Child benefit cuts

Thewaylander

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11464300

Interesting one this, Seems to have people devided. My general veiw is people simply shouldn't have children if they can not support them, and all child benefits should be removed.

I mean they were put in place to encourage a population boom after the war... well now we are over flowing we need a benefit to discourage in some ways...

Thewaylander

And crap just noticed my terrible spelling on the title excuse that.

.blitz

Yeah f*ck Chile, charity starts at home

bails87

I thought this was about the miners!

Thewaylander

Grhh i so want to be able to edit the title...

whyamihere

Thewaylander wrote:

Grhh i so want to be able to edit the title...

Can you not do that? It's been so long since I didn't have my special buttons that I really can't remember what ordinary users can do...

Gazlar

I think thats fair enough, why should we pay for everyone to have kids? If you can't afford look after your children on at least that amount of cash then you are doing something wrong or your priorities are wrong somewhere.

cat_with_no_tail

Child benefit contributes an extra £80 p/m to our income. Goes straight into savings accounts for the kids (with a bit extra) which they can have then they turn 18.

To be honest, I'd not really notice if they stopped it, but as long as I get it, I'm not moaning about it.

Don't really see why it's needed, like Thewaylander says, don't have kids if you can't afford to support them.

cat_with_no_tail

whyamihere wrote:

Thewaylander wrote:

Grhh i so want to be able to edit the title...

Can you not do that? It's been so long since I didn't have my special buttons that I really can't remember what ordinary users can do...

Yes, you can edit the title.

Got to the first post and just click Edit. It brings up the actual body of text and the title.

Thewaylander

Tidy cheers.

psymon

Thewaylander wrote:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11464300

Interesting one this, Seems to have people devided. My general veiw is people simply shouldn't have children if they can not support them, and all child benefits should be removed.

I mean they were put in place to encourage a population boom after the war... well now we are over flowing we need a benefit to discourage in some ways...

+ allotment full of veg.
Giving people (by that i mean the fat orrible baby factories) money out of the national pot to have kids then sit in wetherspoons just seems ridickarus.
Cant we have an american style contributions system (i think they do for unemployment). If you pay money in, you are intitled to it coming out. But there is a finite amount of time/funds based on what you paid in. once it's gone it's gone.

Anonymous

Thewaylander wrote:

My general veiw is people simply shouldn't have children if they can not support them, and all child benefits should be removed.

Whilst I agree wholeheartedly with this, I also see a need to offer child support to people who have ended up in a situation where they really do need financial support to look after their kids.

I mean, round here, like many places, we're overloaded with girls getting pregnant just to have kids. Hell, i know girls who've explicitly said so. That is wrong.
But, I also know people who have lost their jobs or had a partner die, who are practically up sh*t creek without a paddle, and could not get by were it not for the child benefits.

I've had too many male friends taken on a ride by a woman, then as soon as she's preggers, she's off, leaving him with a child he never sees, and paying child maintenance, and struggling to pay his own rent/mortgage and bills etc, whilst she's getting everything handed to her on a plate.
It makes me very wary of having kids, until I'm certain that I'm with the woman I intend to spend the rest of my life with, and her with me. If i was to have kids, I would want to be a father, not just some guy they see every second weekend or so.

Northwind

Thing is, child benefit isn't supposed to be for the parents, it's for the kids, it's easy to say "Lets not pay out to these freeloaders" but you're not just hurting them, and whatever you think about the parents the kids have done nothing wrong. Kids growing up deprived are more likely to commit crimes in later life and more likely to have expensive health issues and suchlike so there's a financial argument there as well as a humanitarian one.

I reckon it should be a bit means tested though, we pay it out to a lot of people who really don't need it at all. But then means testing can be expensive.

yeehaamcgee wrote:

I mean, round here, like many places, we're overloaded with girls getting pregnant just to have kids. Hell, i know girls who've explicitly said so. That is wrong.

Is that not the normal reason to get pregnant?

