Think the unthinkable - let's help the coalition with some blue-skies thinking...

Harry_Powell

lynzpower wrote: »

Im sorry but this patently isnt true. It might be fine if you are earning bigger salaries in some parts of the country but childcare in london can be upwards of 400 per week and thats if you get lucky. If I got pregnant today, childcare would cos the same as my salary, nay more.

Ohs salary couldnt cover everything else?

We dont run a car/ smoke/ drink/ have sky, in fact we are probably the tightest people we know.

Without tax credits families like us wouldnt survive. In fact the tax credits will be
getting reduced to "families like us". in the "middle classes".

So lets start watching as "good" "hardworking" "educated" "middle class" families start going to the wall

So you're saying that without benefit handouts you couldn't afford to feed and clothe your children, but you had them anyway? How many have you got?

chucky

Harry_Powell wrote: »

So you're saying that without benefit handouts you couldn't afford to feed and clothe your children, but you had them anyway? How many have you got?

this was sort of part of my point - 2006 all is good in the family budget and you can afford children, 2008 you struggle and hope things get better, come 2010 you have to be reliant on some kind of benefit.

you can't predict what the future holds and people saying that you shouldn't have children until you can afford is a bit wrong. circumstances change and costs also change that will stop you being able to afford 'children' after you've had them.

there's no point in posts like the below - it;s ignorance and arrogance blaming parents for not being able to afford children

Snooze wrote: »

There's no rocket science needed here. If you haven't got enough income coming in for someone to stay at home and look after the kid and someone else to work a sensible amount of hours to pay for it all, then you shouldn't be having kids. Simples.

Snooze

chucky wrote: »

there's no point in posts like the below - it;s ignorance and arrogance blaming parents for not being able to afford children

Whatever you want to dress it up as it's still the truth. People with kids think that everyone else (incl those without kids and have no desire to have any) should subsidise the upbringing of their own kids and that is so unbelievably selfish. But then this is what this country has become where everyone thinks that they 'deserve' something. Thank the stupid lefties for that one as they were the ones who created this mess, as per usual.

Harry_Powell

In the old days we didn't have half the country paying the other half to have children, but then the little dears didn't have wii's, playstations, mobile phones, laptops and all the other 'must have' accesories. This madness has to change, the country and the planet cannot afford these birthrates.

princeofpounds

The system for LHA is crazy. It's currently set at the average rent for a property in a band determined by size of family (so, for example, the average 2 bed flat rent).

Assuming the rental market is largely set by working people, that means that non-working people do not move into cheaper accomodation, but into accommodation that is (theoretically at least) better than 50% of those who are working to live at an equivalent standard!

There is of course the fact that many properties will not accept LHA tenants. As a result many of the poorer properties they are accepted into start to charge LHa rents. By raising the bottom end of the market in a band towards the middle it denies cheap housing to workers who are moving into the bottom of a band.

There is also an inflationary effect as the compression of the bottom half of the market moves the average up, which moves the LHA up on each assessment, etc. etc. ad infinitum.

Whoever came up with the great idea to benchmark a rental rate to an average of rates that included itself as a major component of the basket isn't much of a mathematician.

princeofpounds

this was sort of part of my point - 2006 all is good in the family budget and you can afford children, 2008 you struggle and hope things get better, come 2010 you have to be reliant on some kind of benefit.

There's a lot of truth in this. Labour massively expanded their client base by extending benefits to sections of society that had previous been more known for self-reliance and hard work (the upper working class, so to speak).

The unfortunate thing is that people vote for Labour to preserve these benefits, not realising that, broadly speaking, they pay for it themselves in their tax. Or more accurately, it was paid for out of borrowing and *now* they will be paying for it out of tax as the country can no longer sustain these levels of expenditure.

The one great policy the Lib Dems have in my mind (and I hope it gets enacted even if it is paid for by higher rate taxpayers like myself to some degree) is to raise the income tax threshold from ~6k to 10k. There is no point in taxing people when it will only have to be handed back to them in benefits (except perhaps to keep them in the tax system, but it should be a petty rate if so).

lynzpower

Harry_Powell wrote: »

So you're saying that without benefit handouts you couldn't afford to feed and clothe your children, but you had them anyway? How many have you got?

Read it again.

I said IF I GOT PREGNANT

Just to be clear, we dont have any children.

lynzpower

Harry_Powell wrote: »

In the old days we didn't have half the country paying the other half to have children, but then the little dears didn't have wii's, playstations, mobile phones, laptops and all the other 'must have' accesories. This madness has to change, the country and the planet cannot afford these birthrates.

In the old days people died in thier early 70s and didnt need a further 20 years of NHS and pension support as they did the decent thing and karked it.

ninky_2

Snooze wrote: »

There's no rocket science needed here. If you haven't got enough income coming in for someone to stay at home and look after the kid and someone else to work a sensible amount of hours to pay for it all, then you shouldn't be having kids. Simples. Why does everyone think that it's the tax-payer's job to subsidise the upbringing of their kids? It's complete BS and needs stopping immediately.

you seem to forget that capitalism needs future wage slaves to continue. if you price everyone out of the market for having kids and raising them decently then who is going to provide the next batch of employee fodder?

ninky_2

Kohoutek wrote: »

It would transfer the burden of subsidising people's standard of living from the government to the private sector - not appropriate or realistic. If you want to maximise employment, then the minimum wage should never be a such a high level.

The government should just make taxation minimal for people on low incomes instead of tax credits. I guess the coalition may do that eventually with the higher personal allowance.

!!!!!!? sorry don't employers have a responsibility to make sure their employees can feed, clothes and house themselves etc on their wages??? or are they just planning on letting them starve or get sick and die and then get a fresh batch in?