To think unversal credit is a disaster *trigger warning*

[jnfrrss]

This just popped up in my feed. Talking about someone that had an abortion as they wouldn't be able to afford the child without credits. It's not just an isolated issue, a charity says they've had a huge increase in women contacting about abortions as now they won't be able to afford to have any more children. I'm not sure what the answer is but this is very worrying

www.mirror.co.uk/money/it-wasnt-planned-very-wanted-12480380

There's a huge difference between using the NHS for maternity and schooling and living off benefits whether working or not. The family on benefits will be using the standard things plus taking hundreds / thousands a month on top. There's simply no comparison.

Its also not irresponsible to use state education, it's highly irresponsible to not provide for children.

The Dad in this case is training. If they really wanted that baby he could have dropped that and gone out to earn. Really, it’s not because of U/C, it’s because he didn’t want to drop out of his course.

I agree with the two child limit. I receive some tax credits (for 3 as youngest are DTs), I am probably going to have a fourth. We will get no extra. We will have to budget carefully and tighten our belts until I either can go back to work f/t or DH finishes his evening course for a qualification that will raise his wages.

Tax credits give you quite a reasonable income and it’s doable if you’re prepared to make sacrifices and cut back.

Not wanting to change your lifestyle is a very different reason from not being able to afford. .

Besides, there are plenty of women who don’t receive benefits who have to make the same decision, be it due to debt, unsuitable housing, a child with additional needs already. Women do have to make these decisions based on their circumstances and picking out a group and facilitating large families for them whilst the same help is not offered to other families is just wrong.

There's a huge difference between using the NHS for maternity and schooling and living off benefits whether working or not

You're simply not living in reality. If people have children and both parents are working and yet are still entitled to benefits because the government knows and has calculated that the cost of living is still to high to be met by your wages, that is not the fault of the claimant

Not everyone is going to be highly educated and highly skilled work, it's literally impossible. There will always be, and it will always be necessary for there to be, people doing those jobs that pay so little, those workers who you seem to look down on so much.

What I mean is that it’s not for anyone else to decide who is deserving and who isn’t

But the previous system did this just the other way around. If you were a benefit claimant the system would keep paying out for you to have child after child after child.

If you were a working family with two parents on just over £20,000 a year you’d get nothing despite not being anywhere near rich. Parents like that wouldn’t be able to afford a third child without making sacrifes either. Yet the old system would say they were ‘undeserving’ of help to have a larger family even though their income might be much less than someone on tax credits with 6 kids.

So it singles out people not to help in some way however they do it.

You're simply not living in reality. If people have children and both parents are working and yet are still entitled to benefits because the government knows and has calculated that the cost of living is still to high to be met by your wages, that is not the fault of the claimant

You’re absolutely right. But economising and budgeting within what they are given and family planning are their responsibility.

I hate this attitude that once benefits are received you become a helpless waif dependent on the state for everything incapable of not popping out baby after baby or taking steps to manage your life. So of course the government has to step in and solve this by giving more money to claimants.

The vast majority of people in receipt of benefits are perfectly capable of taking responsibility for themselves and managing their own lives. They don’t need universal babying.

MightyMucks I completely agree with you. I woke up in a cold sweat last night because I had a dream I had a positive pregnancy test. I would never plan to have another child because I know it would stretch us too far financially. And I do receive working and child tax credits, and work hard in a job I am building a career in, so I completely agree that people "on benefits" are no different to most other working families (despite what the tabloid media might like to portray).
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However I have seen another post by Boxsets and I do think they have a very black and white, tabloid fueled attitude towards people who claim benefits and it is, as I said, completely unrealistic IMO

@mimibunz I pay my own way as well. I just don’t think that that makes me somehow better or more deserving than anyone else. It makes me luckier, not better.

Hit a nerve there didn’t I? The truth often hurts when it shines a light on nasty parts of ourselves eh?