Thewaylander

i can see where your coming from here Yee,

But i think we could solve it with a more sensible job seekers system which rewards higher earners who have paid in longer that way it should cover until a relevamt position found?

Something along these lines if you get what i mean?

But it is scary how many young girls have kids so they can be supported and never have to work, horrible side of society that.

psymon

it's a basic astro-geo-theoretical-physics equation...

- 1 kid = + 1 nicer bike.

(unless your kid turns out to be Gee/Peaty etc then it is beneficial)

ali$tair

Cuts are only for higher rate tax payers so wont affect the 'ones who need support the most', however...having kids is a lifestyle choice, dont have them if you cant afford them.

spongtastic

What makes me laugh is that I'll lose them as the wife doesn't work but if we both earnt £43999 we'd keep them. Now that's stupid.

And I agree with yeehaa above in that some people do need it when they fall on hard times rather than seeing it as a way of life.

What really wound me up on Friday night was one of the kids of a local benefit monger - never worked, new car every three years through 'motability', 4 bed house paid for, 3 kids - telling the old dear in the local shop she wanted to do what her mum did when she's older: 'get every uther c**t to pay for evryfink cos I can't be a**ed getin a job'. Oh, and she's 18, pregnant, and buying fags and vodka. Can't beat a bit of Essex class.

GhallTN6

I'm just over that threshold, so I think I’m going to lose 720 quid a year.. (two kids without a criminal record or chile between them), however, If both me and my wife worked (she doesn’t), and earned 35000 a year each, we’d be exempt.. even though they don’t pay the higher tax rate as well..

It's about time the government started taxing people by the household income, not by individual income.

so, another kick in the teeth for peple who work hard!

Anonymous

Northwind wrote:

yeehaamcgee wrote:

I mean, round here, like many places, we're overloaded with girls getting pregnant just to have kids. Hell, i know girls who've explicitly said so. That is wrong.

Is that not the normal reason to get pregnant?

That was very badly worded, wasn't it!
What I meant is that they get pregnant, not to start a family, but as a way of freeloading on benefits.

One girl in particular has wound me right up. She was left with nothing after her boyfriend left her (but later I found she kicked him out), she claimed. So I spent a lot of my time helping her decoreate her new council house, helping her sort out the heating, gas, food etc. I genuinely thought i was doing a good thing.
Turns out, she'd kicked him out to get more benefits, so she could spend her money on a big screen TV, and a load of drugs. I turned my back on her when I found out she was entertaining a drug dealer and a guy hwo handles stolen goods, and they were all getting mashed whilst the baby was running round the house.
That crap doesn't sit well with me.

ex-pat scot

Going to hit me / my family hard.

We have the arrangement where I work FT and Mrs XPS stays at home to look after our 4 children. Childcare costs swallowed up all her teaching salary once #2 came along.

We will now lose £3100 - ie I would need to earn an extra £5000 + gross to make this up.

This is going to make one hell of a difference to us. In fact it will be cheaper to ask my employer to give me a large pay cut to bring my salary down below the £44k level.

What grates is that we are being hugely penalised for opting for the "one at work; one at home" choice. The "two at work part-time" alternative would make much more financial sense to us now.
One earning £50k - tax & NI approx £15,000
Two part-timers each earning £25k - tax & NI approx £4,000 x 2 = £8,000

So at the moment, we would save £7,000 tax (15,000-8,000) each year, and our net income would go from £35,000 to £42,000.
Great for us; not so great for the Exchequer though.
Add the child benefit, and at the moment our net income options would be £38,000 vs £45,000

When the child benefit change kicks in, we will then be faced with £35,000 vs £45,000 total family net income.

Leaving aside the separate discussion of whether this is comfortable, a good standard of living etc, how on earth does this policy encourage “choice for families”?

I don’t want this to sound like a “poor me” post and collapse under the weight of counter posts suggesting how lucky I am. I am merely giving a representation of how these changes are going to impact us and drive us along a particular route.


Please note the numbers are rough and indicative rather than accurate and personal!

