Labour are lifting the 2 child benefit cap

[PuppyKeep]

AIBU that this is a terrible decision?

Overall welfare spending is very high, borrowing us high. Labour said something about bringing the former down. Why has that changed?

Yeh, I don't believe in paying people to have kids or making people feel obligated. As we already know, the benefits system in this country has financially incentivised people to breed and lead to a life on benefits that they don't get back out of.

A single parent renting in london with 3 children currently working FT on minimum wage can actually be 'taking home' same as someone earning £80k.

And the government wants to tax the 80k person more.

A lot of us come from different eras where parents took responsibility! I never grew up in schools that had free school dinners, everyone had to have dinner money. I usually had a mix of pack up or walking home for dinner. The reliance on benefits before the mid 90's isn't what it is now! Parents cut their cloth accordingly and dad's worked hard!

How do you work that out though! My partner and I have careers, pay taxes, when I was made redundant last year I couldn't claim anything as the stipulations for £75 a week were impossible and wasn't ripping up my CV and hiding my profession. We don't have kids so we don't get a penny of any kind of benefit. We don't have NHS dentists around here so we have to pay private! Please tell me what it is we are taking?

Instead of given extra money to individuals households, it needs to go on providing wraparound childcare. All families can benefit from this, and could be free / heavily subsidised for low income families. Children can be guaranteed 3 meals a day, and it allows/ forces parents to go out and work.
Having multiple children is a choice not a right. Have as many kids as you like , but it’s your responsibility to make sure you can provide for them. We are so incredibly lucky that we have access to free contraception.

Living in London, with 3 children, renting. If I was to work 16 hours in a min wage job, I would get £850 per month plus 3444. 59 in benefits. (My rent is £2100). So total take home £4294 per month.

In addition, my children would be eligible for additional support at school, I would also have more time with them.

If I was to work FT, I would need to have a job earning £70,698 per annum to have the same take home pay.

It doesn't make sense.

Those £70k jobs haven't increased their wages as much as the lower end jobs. Yet this government wants to penalise those people on 70k.

We have 3 beautiful DC. Never claimed a single penny of benefits

According to the Times yesterday scrapping would cost as much as £3.5billion. I often hear that this is only about child benefit but the UC element is worth about £300 a month. According to the article approx 15,000 have 6, 4800 with 7, 1800 with 8 and 700 with 9, 424 with 10 (with eligibility for 35k in extra benefits. According to the ONS it is typically it is Bangladeshi and Pakistanis that have the largest families and I would guess this goes hand in hand with women not working in these groups. This leads me to think that’s this proposed scrapping has to do with votes.

in any event not only can we not afford it, we shouldn’t be encouraging it. There is a high like that these children will themselves have poor outcomes.

Reform-ists as in supporters of Reform.

I’m well aware that there is no e.g. automatic bereavement benefit. But if a parent of children lost their spouse and there was no longer any money coming in, they would likely be eligible for benefits (unless they had significant savings).

I’m also well aware that not everyone will get anything more than basic unemployment benefit, if their household income is above the threshold (or if working in a professional job has allowed them to accrue savings).

I’m also a professional with no children, who makes very few demands of state services. I’m there but for the grace, so I don’t go around railing against people getting help to eat or keep a roof over their heads.

I’m glad you were able to get back into work in around the time people are advised to have savings to cover.

I don't particularly like the policy, as I do worry it encourages people to have too many children.

However, on balance, I support it as I don't think children should be punished for their parents poor choices and it is by far the most effective way of cutting child poverty.

I wasn't privately educated and free school dinners weren't really a thing because you had to be on a very low income and benefits to get it in earlier decades! Not many kids were entitled to it and parents had pride and worked! Dad's worked full time, mums worked part time so most people didn't fit the criteria to have free school dinners! The modern day culture of self entitlement is why free school dinners are now more of a thing is because so many people are deliberately having kids they can't feed and won't work to pay for.

Free School dinners were introduced by legislation in 1906.

Congratulations on your long life.

But whatever you think of the parents it is the children who are suffering as a result of this cap, the future workers and will be helping pay our pensions. Is it really fair on the children??

Unfortunately I moved house which ate a lot of my savings and found out they were shutting our plant down two months after I moved! So now I'm trying build savings up again.
I'm not a professional but for the grace of god! I've worked my way up difficult ladders as female that worked in male dominated industries, ive sat exams and even spent £1300 of my own money on courses. I put me where I am!
I take verbal abuse reports from bank staff, most of the problems are caused by unemployed people on long term benefits kicking off and I get sick of hearing how much money they have free to draw out and spaff every month, I regularly hear about them drawing out thousands! Why are people who are fully reliant on benefits having thousands of disposable cash left over! So yes I feel like the piss is being taken! They aren't as desperate as you paint them to be, many are raking it in!

It's a ridiculous thing to do, she can't whine about the £20bn (or is it 40, 50?) black hole then make it £3bn bigger by doing this.

The definition of poverty is meaningless as it is just a median figure below an average, so there will always be children in "poverty".

DH and I never claimed it. Always earned too much

I don’t though. I think the money should be put into family planning services, childcare, helping mothers into work so they can earn and provide for their own children. Just giving out money doesn’t deal with the root cause of the problem.

It’s not about child benefit, it’s about additional universal credit for additional children. God forbid that forrin children shouldn’t go hungry. What a deeply unpleasant attitude.

With an aging population, and a lot of people not keen on immigration, we’re going to increase the birth rate. So I think the government should do all they can to facilitate family life. But affordable childcare and better parental leave might be a better way to do it.

It's about UC, not CB.
Any evidence for this statement?

Given how much average people are feeling the pinch, relative poverty (ie. earning 60% below median) would surely relate to poverty in actual real-world terms? But the Dept of Work & Pensions also tracks actual deprivation - as in, which areas of society include people who cannot afford to buy the absolute essentials.

Ah yes. Those pesky immigrants. There it is.

It is so frustrating on this thread to see how successfully vulnerable groups have been set against each other. Kids versus disabled people versus immigrants versus single mums versus lowest earners. All arguing over who gets the scraps without ever looking UP at the wealthiest in society who could make so many of these problems go away if they were taxed properly.

You haven't listened have you! Yes it was around but not many people qualified for it! You never heard of it when I was growing up in the 80s because not many families qualified for it! Back then parents didn't believe in sitting back and not working! Everybody I grew up with had a dad who worked, had a mum that worked part time! Parents were a lot more responsible in those days, council housing had low income families in that worked! None of these large benefit families that you get now where dad hides and mum doesn't work!
You need to understand that the demands on the state have changed! Not many used to get free school dinners but now kids are being mass produced by people who expect everybody else to feed them and pay for them!
Do you honestly tell yourself that life is the same now as it was in the 80's or 50's or 1906!