I have read the article, the woman said 'we are barely surviving now ' and she wanted a third child. So where should the benefit cap move to 3 or 4 children ? I expect with 2 children it is easier to find employment. I agree that there are many contraception options. I claimed UC when I was made redundant £73 and I was fortunate to find new employment quickly. I think that people if well enough should be looking for work and living within their budget. I have not had various things at various times, because I could not afford them. Some countries in the world have no benefit system. I recently visited a museum where people lived in a work house and it was not that many years ago. If you wish to replace UC what would you replace it with ? Why should I work and pay all my bills, when other people don't work (not including illness)?

I think the point here is that there has to be some kind of welfare reform to make the system fair for everyone. What most people frothing at the mouth about benefits don’t seem to understand it that the vast majority of people on benefits are nothing like the caricature examples trotted out in the media and on channel 5 (propaganda, and it’s working a treat!) and are in fact in a shit situation and trying to get by.

Alongside welfare reform needs to come a review of wages, the abolition of zero hour contracts and a change in working conditions (which would actually get people off benefits in a positive way), rent caps for private landlords, childcare costs and then, only then, can the safety net of the welfare system be reformed properly and without the horrific side effect of causing people already in poverty to suffer more.

But nobody ever thinks about that do they? It’s far easier to rail at the bogeyman presented in the media.

and then, only then, can the safety net of the welfare system be reformed properly

I agree completely. Right now they’re doing it the wrong way round by removing benefits without having the ‘carrot’ of better working conditions.

If I was in charge, I’d be slowly phasing out TCs with a commensurate year on year increase in MW. I’d be building social housing (which pays for itself) and ploughing the money back into it. I’d be cracking down hard on slum landlords. I’d be improving access to education of all types and routes at all ages. Id be closing tax loopholes and Chasing companies like amazon to pay their sodding taxes and have a tax framework that makes them do so . I’d be doing everything I could to create a more secure, better educated, better skilled workforce that can command higher wages.
With that comes a reduction in the number needing help. Help should always be available for those in genuinely dire straits. What we have now though is working people whose employers should be paying them a decent fucking wage having to be topped up by the taxpayer. That’s just shit.

If I was in charge, I’d be slowly phasing out TCs with a commensurate year on year increase in MW. I’d be building social housing (which pays for itself) and ploughing the money back into it. I’d be cracking down hard on slum landlords. I’d be improving access to education of all types and routes at all ages. Id be closing tax loopholes and Chasing companies like amazon to pay their sodding taxes and have a tax framework that makes them do so . I’d be doing everything I could to create a more secure, better educated, better skilled workforce that can command higher wages.
With that comes a reduction in the number needing help. Help should always be available for those in genuinely dire straits. What we have now though is working people whose employers should be paying them a decent fucking wage having to be topped up by the taxpayer. That’s just shit

Yes! All of this!

What most people frothing at the mouth about benefits don’t seem to understand it that the vast majority of people on benefits are nothing like the caricature examples trotted out in the media and on channel 5 (propaganda, and it’s working a treat!) and are in fact in a shit situation and trying to get by.

Which is exactly why it should stop at two children. Most of the people in receipt of benefits are rational, sensible people who are just as capable of planning their families, budgeting and economising to what they can afford just like working people.

But the limit discourages the minority who see more children as little walking money bags. Under the last Labour government there were far too many examples of people churning out babies apparently for benefits because when they arrived they appeared to have little regard for their health, welfare or education or even bothered knowing their whereabouts. I don’t care that it’s a minority, even promoting policies that encourages even a minority of children to be consigned to a childhood like that is wrong.

I agree 100% with the 2 child limit.

The world is overpopulated as it is.

Plus, we all have to make sacrifices based on what we can afford.

Dh and I both work (& don't claim benefits/tax credits) but there's still no way we could afford a third child without drastically reducing the opportunities available to the two we already have.

Why not look at it the other way? We should all be grateful that the state will financially support us in having 2 children - should we need the help - rather than whinging that we can't have 3 or 4:

With that comes a reduction in the number needing help.

I’m not sure about that. Creating a hostile environment for business might well mean they left and a lot more people needed more help.

You do know rent costs are dependant on if there are jobs, so basically low rent area generally = no jobs, high rent areas were there are jobs. Its the stupid government policy of have everything in the South East rather then encourging stuff to the other major cities like Manchester Leeds Birmingham etc Other then a select few industries why does everything have to be in London?