Thewaylander

I can see what your saying mr Ex-Pat.

In terms as it is coming as a shock change to some where people have planned there lives to include this financial help.

But I have to say I don't think people should have planned to include this money in there actuall living budgets, And it just simply shouldn't be given under any circamstances other than possible dire straits ahve hit someone.

The problem with the leglislation coming in is it's not even handed allowing the people who don't pay in and abuse the system to carry on, then the peopel who do pay in heavier will now get nothing from it. Which is unfair. Simply very very few people should get it.

bails87

yeehaamcgee wrote:

Thewaylander wrote:

My general veiw is people simply shouldn't have children if they can not support them, and all child benefits should be removed.

Whilst I agree wholeheartedly with this, I also see a need to offer child support to people who have ended up in a situation where they really do need financial support to look after their kids.

Agreed, people having kids just for the money is clearly wrong. But if people already have kids, is it right to condemn those kids to a childhood in poverty?

Thewaylander

Sad thing is there is always a trade off and you ahve to look at what the country can support.

If a child can no longer be supported due to the loss of a job then the unemployment benefit needs to take this into account, but still encourage the person to find work again to support there family. not a direct child benefit i think.

bails87

Thewaylander wrote:

Sad thing is there is always a trade off and you ahve to look at what the country can support.

If a child can no longer be supported due to the loss of a job then the unemployment benefit needs to take this into account, but still encourage the person to find work again to support there family. not a direct child benefit i think.

but then comeone with 5 kids whose wife just died after he lost his job would have a different siituation to someone who's living on his own with no kids and has a rich partner.

I know what you're getting at, but I don't want to see kids suffering because of the benefits being cut. But I also don't want to see people having kids for the benefits.

Thewaylander

Ture but when your at that extreme 5 kids one parent, social services are going to become involved, and support to these can literally be done on a case by case basis as its the rareist of events.

Simply there never used to be these benefits untill we sent all our lads over the walls of the trenches then we needed to repopulate. If the benefits weren't there, I honestly think less people would have children, and they certainly wouldn't have them untill they were damn sure they could support them.

bails87

Thewaylander wrote:

Simply there never used to be these benefits untill we sent all our lads over the walls of the trenches then we needed to repopulate. If the benefits weren't there, I honestly think less people would have children, and they certainly wouldn't have them untill they were damn sure they could support them.

Yeah, but there were no mountain bikes in those days either. So it's a bad time!

Gazlar

I understand ex pats concers and why it grates, but then look at the families where both parents work full time and earn maybe 30k a year, who even with child benefit have to bring up their kids on less than people who could lose their child benefit. The vast majority of my friends earn in the 15-22k bracket and these are not lazy people, these are mechanics, teachers, social workers people who work in manual labour but because of their skill base and career choices their earning capability is limited and could benefit from the foot up more than I could on a higher salary.

I fully agree that nobody likes to lose money, especially thousands where kids are concerned, but if we can only afford so much then the line has to de drawn somewhere. I do however agree that it should be based on a household income rather than a single income as potentially a family of two 43k a year earners could claim child benefit.

bails87

I think there's places where a hell of a lot of money could be clawed back though. Non-doms and rich people using creative accountants to hide money. There's far more money there than in all the benefits added together.

spongtastic

bails87 wrote:

I think there's places where a hell of a lot of money could be clawed back though. Non-doms and rich people using creative accountants to hide money. There's far more money there than in all the benefits added together.

Like people taking money out of businesses to avoid tax and then only awarding themselves a minimum wage to get tax credits etc.

Gazlar

bails87 wrote:

I think there's places where a hell of a lot of money could be clawed back though. Non-doms and rich people using creative accountants to hide money. There's far more money there than in all the benefits added together.

This is true, and you can extend that further to self employed who do cash in hand work or don't declare all of their earnings. It is really annoying to see just how much cash is swindled and wasted in our society, and how much better that money could be used

bails87

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/soci ... 010043135/