice differently from those using it as a safety net. The savings made are actually miniscule part of the welfare budget most of which is spent on pensioners.

I think the one thing we can trust the government not to do is to give a struggling family too much money!!

This demonization of the poor (and especially of single mothers) has been getting to me more and more since election fever.

I'm fortunate in that I live a relatively privileged lifestyle. I actually know relatively few people on benefits (other than cb). But the tossing around of insults like 'workshy' 'feckless' and 'scrounger' always makes me think of one particular woman I know and the startling similarities between her and me.

We are both single mothers with three children. We both had our first child in our teens, we both have abusive exes, we both have a child who exists as a result of rape, neither of us get financial support from our children's fathers, we both have mental health difficulties and one child with mental health difficulties. Neither of us know who the father of our youngest child is.

Yet I live in a lovely little cottage in an affluent village and work full time in a well paid job. My children are in private education and up to their ears in extra curriculars. They are doing well in school and my middle child is having her specific learning difficulty catered for very well. We go travelling in the summers and, although we don't have much 'stuff', are not struggling in any way. This other lady has a rather grotty 2 bed LA house (and has previously been in a B&B), has no job, no prospects and relies on benefits. Her children are struggling and insufficiently supported in school and get very little in terms of material or cultural privilege.

For two women with such similar pasts and circumstances to end up living such different lives is easy - as far as I can see it comes down to pure luck:

• I was born academically bright with no learning difficulties. She was born with severe dyslexia which means she didn't succeed at school.
• I was brought up in a loving and supportive family which, although not rich, provided me with everything I needed emotionally and practically. She was brought up in an abusive and unstable home and was often in poverty.
• When I first got pregnant I was at one of the top universities in the country and my parents told me not to worry, that they loved me and that we'd make it work together. When she got pregnant she was not in education and was told she was no longer welcome at home.
• My parents talked to me about careers I could handle as a single mum and showed me how I could manage. Very privileged friends I had at university told me about private schools and the discounts, wraparound childcare and subsidised housing that is available for teachers in them. My way of succeeding was made very clear. Nobody gave the other lady any help or advice at all.
• My mental health problems have been treated with very expensive inpatient programmes and lots of patience and understanding. Hers have been sniffed at and disbelieved.
• My vile ex lives on the other side of the world and I have had no contact with him for more than 8 years. Hers lives on the same estate.

I am in no way a harder working, better or more deserving person than this other lady - I am simply luckier.

"is hardly going to improve her situation by having money thrown at keeping her in that situation"

Is there evidence that reducing the income of women like the one I have described moves a high percentage into work?

No there isn't

In the areas where the cap has been piloted it has not resulted in a high number of capped families gaining employment.

Is there evidence that children raised in extreme poverty are more likely to fail in education, suffer from physical and mental ill health, and end up in the criminal justice system?

Yes there is.

I totally agree with incentivising families to work through increasing the NMW and by increasing affordability of housing.

But as a tax payer who claims no benefits and who lives in a poor area where housing costs are high, I am not happy to see children in my community suffering from the impact of the cap.

Of course 'luck' is going to be part of everyones life. Illness, bereavement and other Catastrophes can strike anyone.

And none of us can help the family we are born into... Some are extremely fortunate, some are the opposite , and probably most of us are somewhere in the middle-
There are elements of our upbringing which were good and some which make us shudder.

But it would be disingenuous to suggest that it's all down to luck... There is absolutely no doubt that we have a fair degree of control over certain aspects of our lives. Some people do make poor choices, and I don't see why we should pussyfoot around admitting that. Some people make decisions which impact negatively on their physical health or emotional well being.

I am a teacher, and while every day I can see that some of the pupils I teach have an advantaged starting point with supportive parents etc, it is equally true that pupils from these sort of backgrounds can sometimes piss about, not study hard enough, start smoking or make other poor choices, while I also see pupils from less privileged backgrounds making good decisions. It's also worth noting that additional resources are targeted towards the more disadvantaged pupils through pupil premium funding. This is something that applies in education but is replicated in funding in other areas too. Which is good- we need to target resources to try to level up the playing field BUT that doesn't mitigate the fact that some people do just make poor life choices.

I don't think that's quite true TTWK. A safety net shouldn't IMO be made of 'thin netting' at all. It should just be targeted fairly and appropriately. I don't want our safety net to see disabled and sick people live a life any more uncomfortable than it has to be. I don't want widows in my situation to only receive the bare minimum either. When there is no option of moving off that net because illness isn't going to improve, disability isn't going to be magically cured and husbands and wives aren't going to be raised from the dead, then in terms of money, it should be relatively comfortable.

I've already address the need to provide for the disabled. But as for being widowed, whilst very unfortunate, I know a couple of widows, and they are not on benefits. If fact they are quite affluent. Their husbands had good life insurance and they were left well provided for. As I said, adults get to make choices.

I fail to see why you should get to live a relatively comfortable life on benefits, because you've been widowed. Sorry if that seems harsh but life deals all of us crap hands form time to time, but no one owes us a living. My crap hand was childhood poverty, but I didn't expect any favours from anyone because of it.

You shouldn't be homeless, hungry, or go without healthcare as a result of being widowed. But that's it I'm afraid. If you want to live comfortably, you have to fund it yourself.