Getting paid £3513.72 tax free per year for each 3rd, 4th or more child if on UC

[WishingIwasyoungerandslimmer]

Is this really reasonable? For those working and just missing the eligibility criteria for Universal Credit, is it fair to them?

When would anyone working and just gettig by, be able to get an additional take home pay amount of £3513.72 per year for each child that you have? Have three children? Here's £10541.16. Got 4? That's £14054.88 . Have 5? Here's £17568.60. These figures are tax free amounts so the extra pay needed will be a lot more.

Did those calling for the two child cap to be lifted not understand the amounts of money that will be handed out if lifted?

Doesn't it just disincentivise parents from moving off Universal Credit into work or for those in work to try and get better paid jobs?

Isn't it a slap in the face for couples having to limit their family size to one or two children and to have to both work full time to support them through paid labour and paying taxes?

Surely if the government felt forced to scrap the two child cap, why not instead have reduced rates for each subsequent child? Apart from food, other costs will be less as the each new child has the use of older siblings old clothes, baby equipment etc.

The two child cap was popular for the majority of the country. It was popular with those that would have liked to have more children but cannot afford to do on the wages/salary they receive. Now over the next few years as it gets harder and harder to get by for those in work but not receiving benefits, the resentment will grow and grow. While those recipients of the UK's welfare state's largesse are saying, thank you very much, no need now for me to try and find work or work harder.

Agreed, if there was more childcare provided by the state that was easily accessible for parents, then they could work full time and less would need to claim universal credit in the first place as less people would need to work part time in order to be able to drop off and pick up children from school,. Surely cheaper to pay for a few adults to provide child care in a school and they could increase the minimum hours you need to work to be eligible for universal credit and people would be paying more in tax

This!!!!

There should be affordable childcare and something like Sure Start brought back too

Each child is already a British citizen and entitled to care in their own right. We provide a minimum amount of money to care for our children. It’s a GOOD thing.

But this is distributed so disproportionately . It's not consistent at all. You have people on benefits with much higher net incomes than an identical family who earn more from their job but aren't entitled to benefits
Why is it ok for some families to struggle but not others?

There's something badly wrong with the system

You know the 30 subsidised hours a week are worth thousands per year right? Happy to be corrected, but to my knowledge I could use that for as many children as I like too…

When DD1 went to nursery, we paid £900pcm for 30 hours per week at nursery. At the time there was no support until she was 2 (15 hours and then 30 hours when she turned 3)

We have 2 DDs in nursery for 40 hours per week now and pay £1,000pcm thanks to the funded hours. Both of them get 30 subsidised hours and it starts from 9m old. I think that’s more costly to the tax payer than the benefits for 2 children, and I bet of those who are negative about the cap, loads take the subsidised hours!

Im glad its been lifted.

I’d feel more content if the money was given in the form of vouchers- so it HAD to go on the child. Or into an account that could only be used for housing/ food/ childcare. No one has looked into it (afaik) but I suspect the birth rate is actually mainly falling in the squeezed middle. They just can’t afford to keep paying for everyone else’s irresponsible life choices 🤷‍♀️

In the county I work in (notoriously poor, one of the lowest average reading ages in the country, very low life expectancy, high rates of UC claimants) a lot of mums do want to work but can’t because there is literally no childcare. It’s a vicious circle. Because historically there has been very low rates of employment, nurseries/childminders/wrap around care has never taken hold, and so the cycle continues. Even when their kids start school, if wrap around/holiday care doesn’t exist, is too far away or is too expensive, parents, especially mums are still kept out of the job maket. Sadly, most jobs in this area are low skilled and hence not often standard 9-5pm office job with flexible working/ability to work from home.

Using taxes to pay for high quality, large volume, easily accessible, long opening childcare in all areas of the country would both tackle the poverty gap (it’s a phenomenon that poor kids slip further behind in every school holiday) while allowing more parents to work. But this would cost a lot - far more than lifting the child limit cap.

So, for those against removal of the child limit cap, would you be happy to pay more tax for a proper thought out childcare plan, and heck, even more tax again to redistribute good jobs away from the major cities to poorer, smaller towns and cities and even more tax again to build mass, publicly owned housing and even more tax again to fix old crumbling schools? Or what would you actually think a good solution, beyond mass sterilisation? Because a) poverty is really flipping complex and b) I would hope most people in this country are not in favour of allowing kids to starve.

Which is exactly why CB shouldn’t be means tested at all.

Exactly!
Its mad that someone in London on 80k wouldn't get any CB yet their neighbour is essentially being paid the equivalent of a 100k salary in UC "to lift them out of poverty".

It's not child benefit. It's the child element of UC which is around £300 per month.

And we need children who are being brought up in working households, otherwise the kids will just go on benefits themselves as they have no role models.

Lots of people on benefits are working. My mother was on benefits for a few years when my father left her with 4 children and she would never have been able to afford the child care if she went to work full time. She returned to work when she didn't have small children. We all grew up to have jobs.
There are a few people who don't want to work and won't and will play the benefits game, but this is far outweighed by people who are working or have a temporary gap between working due to circumstances

I would have felt raising the personal allowance to £15000, would be better than removing the cap. At least that would put more money in the pockets of working people.

This is not the way the system works at all.
Over half of the benefits expenditure goes on pensioners. The rest goes between non working people/families, low income working people/families, and disabled communities.
If someone is working and not entitled to benefits, it's because their wage takes them over the maximum benefit threshold. The idea that people on benefits have a higher income than working people is incorrect.
A capitalist society will always have a proportion of people struggling.

Agreed!

I said that we need children with working parents which your mother was. Even if she wasn't working all the time, she knew that she would eventually work and so would have instilled a work ethic in her children.

Student loan affects your benefits. Incidentally I think this is madness.

So did they scrap the limit you can earn to claim it ..so everyone can have as many children as they like ..make it fair for all ..
Or is this just a way of grabbing votes for next time

Yes and I’ve come across this already on social media which is of course disappointing to see when it is tied to racism.

I have also seen discussions about cultures that encourage inter family breeding in the uk which results in disabled children who of course need care and looking after and often these family claim benefits to do so.

If the benefits are at the taxpayers expense though, I feel that discussions should be had and shouldn’t be squashed for the fear of appearing racist.

It just doesn't work unless you're in a communist society.

Expecting a care worker in London to make enough to sustain a family of five means, according to the government top ups, they need to earn about £125k.

Should we pay workers based on their family size? Who will hire them? Can you afford the fees at that nursery? Because employers can't provide a service that no one can afford to pay.

So if you're paying fees that are in line with her wages, how much do you need to earn? £250K?

Every society has different levels of pay for different types of labour. It's not employers underpaying, it's how societies operate.

A responsible citizen has the number of children that align with their financial wealth. Of course things happen that make choices made yesterday incompatible with life today. Hence benefits.

But other people make choices today because of benefits.

And that's not ok.

People need to stop pretending it doesn't happen because it absolutely does.

And the system tops up so much that it's a complete trap.

When people say you're better off on benefits, you often are. To make yourself £1000 a month better off you need to earn an extra 20K. Who can do that overnight?!