To think the 2-child benefit cap is fine?

[RealHousewivesOfTaunton]

I was surprised to find out today that the 2-child benefit cap doesn't affect the housing element of UC or child benefit. With that in mind, what's the big deal with the cap? Parents need to take responsibility for not having more children than they can afford. The welfare state is still there if things go wrong.

Comprehension is clearly not a widespread skill.

Let's educate children in the value of work by ensuring they see their parents work. Hence evaluating policies that ensure the welfare state is a safety net and not a source of income over the lifespan of children.

We all agree that under 5s are expensive - targeted help at that stage from the state works. Calculating on state help to raise kids till adulthood is not healthy for adults or children. And sadly growing up in a home with non-working parents who are able to work sets children up for a lifetime of misery.

Kids need more than £200 to thrive so economic growth is the answer

And I am sure you can have more intelligent discourse beyond 'are you mad'

And I am sure you can have more intelligent discourse beyond 'are you mad'?

Course I can. But there are some occasions when it’s not worth it. This is one of them.

Abusing children for the perceived faults of the parents is mad. Or worse, bad.

Oh and child maintenance needs to be tightened up and enforced. That is clearly a huge part of the problem.
Living wages need to be paid by employers

As an example, a single mother with 4 kids can likely look after her family financially with a good median wage job, UC support for housing and 2 kids, child benefit for all 4 and child maintenence, especially if the kids are school age and after school club is subsidised.

Mumsnet needs an 'ignore' button

I always feel like a lot of MNers know all of them. Maybe it’s a very close knit community.

Apparently 0.3% of households (15000 households) have multigenerational persistent worklessness. Many reasons for that I am sure but government policy can attempt to help

Delving deeper though, From the Labour Force Survey:

In the LFS data, in 180,000 households (4% of the multigenerational households of working age), both generations are currently out of work and in 140,000 households both generations have been out of work for over a year. In data sources that track families through their working lives, sons with workless dads at age 10 to 16, spend 6-11% more time out of work from leaving full time education to 23 than sons with employed dads. They are also 15-17% more likely to spend a year or more in concurrent spells out of work during this period.

Kids can be expensive. Dependibg on circumstances you can soend way more than 3k from the uc and £800 from CB.
But realistically if parents were to have extra kids for 4k per child extra they are unlikely to be parents willing to put all childs needs and spending first.

The cost per child to the gov
800-1000 per year (assume 800 as these are child2 etc) =12800
4k x7 yrs primary= 28k
5k x7 yrs secondary= 35k
Then theres preschool assume 1k per month from 3. So 12k+
Nhs birth 3k
Then add this 3k x16 years for the UC

14years fsm @ say £2 per day £5320
Our secondary bus is say £800 so x7y = £5600
Total £149,720

So if gov dont oay the 3k uC its saving them 48k

4.3 MILLION children are living in poverty in the UK.

Do the 180,000 households have nearly 24 children each?

https://cpag.org.uk/child-poverty/poverty-facts-and-figures

I think there is a huge cultural element at play here that means that some families will always be expensive for the state. Removing benefit caps will simply make them more expensive.

There is often a reason why these large families are so big in the first place whilst relying so heavily on apparently insufficient benefits. They lack the sense of self responsibility that many other families have. This attitude extends to diet, education and exercise. It's not simply the case that throwing money at these families will automatically mean that all these cultural issues will be overridden.

Do people not take out life insurance policies or critical illness cover any more? It's a condition of most mortgages, and just common sense. It might not solve problems forever, but will bridge the awful period after a catastrophic change of circumstances before people can come back up for air.

What really needs to change is child maintenance, so that's harder to fudge and bears closer relation to what it actually costs to raise kids.

So we need to do everything we can about eradicating childhood poverty - including evaluating ways to ensure we don't add to that number

I am probably a net contributor and I feel the same that people should consider whether they can afford a 3rd child if their circumstances drastically change.