The cap isn't stopping people though, many are still having more than two children even if already claiming. It doesn't seem to enter into their heads the impact on their children, the fact they can't afford them as already receiving assistance or the fact a job loss or divorce could plunge them into a bad situation money wise. Their wants over ride all.

Highering NMW may help a few but will simply push the prices up elsewhere as skilled jobs will raise in salary as they would have too. Food etc increasing then. It wouldn't suddenly give all those not working or doing part time a work ethic.

No, stop allowing all those benefit scroungers to eat, reproduce etc. We can't afford it, and yet we can manage to find 1.75 million to bomb Syria etc.

What would help is bring in strict rent caps, proper landlord restrictions like the continent make it un attractive for have a good hobbyist landlords which would lower house prices, less rich people buying up all the cheap housing for rental propeties means more to go around.

Bring in compulsively purchase orders on these stupid investment to leave empty rubbish (you buy a flat leave it empty for a few years and flip it for a profit shit) make the housing economy for people looking for homes not investments.

If some people have to lose money so be it they most likely benefited in the good times they need to suck up the pain in the bad times.

I don’t care that it’s a minority, even promoting policies that encourages even a minority of children to be consigned to a childhood like that is wrong

Even if it condemns the majority to suffer for the actions of the minority?

It needn’t be a hostile environment for business at all. I’m pro capitalism, just with a few checks and balances on it and the more rapacious tendencies reigned in.

What we have now is a massively weakened manufacturing sector - that can and should be re expanded. We don’t need to compete at the bottom end because frankly, we can’t - there are plenty of places that can have lower standards than us. What we need is higher tech manufacturing and we are GOOD at that when we are allowed!

Example: wind turbines. UK tech, UK r and D. Are they built here? No. We need to be investing in stuff like the wave power technology harvesting that’s being done up in Orkney. In pharma, in R and D. Higher tech manufacturing that has oodles of back supply chain and lower skilled jobs to feed it.
It can be done! It can be a business friendly country, paying better wages, with a better skilled workforce (who will pay more tax..)

Employers who pay shit wages can be divided into ones that are geographically confined here (you can’t outsource a coffee shop or a nursing home) and ones that are exploiting the UKs low wages but don’t need to be based here. The latter can feck off. The former... trickier. Personally I think that increased tax take should go to things like personal care.

You look at countries like the nordics and they have decent wages, high productivity and decent safety nets. Or countries like Switzerland - different social and tax model but still high QoL.

It can be done. It just needs the top 1% to stop asset stripping and he country to be run in the interests of the people who live here. Business can boom, and people can live better. It just needs the political will.

It's not an endless pot of money, there has to be a line drawn somewhere. If you can't afford a child, then you don't have one. If contraception is used properly it's reliable, use both forms if you have to. Obviously there are awful situations that women end up in through no fault of their own but they are rare. The cap is there to stop people exploiting the system by having more children to obtain further benefits. A cap makes it fair to both those who pay for it and those who use it.

But MightyMucks there are more factors involved where poverty lives that affect how many children people have. There is, IMO, a higher chance of a children being even further disadvantaged in the poorest areas of the country by the 2 child cap. Because there are not enough incentives and education and prospects to discourage people from having those children. This is why I am so divided on the 2 child cap; because in principle I perhaps agree that the funding could be limited to 2 children to avoid people being able to have very large state funded incomes by having lots of kids, but in reality, in wears on me that people already living that life may well have further children. I don't know for sure how effective it is as a discouragement, and that's what worries me. Because I would rather pay taxes to ensure that all children have at least the possibility of a decent start in life. And if that means allowing a small disadvantaged proportion of the population to benefit by using their children as a source of income (which is of course reprehensible), it's a bullet I'm willing to take for the good of the children.

We don’t need to compete at the bottom end because frankly, we can’t - there are plenty of places that can have lower standards than us. What we need is higher tech manufacturing and we are GOOD at that when we are allowed!

Agree with this. Especially with the weaker pound.

Contraception. sorry 😁