No tax credits for the third child. Does that mean some women will never be able to work?

[HowFurloughCanYouGo]

I just wondered if someone could explain it to me. I realise I'm being a bit thick.

Imagine someone who is still on tax credits, not UC. They have 5 children, 3 of which were born after the 3rd child cut off date for tax credits.

Single mum and she wants to go to work for the first time since the first child was born (this is a completely fictional person by the way).
If they don't have tax credits for the third fourth and fifth child, does that mean she wouldn't be able to work? Because she wouldn't have money for childcare?

How does that work?

Our household income is high yes, however we have several children .

Okay so that is basically my point.

I said I don't think it really takes £70 a week for a third or fourth child, because a lot of the things that need paying for have already been paid for.

You came back with your budget, which if you had 3 children would be over £21,000 a year just on children. And like you said that doesn't include car, living expenses, mortgage etc. The figure you gave was purely child related needs.

Sorry, I'm calling bullshit. Surely you can see that since a huge amount of people are only earning £20k, that spending £20k on three children before any actual living expenses is not how the vast majority of people live.

That's what tax credits were supposed to be for, no? To elevate "everyone" to the same sort of level?

To make sure children didn't go without and had a decent standard of living?

Not to elevate the whole population to your entirely unrealistic level of lifestyle.

I maintain what I said in my original post, the more children you had, the better off you were at the end of the month. Particularly when you take into account that often the families most in need were already entitled to housing benefit at full rate, free school meals, uniform grants, council tax rebates etc.

They are still getting £154 a week in tax credits and CB, with £15 per additional child above 2. And any children above two need to be worked into the budget, which is how anyone not entitled lives

I would never plan my finances and affordability of family size around any form of reliance on taxpayer funds. I had a third child I wasn't planning. I went back to work because I earn over six figures, my husband earns slightly less. We were paying over 3k a month on childcare for 12 hours a day. I've now given up work because I didn't want to outsource their whole childhood. If I earnt anything less than about 80k, it would not have been worth it at all (post tax income ~47k, childcare ~ 36k). Not sure why that is a surprise to anyone.

Well, if this lady has five kids and they are all very young, maybe she is better off staying home with them anyway. It would be horrendously expensive to get daycare for that many of them. That's why most people these days don't have five kids. The government has every right to use money as a way to promote beneficial social goals.Smaller families are better for the environmen, so that's reasonable. Perhaps she and her partner can alternate day and night shifts, as some have suggested. When the are older, she may find that her first jobs don't pay that much, but if she is diligent, they may lead to better paying work

peperethecat you mean like Boris... he has a few... and Jacob Rees Mogg... etc...

I literally don't know any middle class professionals with five kids. Middle class professionals tend to care about things like each child having their own bedroom, being able to go on family holidays, maybe even private school, and so they tend to decide they can't afford five kids.

No, but plenty who lose their jobs will be looking to claim UC, their kids rooms will be shared when they have to downsize or are repossessed. Men do piss off with ow too, the mc aren't sheltered from this.

It's ok to say don't have them if you can't afford them, we are heading for high unemployment and those who have been less than supportive to people like the OP, will be hopefully be treated the same as they have others.

OP To answer to your original question, she should could afford to work if she has a very highly paid job. If she is on minimum wage then she wont be able to afford it, but she choose to have 5 children.

What would you like us to say OP?

That yeah, fine, go ahead have 4,5,6 kids because that’s what you feel like doing? Cos ickle bubbas are oh so cute, and it’s much more easier to just stay home having more babies rather than working.

But of course eventually even the youngest one starts school and it gets a bit dull being home all day so you want to pop back into the workplace and earn enough to pay for wraparound care?

You’re living in an imaginary world along with your imaginary characters

There's no working hours requirement for the 3 year old free 30 hours tumbleweed, only earnings. It's set at 16 hours NMW but you could qualify if you earned that in an hour of work a week. We got it when one of ours was 3 even though I worked fewer than 16 hours.

@BeyondMyWits If you went to Eton you don't qualify as middle class.

Don't get me wrong, I think both Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg have too many children, but they don't need to worry about whether they can afford them.

Not so cut an dry as “don’t have children if you can’t afford it”

Actually, I think it is. I stopped at two because I couldn’t afford it and guess what I had to use childcare vouchers. Brought through work scheme. No other help available With fees, no free hours and no family help. It was tough but do able

3 of which were born after the 3rd child cut off date for tax credits.

More fool them.

Can someone here please explain to me why no one says anything if a poor person has 2 children, its considered ok? But not 3,4,5? Why the arbitrary number? Is it cos its a god given right to have 2 children but then after the second child, unless you can pay for it yourself, tough luck? Surely for the taxes we pay, we should support all families, irregardless of size.

