To think adding more child benefits is a pointless and futile policy?

[MelissaExplainsItAll]

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/feb/26/parents-under-fives-could-be-exempted-two-child-benefit-cap-uk

I think child poverty would be better relieved in ways other than giving the parents more cash.

For example:

• better funded breakfast and after school clubs
• better funded nursery hours (banning top up charges)
• expansion of free school meals
• better school funding
• direct funding of school holiday clubs

AIBU?

Yes but the thread is not about people having children to claim benefits us it? It’s to discuss how best to support children from the poorest families. You seem incapable of imagining a life without the ability to work and earn your own money so I invented a scenario to help you.
If you no longer had your savings and couldn’t work how would you like your children to be supported?

I don't see how that relates to my question.

I am being a bit snippy but the point about better funded nursery hours and banning top up charges is rather tricky. My children are quite old now but I remember nursery being expensive - however the lady who ran the nursery was not wealthy. It’s really expensive to provide a nursery setting and it is largely staffed by women who are not particularly well paid. We need to value women’s labour more.

If we compel a business to provide a service for under the market rate (which is what banning top up charges will mean) they will opt out of providing that service.

The main driver of child poverty and the increase in child poverty is the 2 child benefit cap, Starmer knows it, everyone it, but just like they know that council Tax has become the new poll tax, they all sit on their hands. Giving children a bowl of porridge and a piece of fruit for breakfast will not stall the ever increasing deep and entrenched poverty and social inequality, nor will it reduce it.

Anyone interested in such matters should read this...

www.jrf.org.uk/uk-poverty-2025-the-essential-guide-to-understanding-poverty-in-the-uk

Poverty years ago was when kids had no shoes, no healthcare, starving etc. Nowadays it is defined as: "In the UK, poverty is defined as when a household earns less than 60% of the median income in the country"

So if you give those in poverty more money, the median moves up, thus poverty is always there and can never be solved no matter how much money you throw at it (or how much poorer you make others by ever increasing taxes). True poverty doesn't exist anymore in the UK.

Rubbish

Your essay is as irrelevant as it is boring

How about we just make it more affordable to live on one wage and people can decide if they'd rather work fewer hours or be a SAHP? Not to make it easier for them to work longer hours and have even less time with their families.

Parents in work should not require financial help from the government.

This is the problem. It now costs more than 2 salaries to raise kids... this can not work!
If working parents need benefits then the employment system is broken... which is being supported by the benefits system.

It's madness.

Interesting to read there that children are more likely to live in poverty than working aged adults or pensioners, and 45% of in large (3+) families were in poverty.

What can be done to discourage people who are poor and have two children from having more, if not a benefits stasis or cut?

What amazing job did you do to save 14 months of living expenses then? Is it something easy that lots of people could manage?

What amazing job did you do to save 14 months of living expenses then? Is it something easy that lots of people could manage?

I’m guessing you think this because you are too well off to be eligible for benefits? And/ or you don’t have more than 2 children.

There is a big difference in relative poverty and absolute poverty
I would hope no child in the UK goes to bed hungry and has adequate clothing and foot wear but that's very basic, dome kids are still living in very over crowded less than ideal living conditions

I am also cynical about the under-5s suggestion, but I think it's not the kicking the can down the line, it's that the general public are generally more sympathetic to babies and very young children. The problem Labour has is that research shows that the two-child cap is driving child poverty and their own activists and most of their MPs hate it - but it's an objectively 'popular' policy. 60% of the public back it - 70% of the over-50s, who are such a key demographic in voting terms. I think dropping it for under-5s is an attempt to make dropping it more palatable to the voters.

The vast majority of families with dependent children don’t have more than two. Only 14% have three or more.

I’m not in favour of any more cash benefits, to anyone.

Is the answer to give their parents bigger and bigger houses (meaning prioritising building those houses) when we have a huge housing shortage and thousands of kids living in B&Bs?

100% this. I'm sick of entitled people thinking they can keep having children (when they are skint) at everyone else's expense. Having a child is self indulgent IMO. Everyone has the right to be a parent regardless of income, but poor people shouldn't have more than 2. IMO if it wasn't funded eventually these inconsiderate breeders will reign it in.

I don't understand all the fuss about the two child cap. If you want more children than that, pay for them yourself!

It's a bad answer!! And oversight. As usual in the UK.

This is the thing for me, you have the amount of children you can afford.

In an ideal world where money is no object I would love a huge family, the reality is that we can’t really afford to have more than 2 children so we will only be having 2 children.

Haha ok.

Ive been saving from the age of 16 its not hard to put a bit a side every payday.
It soon builds up over the years.

From a child’s point of view, it is better to be born into a well off family. So they should be encouraging well off families to have more children by offering tax incentives out of wages. That would be in the best interest of the actual children born.
Encouraging poorer people to have more kids and then cutting benefits at 5, is just cruel both on those children and families.
And the big one is of course making men who have kids pay for their kids, not society. Contraception is widely available, if you choose not to use it, you pay.