That a single parent having her salary topped up to over £6k shows how unaffordable family life now is

[Tryingtryingandtrying]

I was reading about a woman, take home pay if £2800 and topped up by UC to over 6k. This must be £100k or thereabouts equivalent before tax. How can this be fair when earning that much actually loses you child benefit and free childcare? As she has 3 kids she will now be even more better off, not sure what the answer is though.

I do think that children are a blessing, not a curse, and that people should be incentivised to have them. Given our demographics, we either breed, import young labour or get a lot poorer. There are no other choices (to put it bluntly).

But, I think housing and nursery subsidies should be based on a median national level, not adjusted for region (with exceptions for essential workers).

For most people, if they have 4 children, they need to move somewhere where housing is more affordable. Benefits shouldn’t subsidise people to live in expensive areas.

Or use something like a London weighting allowance same as public sector jobs.

A Google showed my ignorance - this is already in place.

Do you still think this given AI will change the workplace by the time the dc born today enter it?

How do you know it’s not just storing up higher unemployment

Now this I agree on - and was what we experienced in Denmark - people think it’s very expensive and they would be right with regards to eating out and drinking out - which is what tourists do - but other basics were actually more reasonable than UK - childcare ,( around £330 a month) utilities, transport, housing ( lots of good modern social housing in accessible areas with facilities) this is funded by much , much higher tax ( but no NI as such or council tax) so peoples take home was similar to UK ( wages a bit higher) but far less to then have to pay out on . It encouraged couples to both work, far fewer needing top ups, socially unacceptable for fathers not to pay if not together - far fewer ‘bits of part time’ as wrap around was good and nursery cheap - but it takes a totally different mindset to what the UK currently has - I can see a vast majority of over 60s here going apoplectic about paying 46% tax on anything on top of their state pension's and tax free allowance is really low too - but strangely you don’t see that many poor older swedes or Danes because their companies have to pay huge amounts into pension etc - I’m a Lib Dem voter and personally I find it outrageous that those earning over £100k can’t access funded hours, these are the people paying the most tax, so we end up pushing many towards salary sacrifice which is not far off tax evasion - I would ban salary sacrifice, I would also bring back child allowance for any income level, many country’s do this in EU. I also think half the population are off their rockers ! Who goes around having 3 or 4 kids and then insisting on living in central London in 1 bed flats ( and I love London) - and I don’t think we should be pandering to it too, especially when it’s not a post divorce emergency and is a lifestyle choice. Kids are being used by ‘some’ like ATMs, and I say this as someone socially minded -

this didn't happen.

absolutely