Labour are lifting the 2 child benefit cap

[PuppyKeep]

AIBU that this is a terrible decision?

I worked part time for a few years when DD was young and recieved working tax credits,

So you must then be able to grasp that there are other parents like you? Who received benefits but spent them as intended.

It's baffling the about of posters who received help but begrudge others getting jt.

If you are one life event away from having to live in penury, maybe having more children isn't the best idea?'

The vast majority of people would fall
into this category.

Child minders, family and nursery's I expect.
The first thought of some people is what benefits can I get - not how can I provide for myself and my child

I am sure you take as much as anyone else.

I have been trying to find someone to tell me what is the advantage of keeping children living in poverty.

As far as I can see, it is to visit vengeance upon the heads of the children to make them suffer for the presumed misdeeds of their parents.

Is there some other advantage that I have missed?

Why wouldn't you want children to be out of poverty? Do you lack empathy or something?

When the government tried to put the welfare reform bill through, before it got watered down again and again by the backbenchers, it was thought it would save £5 billion.

To do that they were going to severely reduced eligibility to pip and reduce health related benefits on UC to new claimants and completely refuse them to those under 22.

They cut winter fuel allowance to pension credit levels, a policy that sank the party's popularity, to save just £1.5bn.

That's how you save £5bn and £1.5bn. So how do you fill a £40bn gap in the finances, add an additional £3.5bn to push this policy through and service our debt at staggeringly high interest rates?

It's not like I think it's a bad thing to spend money on kids who don't have much money. But this growing hole in the budget, made bigger last night, will be coming at a cost to taxpayers and also claimants in the form of cuts - so I would like to know how this has been costed and who's paying for it?

We know Darren Pocket Money Jones has been poached from the treasury to specifically to have another go at cutting disability benefits. Peter, meet Paul.

Tell me about it! I'm sick of hearing about these mothers and their immaculate conceptions! But the women aren't victims, they are benefit frauds! Somebody from my home city was in court for this sort of fraud the other day, she had a partner that she kept quiet about, the DWP found out and demanded £30k of benefits paid back.
You need to realise that these dads aren't absent as such, the dad is in league with the mother to make sure the benefits system picks up the tab!

Has the cap stopped families having more children? I think it's obvious that no, it hasn't. All it does is keep a huge number of children living in poverty.

The children are the issue here and need supporting.

People get very upset about the Government "wasting" money on benefits and yet projects that really do waste money go pretty much unchallenged by the public.

Look up how much money has been thrown away and continues to be thrown away on HS2 for example.
Now that really is a scandal to get cross about, that money could be best used elsewhere!

Sadly this policy is likely to increase the number of children suffering. Don’t you see that? By incentivising extremely low income families to have more children you end up with an even bigger pool of disadvantaged children - therefore there is even less state support to share between them.

How will we pay for it @PigletJohn? That hasn't been answered.

Why have loads of kids if you live in poverty? That's a massive parenting issue. I've somehow managed to not get pregnant again after two.
As for 'What is the advantage of keeping kids in poverty?' Why do parents waste what money they do get on stuff that doesn't benefit their kids? Here's a PS5! 😭 I can't afford to send him a packed lunch in 😭 Priorities.

Take away the amount spent on takeaways, alcohol, drugs, unnecessary stuff, I'm proof that, in my area, as a parent of two kids, i had plenty. Never had a penny from their dad as he left the area when we broke up and he quit his job, got someone else pregnant and the benefit life started there (and continued there!). There's another way to 'keep kids from poverty', make the damn dad pay up.

It can never be as black and white as to whether the cap should stay or go, Good parents will always spend sensibly, the rogue ones will always want more and waste more. Rogue ones having big families because they get paid to have kids, results in more people who grow up work shy because benefits give them the easy life. Look are civilisation now, people are always complaining how more rude others are, selfish, entitled, vandals.... That's what you get more of. The wiser, more responsible ones will keep child numbers low so they're able to give them the best of everything.

Not having a child benefit cap created a rise in large benefit families! People that don't work and have numerous kids, those kids didn't have much of a life and roamed around as ferals. If there's no financial incentive, it stops people having kids that will have little quality of life and be pretty much in poverty from birth.
That said there was a news article yesterday of a woman sat on benefits crying that her £800 penalty from her sons school for taking him out to Disneyland Paris would leave her even more "impoverished" than they already are! She could try getting a job or making the kids typically unmentioned dad pay towards his kid! It's getting out of hand when non workers on full benefits can afford trips to Disneyland that many working families can't.

I know a lot of people are against it but if the benefit wasn’t cash paid direct to the family it would be much less appealing.

Food/clothing vouchers and more investment in early years services seems a better way of spending the (non-existent) money, helping those who genuinely need it in a way that can’t be taken advantage of.

We also really need a better way of forcing absent parents (usually but not always men) to pay for their offspring.

It does depress me that it’s all seen to be about money though. Nobody in government ever seems to look at why this kind of generational poverty - of money and aspiration - exists. (And it does exist beyond the pages of the Daily Mail whatever some people on MN think). They pay lip service with a few reports but nothing ever changes.

The problem is that regardless of the cap, people are going to have kids they can’t afford and be shitty irresponsible parents. It’s not the child’s fault that they are born into that.

The cap didn't make a difference anyway and those families still have the kids. I have seen someone on tiktok having five kids in a two bed house with neither working and it is a tip.

Still no sign of an advantage.

But doubling down on the vengeance.

Still no word on how we are going to pay for this.

There was concern not long ago from Labour about benefits going up. As a way to sell in welfare cuts. What happened to that concern?

Still no word on how there is a benefit from keeping children in poverty.

1995. Still have panic attacks about it now

If your concern is the highest earning households having fewer children, which may actually be an issue. Why is this policy change the right one?

It’s aimed at the lower income end.

Also once we have found a way to make absent parents pay for their children benefits need to be adjusted accordingly. Or the state should pay and reclaim the money.

There are decent dads out there paying maintenance and the children's mother is working part time or being a sahm and then getting universal credit. Financially these families are better off that those that stay together. I don't criticise them btw. They are doing nothing against the rules. It is the system that is wrong.

It works the same way when it comes to getting loans for university etc.

Piglet, it would be far better to invest the money into holiday care with meals for example, supporting the children in bedsits. Getting families into secure housing. Looking after the struggling families not encouraging more.

I don’t know how many different ways I can explain this to you. It’s a very poor, ill thought out policy aimed I assume at those that think these people are potential reform supporters…

I don't think we all think everyone should be a net contributor. Then we would have a surplus. I think the thing people object to is the number of people who think it is ok to contribute nothing.