To think the abortion rate will increase after April this year?

[RocketQueenP]

When the new rules on tax credits / universal credit come in ie when no one can claim benefit be it top up or otherwise for any more than 2 children

Sadly I am helping a good friend cope who has just had an early abortion, she did not plan the pregnancy and one of the main reasons is she and her DH are low earners/ They already have 2 at school, and won't be able to afford to have this baby. She is devastated and has admitted they could have squeezed another DC in if it wasn't for the new rules. I think this will happen a lot. :(

In times gone by people would adopt out children that were unplanned that they couldn't afford and I really feel that this is what we are headed back to. Not adoption but, you get my drift

I also think the government fully know this and its one of the reasons they have brought it in. Simple population control

Just a snippet from a good article (sorry it's old but facts are still relevant)

Perhaps a better way to think about it is this: it seems likely that having no welfare state would not only make a country a very unpleasant place to live in but would inhibit economic growth, as a consequence of the inevitable social breakdown; equally a country where the state taxed away everyone's income and redistributed it would have no incentives for economic activity. So there's unlikely to be one "right answer". In practice, what matters to growth is not so much the size of the welfare bill but how it is spent – what sort of incentives does it give to people to work, become trained or educated, and so on.

What does this tell us about the UK's welfare state and its impact on growth? In fact, the overall size of the welfare bill as a proportion of GDP has been fairly stable over the past quarter century.

To the extent there has been an upward trend, it's been driven by increasing numbers of pensioners, rather than more generous benefits. Meanwhile, spending on those below pension age – working age and children – has been flat overall, rising in recessions and falling outside them. And it's false to suggest that "benefit dependency" has been steadily increasing; the number on out-of-work benefits (unemployment benefit, incapacity benefits, and lone parents) peaked in the early 1990s and is now fully a million below that level.

Full article www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/apr/06/welfare-britain-facts-myths

And it's more misleading to suggest that the abuse of the welfare system is the majority.

glute Those numbers mean nothing until compared to those not in receipt of benefits.

Also, the issue with 'in 2011 there were just 130 families in the country with 10 children claiming at least one out-of-work benefit' is that you are focusing in on those with 10 kids who don't work. What is the number of families and what is the cost to the taxpayer of families with 10 or more children where the family is in receipt of benefits?

There should also be a comparison of the percentages of working families who don't claim benefits with 3 or more DC. I have no idea how close the %ages are but with what you have quoted is meaningless without a comparison.

I'm not sure, I have more to read

There's lots of charts in the article that might reveal more info.

glute, there are huge, huge problems with that study and it is very partisan.

I know for example they make a big deal about families that supposedly don't have generations of worklessness. But they aren't very clear in the way they break it up. So for example, if one parent has a job for a week they will class that as a recently working household. They would even say that a family where nobody had worked apart from one grandparent who had one job for 6 months 10 years ago was not a family with generations of worklessness.

It's not a reliable source.

Is a lot of this childcare costs? I personally would rather money goes towards childcare rather than straight to parents.

I too think childcare needs to be subsidised but sadly that won't help all the people who cannot access any childcare because they have a child with a severe disability for whom childcare does not exist. Those families often need tax credits just to survive and many of them have had to give up at least one full time job due to the child's needs.

How about incentivsing people to have children so that we will have a more balanced, younger population instead of an ageing one?

Either that or we need lots of young immigrants. But that doesn't seem to be a very popular idea at the moment.

Does anybody actually know how much the govt will save by introducing this new 2 child tax credit policy? I'm guessing it won't be very much in the grand scheme of things, but hey, it makes Good headlines and will buy them a few votes from those who think people have babies for benefits.

Totally that. Tough on benefits, tough on the causes of benefits. Virtue signalling to the Daily Mail.

And again nobody is berating their taxes going on the less fortunate as a basic policy but on unlimited children so can we quit with the 'we should always support the needy' rhetoric. Nobody is saying otherwise. Posters are simply saying no to funding a luxury they are unable to have themselves.That they have to cut their cloth and have the family they can afford. I simply see no argument with just the uber rich and poorest being able to have a big family whilst those in the middle go without. If having a big family is a right those in the middle should get funding to enable them to have as many as they like too.

How about incentivsing people to have children so that we will have a more balanced, younger population instead of an ageing one?

Because we're already overpopulated? Because we're already living in a rapidly crumbling, unsustainable system? Because those young people/babies etc. will all also be old eventually, rendering the whole exercise useless?

The real cause of middle families going without green could perhaps be related to high housing costs and high costs of living. Taking from
Poorer families won't change that.
There was a time where middle families could easily choose to have a larger family because living costs were a lot lower and a family could manage on one wage, hence one parent could be a sahp and there were no childcare cost concerns.
We have had low paid workers for decades (and top ups for families did exist prior to tax credits) but in the last two decades the real
Changes have been housing costs and childcare costs.
If there was a way of tackling housing costs it would help middle income families and it would also lower the benefit bill (due to reduced housing benefit costs etc). But it makes better headlines to demonise poor people and pin the blame on them.

