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?

I lived in London for a while. Rent was more expensive but there were lots of things free to do that there aren't in the north- east.

DH and I earn decent salaries- which we work bloody hard for- but some people I work with earn lots less than £23,000 and they pay tax on that. Why don't people pay tax and NI on benefits? £23,000 is the equivalent of £29,000 after off-takes, more than lots of people earn. And no one who works gets paid more depending on how many children they have or where they choose to live.

DH and I would like to live in a particular place in the north-east but we can't afford the houses there so we can't live there.

My cousin works in London but lives in Middlesex and his cost of living is no more than ours. Depends what you mean by living in London.

I get sick of hearing about how hard it is if benefits are cut. Apart from the elderly, disabled and ill, people have choices to make about how they live. There are jobs, my workplace has advertised two jobs twice and failed to recruit. Both salaried, permanent and with pensions. Not highly paid admittedly but above minimum wage- caretaker and chargehand cleaner.

It isn't the job of the state to maintain people's life choices- where they choose to live, which jobs they want to do, the number of children they have, maintaining a car, sky tv, alcohol, cigarettes etc.

I have no problem at all paying for NHS, schools, pensions, disabled living expenses, looking after people who are sick and can't work, and those who really try hard to get jobs. But somehow we have to find a way to deal with worklessness- which is a culture endemic in some communities.

The government's troubled families agenda deals with exactly those people and it costs an absolute fortune, ontop of their benefits, addiction problems, criminal justice system costs etc.

Grateful - I appreciate that the 14 children is exceptional, and just makes good TV fodder- but I must take issue with your assertion that if all 14 kids grow up to be productive, functional members of society then it will be worth the investment. You're overlooking the fact that the World is overpopulated, and those 14 future upstanding productive citizens can easily be found from 1 or 2 -children families

TTWK- Wow, are there really? Only problem is that a monthly ticket from an ordinary commuter town to London will cost in excess of £250 plus £123 for a zone 1-2 travel card that's roughly £750 a month in travel if you have two people working in the family- and rent in those towns is still very high compared to the rest of the country. It's not the easy solution you make it sound.

Grateful, haven't seen any posts on here saying people with disabilities or a disabled family member to look after should have benefits cut or are not entitled to help

There are a lot of these shows at the moment, I really get irritated by them at times in the way they are edited.

The Mail went on and on about a young couple on Benefits Street and compared the Dad to his "hardworking grandparents who worked all their lives". It took the grandparents going to the media to point out both their grandson and his wife had met at a special school they both attended....which meant they both had Statemwnts of SEN and LD.

Granted there were real concerns regarding their parenting etc but that's not what the Mail were interested in and not really how the programme was edited. I am certain neither were capable of giving informed consent to appearing on the programme.....there is such a thing as mental competency.

You could of course argue that they'd had enough mental competency to get together and have children, but that's to do with proper guidance advocacy and support for those with LD in the community...and that is sadly lacking.

No and that's not what I was saying candles, i was responding to someone who said large families can claim DLA for one or more of their children and get extra tax credits. I was just responding with "it's not as simple as that".

Yea I take your point 32, no need for anyone to have such large families these days.
I had one child because that's all I could afford at the time, I would have liked more but for various reasons it couldn't happen. I think 14 is excessive personally and yes we have an over populated world. We do though have a falling birth rate in this country and a rising aging population. I don't j ow how we can prevent the rare cases where families have 6,7 or 8+ children though.

Agree with Lulu completely.

The welfare state is a safety net. It isn't there to be fair. Where state funds are already stretched then it isn't unreasonable to have to move.

My husband and I both used to live in London but when we had children the cost of living in London meant we had to move out of London. My parents still live in London and we have no family outside of London. Both my husband and I still work in London. If we can make that sacrifice then I don't see why others can't too.

I also think state support should be limited to two children. The welfare state is a safety net and should be respected by us all for what it is.

