Do you think we should life the two child benefit cap?

[Marshmallow4545]

I believe that the majority of people think that the cap should remain and child poverty should be tackled in different ways.

Personally I would like to see children on FSMs allowed free access to after school extracurricular clubs and activities. I would also provide more poor families with access to food banks and would look to stock these with a range of healthy and nutritious options either through donation or state funding if required. I would also look to recruit volunteers to offer advice on health and diet in these places. I would provide clothing and school uniform banks with high quality, second hand clothing that kids would actually want to wear. I have some branded 'fashionable' stuff my kids have grown out of that's still in great condition that I would happily donate.

All of the above in my view is preferable to lifting the cap and would be more effective in tackling the impact that child poverty has on the child.

So AIBU that the two child cap should remain and we should look at other more direct ways to tackle child poverty?

Alright I know I was just saying there’s no stigma around free school meals but what you’re proposing there definitely would be! Boarding schools only for the truly poor! It would be like something out of Oliver Twist 🤣

The unemployment figures are at 5m now.

No. They're not. Latest figures are 5%, 1.8m people.

We are on the point of an IMF bailout

No, we"re not. The UK has the 6th largest economy in the world valued by nominal GDP, US$3.76 trillion, and 18th by GDP per capita.

41/43% of families impacted by the cap don't have a parent working at all. Many more will only have one child working PT.

Sorry you've misunderstood these are all examples of why people might be in the situation they are in. This is not my life but people I've supported over the years.

Julen7 · Today 11:13
Why are you free to post on here whilst accusing someone else of “having too much time on their hands?” What point are you trying to make - you don’t work!

Replying to THIS post

Letting people on benefits claim for all the kids they aren’t paying for while taxing the actual people paying through the nose isn’t going to end well for the Labour Party UNLESS there’s a plan to reduce or freeze overall spending on benefits for 10-12 years.

So I would expect some painful times ahead for people on benefits who don’t have kids.

IMF bailout occurs when a country is in financial crisis and private lenders refuse to provide further loans. We are on the brink of this. GDP is irrelevant if your debt is too large to service and public spending is out of control.

We were the 6th largest economy in the 1970's and has to secure an IMF bailout in 1976. Unsurprisingly Labour were in power and it led to severe public spending cuts. Don't be so naive as to believe it won't happen again.

Yes but only if the parents are working- more help with childcare etc.

Sigh. The poster has said in a previous post they don’t work so why the whataboutery from you that they might be free to post as possibly not working a 9-5? They are RETIRED.

I’m baffled but don’t want to engage further, obviously a misunderstanding so let’s just leave it there.

Exactly this. Its pensions that are bankruping the country. Not hungry kids!

I meant after a day working in low paid employment it’s easy to say better yourself but when you’re exhausted it’s impossible. Most people on UC work.

Adding £3.5 billion to public spending certainly isn't helping. Hungry kids can be fed in other more effective ways without lifting the benefit cap.

You can already get help with childcare for child number 3 through UC. It's only thr child element you can't claim

Keep it. Don't reward people for having kids they can't afford. When you hand money to parents there is no guarantee it will ever reach their kids. Spend the money to address child poverty in other, more effective ways.

A very large proportion don't. Also lots work PT hours. If everyone who can work worked FT we wouldn't have the productivity crisis we have now.

Around 4.5 million children are currently living in poverty. This has a huge impact on their well-being, mental health, and attainment. The amount of young people I worked with in secondary schools who sleep without bed covers, wear clothes too small, have had police involvement because they have no hobbies and turn to antisocial behaviour, are illiterate, have poor personal hygiene, low self confidence, struggle with self harm is unfathomable. Most of the parents of these children did work but in low paid jobs. They need support. Not just financial but community support. Lifting the 2 child cap will not solve these problems, but it is a blooming good start.

This would not encourage people to have more children in the slightest. And even if it did, we have falling birth rates which will bring its own problems.

The 2 child limit should be lifted but a benefit cap remain. The impact of child poverty will cost us so much more in the long run than the cost of lifting the cap.