No, but plenty who lose their jobs will be looking to claim UC, their kids rooms will be shared when they have to downsize or are repossessed. Men do piss off with ow too, the mc aren't sheltered from this.

And those who only have two children rather than five will be better able to weather the storm when it hits.

That's why it's important to think not just about how many children you can afford now, but how many children you would be able to afford if your financial circumstances changed.

I wouldn't begrudge anyone two children.

Can someone here please explain to me why no one says anything if a poor person has 2 children, its considered ok? But not 3,4,5?

Good question.

I think that genuinely poor people can't afford kids at all, but we shouldn't be telling people that they're not entitled to have a family, just like everybody else, just because they're poor.

Two children is a reasonable number. It's the number a lot of better off people who don't claim benefits stop at to ensure that their first child has a sibling but that they can still provide financially for both their children.

If people who don't claim benefits make the sensible financial decision to stop at two and not overstretch themselves, I think it's reasonable to expect people who do claim benefits to stop at two as well.

If the government did fund 100% of childcare costs for all five children, it would be so expensive, the government would probably be better off just paying the mum to stay at home full time.

Given this is a fictional person it's hard to provide specifics.

The change came in April 2017, so 3 kids under 3, the older 2 could be anything from 4-20 in theory.

So option 1

• older kids do childcare evenings and weekend

Option 2 assumes older kids are under 10

• family outside the home or DCs other parent provides childcare outside of their working hours to allow, evening/weekend/pastime work.

Option 3
-wait till youngest is eligible for free nursery hours and work part time term time

Option 4

• get a job that pays well enough to cover private nursery hours and wrap around school care around free provision

Obviously the ideal would have been a long term committed relationship with no relationship/marital difficulties and only enough children as can be afforded but there's lots of different scenarios that would take people from ideal -> not ideal that can't be anticipated or planned for, ie job loss, infidelity, death, illness.....

@peperethecat but who decides 2 children is a reasonable number? For myself, I have always planned to have an only child.So for me, 1 is perfectly reasonable. Some people think 2 is reasonable, others think 3. I don't think the state should be deciding the reasonable number of children for a poor person to have. There are better ways to control population growth. i.e. education for women. In countries like Japan, Korea, Singapore and Hongkong, the birthrate is incredibly low even when the government pay women to have babies. And this is across all socioeconomic classes.

but who decides 2 children is a reasonable number?

An awful lot of people who don't rely on the taxpayer to pick up the bill.

For myself, I have always planned to have an only child. So for me, 1 is perfectly reasonable.

One child is a perfectly reasonable number. But I do think society would become a bit odd if all children were only children and there was basically no such thing as siblings. I'm not saying only children are weird or that there's anything wrong with just having one child, but I think a society in which all children are only children (and the next generation have no cousins either) would be very weird indeed.

Plus then you get a population imbalance problem, like in China where you now have a relatively smaller number of working age adults expected to support an awful lot of ageing parents and grandparents.

So, fine as a choice for you but at a societal level I don't think widespread one child families are a great idea.

And I don't think three is an unreasonable number, if you can afford it. If there are any doubts about whether you can afford it, you shouldn't deliberately have a third though.

Also, I said before that I don't think the state should be controlling population growth, but it aggravates me that people don't take more personal responsibility.

Surely for the taxes we pay, we should support all families, irregardless of size

Of course not - why should we !

@peperethecat the china policy was never a 1 child policy, it was a 1.5 child policy. Minorities could have 2 children and so could rural people (most people were rural). I once met a chinese guy who had a sister (and apparently it was because his father was a doctor!?). And the gender imbalance was due to cultural attitudes of son preference, esp in the rural areas. The population imbalance has a lot to do with the fact that Asian countries don't do social care provision so like 100% of it is on the kid. If it was the same in the UK, it doesn't matter if you have siblings, most people are going to struggle to provide for their parents in their old age (think paying no NHS, full medical bills, round the clock care). The problem is that China is not a First World county unlike the UK, less developed countries don't have the resources for a comprehensive welfare state or the infrastructure. Aging societies like Germany are still functioning relatively well because thankfully they got rich before they got old. China is going to get old before they get rich. Germany can also rely on immigrants (poorer countries have more children). China isn't so open minded about immigrants.

Shox wins the thread 😂😂

Two children is a reasonable number because governments have to budget for pensions and elderly care, which are actually funded by the current working population, not from the taxes and NI paid by OAPs during their working lives.

If the birth rate decreases you get a pensions time bomb. Two children per couple is a replacement population rate.