It's also worth pointing out that it isn't just families having a third child who will 'lose out'. Families having their first child after April will also effectively lose out because they are removing the family premium element of tax credits from new claimants.

I find threats like this interesting (disclaimer, I've only read the first couple of pages.)

A while ago, there was a thread on NHS funded IVF and many people agreed with it being stopped on the basis that 'having children isn't a right' and 'if you can't afford to pay for IVF, you can't afford kids'

I wonder if everyone who holds that view also agrees with CTC being limited to 2 children.

Now I'll go and read some more of the thread...

The nom-dom thing is where I would start though.

Probably, but good luck!

I have a sense that (artificially) low interest rates are kinder to the top 1% than anything else, really.

Some people will never be able to earn as much as others. Not all people are academic, or able to achieve the higher paid jobs. Does this mean they live a childless life? Children being a luxury item, that just isn't within their reach if on minimum wage?

And here we have it again. You do realise that having two children is not childlessness - right?

But the state has to fund housing for those extra children at a big cost.

The reason many in the middle don't have extra children is because it isn't good for the children they've got.

I really don't think those on even less should be encouraged to ride roughshod over what is good for the children you've already got.

And sorry re IVF it treats medical conditions. The health system is an entirely different funding pot. Do you really think those paying into the NHS should get even less in order to fund non NHS related lifestyle choices those that don't have?

Finally the welfare state doesn't stop at direct benefits- money is directed for housing,education,prescriptions.....

green Why is having more children not good for the ones you've already got? Is having siblings to play with and grow with a bad thing? If you have enough time to dedicate to each one then there is no reason to suggest that a child who is one of three or even four or even more will suffer. Sole Children in households where the parents are both out at work from 7am -7pm probably get no more individual time than a child with three siblings who has a sahp. The problem is that high living costs are forcing families to have both parents spend lots of hours working and this wasn't the case in years gone by.
I come from a very large family and my mum was always around and used to spend lots of time with us all. I can't remember a day in the school holidays where she didn't have something planned for us to do, most of it free stuff. I did well at school, despite living in a very deprived area and attending a really shit school. I went to a Russell Group uni and got a 2:1. We didn't go on holidays, we didn't have the latest expensive gadgets but we certainly didn't suffer because there were lots of us. Love isn't a finite resource.
And yes, the govt is helping to pick
Up the tab for some larger families (not mine as we don't qualify) but if housing costs were lower that wouldn't be a major issue. Heck, if the govt hadn't sold off so much social housing it wouldn't be such an issue. The fact is that a family with one child living in the SE and in receipt of benefits probably get more housing benefit than a family in a 4 bed house somewhere up north , so clearly the problem with the housing benefit bill goes well beyond people having more than two children (and the benefit cap means that large families on unemployment benefits won't get an increase for housing costs regardless of how many children they have).

Two children is enough. You want more, pay for them yourself. Life is about choices. Don't we teach children that choices involve consequences. You choose to have more than two children then you live with the consequences of that. As for more abortions, how ridiculous. I wanted and have 2 children. We live in 2017 not the 1900's

Six Because obviously if you can barely afford three children and you go on to have a fourth, you're making things worse for the children you already have by stretching your already limited funds even further? I thought that was obvious...

It's not all about having a sibling to play with, or being able to love 10 kids equally. Those are piss poor reasons to have more kids than you can afford without assistance.

I agree about affordability beagle but I thought green was talking about something other then finances as she was talking about middle income families and my argument was that high living costs are one of the reasons they can't afford more children. If living costs were more realistic middle income families might be better able to afford a larger family if they desire to have one.

Tax credits for one child are not a huge amount of money. I find it strange that people think tax credits will fully cover the costs associated with extra children and that that is why someone decides to have a child. It's a far more complex issue than that.

In the 80s when Thatcher's administration was in power and gave no help to families, people still had children they 'couldn't afford'. I remember it - I remember these children because they so obviously were the 'have nots' at school. I remember my mother donating my outgrown coats to some of them.

Tax credits don't cover the cost of raising a child, they just make the family not as poor as they would be without. I don't know how people can have such a selfish attitude about children who didn't ask to be born.

www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/pupils-from-large-families-do-worse-at-school-claims-study-9247170.html

It stands to reason. Less time for parents to support with homework,less likely hood of a quiet place to work,less money for resources......

These are all reasons many not on benefits stop at two,alongside not being able to afford to feed,clothe or house them properly.

Lottieandmia. - don't blame those who are against funding more than two children for children living in parent. Blame the 'selfish' parents

Why should the children suffer? As I said they didn't ask to be born.

Lonnika do you know how much tax credits someone would get for one child?