There’s not going to be an IMF bailout. It would cost half of the IMF’s total balance sheet. 🤣 Many other countries are in far more need with problems that actually do require help rather than just leaders starting to do their job with a minimum level of competence. Nobody is going to step in and save the UK, I’m afraid.

What will happen if this economic mismanagement continues, to which we’ve been subjected for decades now but gets worse with every iteration of supposed “government” - is that inflation and interest rates will go up simultaneously leaving the BoE with no room for manoeuvre, while productivity and growth continue to flatline and the budget deficit increases continually despite higher taxes, as will the trade deficit due to us shooting ourselves in the foot with Brexit knocking 6-8% of GDP per the latest analyses (imagine what that money could have done to resolve many of these issues?!), i.e. cost of living goes up, business investment goes down, unemployment goes up as will welfare, businesses do not expand or create the higher paying jobs we need, public services will become unsustainable even at current levels, skills shortages will rise as those who can emigrate/ cut hours due to punitive tax rates, and tax revenues will continue to fall turning these self-inflicted “black holes” into a supermassive black hole.

People will simply continue to get poorer and poorer across the whole of society as the doom loop accelerates and - based on recent threads here and commentary in the media - the electorate will continue blaming each other rather than demanding competent economic management from our politicians and supporting evidence-based policy solutions that would actually improve things.

Apparently people prefer to fight over crumbs of the imaginary unicorn cake and vote for politicians who promise they’ll give them a bigger one (even though it’ll still be invisible, of course), rather than each contribute one of the ingredients to bake a real loaf of bread together.

I don’t think we should lift it. The sooner people realise that your kids are your responsibility to fund the better.

That’s fair enough I can see where you’re coming from.
I’m from that target audience though (low income, FSM), and I’m not adverse to professionals at all. There’s place for both I think, but I would only go and talk to the volunteers if I’m actually going there anyway. Eg I can see them hanging about at a work festival or something.

A drop in clinic is something I would make a dedicated journey for. So I think it’s important to have both so that everyone can have access to help if they need it.

Around 4.5 million children are currently living in poverty. This has a huge impact on their well-being, mental health, and attainment
And here we go....how many of these 4.5M are actually living as well as those with parents with a higher taxable income?

Because again, the figures used to count someone as in poverty are misleading. It doesn't count child maintenance, it doesn't count cash and other benefits given by family members.

My old neighbour was 'in poverty'. Her kids enjoyed luxuries the average FT working families couldn't afford.

I think the productivity crisis is due to education. Quite often I meet people who don't care about school or their kids education. Some who are chomping at the bits for their younger relatives to leave school at 16, and claim UC when they turn 18.

YANBU. We stopped at one child, and waited until we were really quite ‘old’ parents before having that one, because we planned ahead, cut our financial cloth and wanted DD to have the best opportunities that we could possibly offer her, especially in today’s highly competitive world. Many of my friends - mostly dual income families - have done the same, having at most two DC. What I see around me, though - at DD’s school and in wider society- is others blithely having 3 or 4 children without giving a second thought to what those children’s future prospects are going to look like. I appreciate that it isn’t the fault of the children themselves, but what should the State prop up these parents’ poor (or indeed lack of) decision making? This is what lifting the two child limit effectively does, and given the tax rises that have been mooted alongside this measure we are directly penalising hard work and responsible decision making to pay for this.

Conversely, I do think we should be taking other, much broader measures that make the UK more family friendly in general and incentivise younger generations - not just those claiming benefits - to raise children.

Time and time again studies have shown that the best way to help people in poverty is to give them money. But people don’t like that because they think just because people are poor they don’t know what’s best for them.

What I said preemptively in my earlier post is that no child should be deprived of fundamental provisions like food because of their parents’ choices or perceptions. So if, by ‘that’s their issue’, you mean that’s the children’s issue, yes, it does, sadly, become the children’s issue, because they are the ones who suffer harm as a result of parental choices.

Exactly