Labour are lifting the 2 child benefit cap

[PuppyKeep]

AIBU that this is a terrible decision?

Our declining birth rate is going to fuck the economy

It already has & this really want do anything to change it.

But there are lot more people who work and who are not getting UC that people who work and who are getting it.

Better hope the poor babies have a better work ethic than their parents.

Im not sure whether the system is the same but I received working-tax credits when my (now teen) was a baby. My DH worked full-time and I worked part-time.

I believe the threshold was also made higher for each baby. I knew married couples with professional jobs like teachers or nurses who had 3 children and received tax credits.

So it was (is?) definitely a benefit that helped working, including full-time working, families.

The birth rate is falling dramatically. Maybe it will encourage some of these working families who would have liked a third to go for it?

Do I think ALL parents who are eligible for CB will smoke it away? Don’t be bloody daft!

60% of households who are impacted by the two child child UC cap are in work.

Pretty much...
I work in welfare and the cap didn't stop people having more than 2 children anyway, so it was unnecessarily punitive.

No - if you can't afford to have a child, don't have one. Why should the state pay for your kids?

Why should the state pay for anything then? Why get pension credit if you didn't save for a pension? Why get social housing? There is either a safety net or there isn't.

It’ll be vastly different by the time the dc today are in the workplace. AI might mean we want far fewer entering it.

how about it’s restricted to those cases where both parents are working full time? I think the UK public would support that.

You do know that UC can be an in work benefit?

Getting some extra money might mean you get more food and probably go a bit more overboard at Christmas, but it's unlikely to mean the children suddenly become well educated, aspirational and later on, contributing members of society.

👏THIS is what I was trying to say. But you worded it much better. Encouraging low earners to have more kids is not good for society.

IT IS NOT JUST AN EXTRA £17 EXTRA PER WEEK FOR CHILD 3, 4, 5 ETC!

This is how the Labour rebels are pushing through their demands to abolish the two child cap on the child element of Universal credit.

It's not a cap on child benefit, it's a cap on the child element of Universal Credit.

Why should someone get an extra £292.81 a month, that is, £3513.72 tax free per year for each of their 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc child.

Surely each subsequent child, bar illness and disability, will be cheaper to fund, as they woul benefit from older siblings used baby equipment and clothing? If disabled, all children receive extra payments.

How does someone, who earns just over the limit for universal credit get an extra £3513.72 a year for every extra child that they have now or would like in future. Is their employer going to be benelovent and give them an equivalent pay rise? Is the government going to do so! Of course the answer is no to both questions!

What about the squeezed employed who are barely getting by being expected to make sacrifices and limit their children to the amount they can afford while those on universal credit can have as many as they want?

Labour talks about fairness. If they want to be fair they should strip the child element out of Universal Credit and instead increase significantly the amount of child benefit paid to all parents. Then those that want more children, which some say is needed for society to continue to function but others don't, are treated equally.

People are conflating child benefit with universal credit.

You do know of course the the 2 child limit had no effect on birth rate or benefit levels and only served to push more children into poverty. And of course that the lifelong effects of childhood poverty are potentially far more costly to the state than paying a few quid extra on Universal Credit.

It's a heinous, immoral poverty which doesn't even do what it set out to do.

but it's unlikely to mean the children suddenly become well educated, aspirational and later on, contributing members of society.

Wow, you think people on universal credit aren't contributing members of society?

I’m not anti welfare. I do think there should be recourse to them for people who genuinely need them. The very fact that the birth rate has fallen shows that people are being careful with family planning and the cap was one of the key reasons.

We shouldn’t be creating a dependency on benefits.

I do think the ‘work part time and top up with benefits’ culture is broadly unpopular (with people in full time work).

You often see posts here of people opting to work less because they prefer to use less childcare or similar - but then asking questions about what they can claim.

I’m not sure that’s really the point of the sustem.

should probably sterilise them.

So they should go without just because you had to?

Correlation is not causation.

We can’t afford it. It should stay for now.

Rape is a very rare exception? And even so, how many women honestly choose to continue the trauma and carry the child to term?

If you've got the money to raise 3 kids, surely you have a rainy day fund you can use temporarily until you get back on your feet?

'The research suggests that the availability of government support is only a minor factor in a family’s decision to have another child, and that reality is much more complicated than the policy assumes. Given the qualitative evidence above, it is not surprising that the two-child limit has had a minimal impact on fertility rates. It has however had a significant impact on the wellbeing of children in larger families'

https://cpag.org.uk/news/has-two-child-limit-affected-how-many-children-families-have

The policy has not significantly affected the number of children that people have had, it has just made children's lives worse.

And I utterly refute the notion that those on benefits are worse parents than those without.