I saw a programme last year about Japan and in it it highlighted the problems that Japan is going to run into over the next 20 years due to consistently low birth rate. I think their population is anticipated to fall by half and they are struggling to support their ageing population. In the programme it said that we would be on a similar trajectory here were it not for immigration (which Japan has very little of). For our long term economic stability we actually need people to have more children not fewer.

I also wonder why benefits aren't taxed as income is. All benefits should be added to income and taxed. It is a mad situation that people are paying tax when they earn as little as £12K but others are collecting £26K tax free to be reduced to £23K tax free and there are still complaints. The people who should be complaining are the ones being taxed on their meagre salaries.

Fuzzywuzzy- but (at the risk of sounding über right wing) it won't benefit the UK to have masses of chuldren churned out by dysfunctional families with a history of unemployment. What the country actually needs is probably some of those professional parents who can only afford one child (due ironically to sky high childcare costs) to have slightly larger families.

Yes the families around here that have 6+ kids are all families living mainly off benefits.

I don't think it will drive people into destitution, I think it will drive people into moving somewhere that they can afford to live.

I'd love to live in Devon or Cornwall but I can't afford it so I don't.

I think people need to cut their cloth accordingly.

that's roughly £750 a month in travel if you have two people working in the family

If there's 2 of you, buy a v. small car and drive as far in as you can get with free parking. Then tube or bus the rest of the way. That'll slash your costs.

Obviously I don't want children growing up in dysfunctional homes but people only having one child because they want a better lifestyle will eventually lead us down the Japanese route. At the moment we are somewhat insulated by the fact that immigrant communities have more children per family. That is gradually changing though and so we do need to think about how we encourage a birth rate that will keep the population relatively stable in future.

I don't think it will drive people into destitution, I think it will drive people into moving somewhere that they can afford to live.

Dreadful isn't it, people being forced to live within their means.

I think this benefit cap is fair.

It might drive people into work.

It might also force people to live within their means if they can't/choose not to work.

None of which are bad things!

I agree broadly- it's about striking a balance. I think it's admirable that most people take a responsible approach to child rearing, and have the size of family they can afford to support (not just financially but emotionally etc) BUT I have no doubt there are many couples out there nowadays who would give the time, energy and commitment to raising 2 children to be productive members of society, but who stop at 1 child primarily because childcare is such an expense.
I believe the stats about professional couples show a huge increase in the number who only have 1 child nowadays

Lots of people commute, 750 for 2 people . Lots of people outside London pay high transport costs to get to / from work and don't have a London weighting attached to their salaries. No buses past 6 pm in my town and it's just not feasible to use public transport to commute betwee towns .wish we had a 24 hour transport system

That was in response to fuzzywuzzy

Vivienne Mary,
Isn't the threshold being increased as well? I don't think it's being increased by much but I guess it's a start.

Though, you've raised a good point. Why aren't benefits amounting to over the working tax threshold, also taxed? Seems unfair that someone who would work for £20,000 a year gets an amount of that cut & someone on £20,000 of benefits gets the full amount?

To everyone talking about 1 child families - I'm one of those! I couldn't afford another child comfortably so I won't be having another until I can.

I originally wanted 3 DC but that's probably not going to be within my means now. I've got one DD & unless our situation improves before I'm 35 she'll be having no siblings!

Seriously sad at the belief that it is appropriate to break up communities with deep roots

don't think roots come into it. Most people have roots of ancestors moving to where the work is.

I was brought up to go where the work is. As a basic fundamental human moral.

Candles- I inderstand that lots of people have high commute costs- my point was that if working people on low-ish wages who currently live in London are being hit by this cap the problem won't just be miraculously solved by moving them out to the suburbs as some have suggested. Yes, housing will be slightly cheaper but if the cost of their commute increases by more than their rent decreases by then it isn't going to work. There's a reason why commuters are more often people in white collar jobs rather than the cleaners, bin men, nurses etc.

But working people aren't being hit by this cap.