@Ohalrightthen
I;m just pointing out that its not correct that someone on benefits prior to the cap could afford to have three children and you couldn't. You could have left work and gone on benefits for a start. But you now seem to think being on benefits would condemn your children to poverty. Well perhaps it's not that generous then.
The people most affected by the benefit cap were lone parents in London, often with only one or two children, who were renting in the private sector. The introduction of the cap made them almost facing homelessness overnight. Some of them were working but couldn't work enough hours due to very young children to qualify for the exemption. Whilst many were propped up with discretionary housing payments from the council for a while most of them ended up first in temporrary hostels and B&Bs and then socially cleansed from the city and forced to move hundreds of miles away in some cases, into areas where they knew no-one.
Another large group affected by the cap were recently divorced/separated mothers and as many have already pointed out it is now hitting those who have lost jobs due to Covid. The cap has led to the horrifying rape clause, and has no doubt contributed to an increase of partner abuse and domestic violence. One of the rationales for the cap was that it would encourage families not to separate, by which, in Iain Duncan Smith's nasty little mind meant it would stop women leaving their husbands.
Of course the cap was never presented as an attack on these groups. It also hit the a very small number of large families which this forum's favourite newspapers attacked again and again in order to try and build support for cutting benefits. But these were only a small percentage of those hit by the cap. And whilst you might argue they deserved it a lot of these families were extremely marginalised, had problems with both mental and physical health, and had often lived traumatic lives and as a consequence made some mistakes. They have not been helped by being impoverished. All that does is ensure those problems are passed down to the next generation.
The cap was not introduced to save money, it cost far more to implement than it saved, It was done firstly to pacify the likes of the Tory faithful like the Daily Mail and The Spectator to show they were getting tough on claimants. Secondly it cleansed the poorest from central London and other cities like Edinburgh ensuring the new residents of the mutli million pound new built flats didn't have poor people living next door. And thirdly as I've said it was a hackneyed attempt to bring back 'family values' first touted by Iain Duncan Smith's Centre for Social Justice think tank.
There have been few more perfectly honed attacks to demolish the lives of many of the poorest women in the country who were collectively punished for the supposed sins of a very small number of large families portrayed, often dishonestly as feckless, when in reality they were often in areas of very high unemployment or had health problems or disabilities which prevented them working. Of all the things that happened in austerity it was one of the nastiest cuts of the lot, and the only one that was squarely aimed at working class women and their children who didn't have or want a man suppoting them. It was a direct attack on women's autonomy and one of the most misogynist economic policies we have seen in decades.
It also very nearly closed every women's refuge in the country, plunging the entire sector into insecurity for years until they finally accepted that refuge and hostel rents should be exempt from the cap.