Moral Hazard & Fairness - Housing

LilacPixie

silvercar wrote: »

So £60 per child per week for food, clothes, shoes, their social bits, school stuff etc plus a contribution to heating the bigger house, something put by for holidays and their own entertainment in the school holidays, Xmas and birthday presents.....

I couldn't do that on £60 a week.

I couldn't bring my kids up on £60 a week each. I don't think we live particularly lavishly although we do have 2 car's 1 plasma tv etc etc. At the moment my youngest seems to need shoes every 6-8 weeks at £30 a pair from clarks, clothes the same even, nappies about £10 a week then swimming lessons plus toddler gym and thats another £10 a week.

That is not considering food, christmas/birthdays, a holiday and she is only just 2. My oldest is nearly 4 and she wants a party at a soft play centre. It is £10 per child with a minimum of 10 kids maximum of 18.

I really could not raise my kids the way I do on 3k a year

silvercar

flashnazia wrote: »

£60 per week is more than enough considering school meals and uniforms are also free. What other school 'stuff' is needed?

Stationary and all the letters home asking for £5 for outings, collections, swimming, contributions....

Councils often pay the travels costs for those on low incomes.

only if you are over 2 miles from the nearest suitable school.

Cold weather payments provide some relief for heating bills.

If you've got kids you tend to have a bigger house and this costs more in utility bills than a small flat.

Unless parents are buying new clothes and shoes every week it's more than enough.

Well mine don't get new clothes or shoes every week and I couldn't manage. Teenage boys can't be fed on thin air.

SingleSue

flashnazia wrote: »

£60 per week is more than enough considering school meals and uniforms are also free. What other school 'stuff' is needed? Councils often pay the travels costs for those on low incomes. Cold weather payments provide some relief for heating bills.

Unless parents are buying new clothes and shoes every week it's more than enough.

Uniforms are not free, you may, if you are lucky enough to live in an area which does grants, get £15-£20 towards it but they are certainly not free (I live in a no grant area)

The same for travel costs.

Not everyone is eligible for cold weather payments...it depends on the benefit received and other factors.

flashnazia

LilacPixie wrote: »

I couldn't bring my kids up on £60 a week each. I don't think we live particularly lavishly although we do have 2 car's 1 plasma tv etc etc. At the moment my youngest seems to need shoes every 6-8 weeks at £30 a pair from clarks, clothes the same even, nappies about £10 a week then swimming lessons plus toddler gym and thats another £10 a week.

That is not considering food, christmas/birthdays, a holiday and she is only just 2. My oldest is nearly 4 and she wants a party at a soft play centre. It is £10 per child with a minimum of 10 kids maximum of 18.

I really could not raise my kids the way I do on 3k a year

I see 2 cars and shopping at Clark's as extravagant! Not trying to be rude but I thought the whole point of Clark's shoes was because they were supposed to last long (supposedly). If you need new ones every 6 weeks surely you'd be better off buying from a cheaper firm?

If £60 per week is not enough my thoughts are that budgeting skills could be brushed up on? Don't buy Pampers, Clarks etc. There are cheaper alternatives that are just as good (if not better).

LilacPixie

when a child is 2-3 feet grow so so fast. Quality isn't the issue its feet sizes, I refuse to wear poor quality or ill fitting shoes and it is the same for my kids. TBH I like startrite shoes better for them. Kids feet bones are so soft I won't risk damaging them with poorly fitting shoes. Nappies are huggies not pampers. I am not a fan of pampers. You might find what I choose to spend my money on extravagent, I don't and I could not raise my two toddlers on £60 a week each so god knows how those who have only that and teenagers cope. My oldest is at nursery, £3 a week for snacks and weekly there seems to be letters home for X activity or Y sponsorship for new books/toys/play things.

Malcolm.

£60 a week is sufficient; it's cheaper by the dozen.
Clothing, toys e.t.c. can be passed down from older sibling.

Coming back to Moral Hazard: how much would a working parent need to earn to afford the same net income?

SingleSue

silvercar wrote: »

only if you are over 2 miles from the nearest suitable school.

And even then they wiggle out of it......we live over two miles from my two younger childrens school but because we (me, those involved with their disabilities and the specialist advisory teacher) went along with the LEA suggestion of putting them in an out of catchment school (for their disabilities), they refused to help with travel as we had 'chosen' and out of catchment school!

Tried to appeal but it came to nothing, so then I was faced with a massive run around for a school run as younger one was at one school and middle at a completely different one 3 miles away from the first one...and the first one was 3 miles away from home in the first place, oh and I had a time difference of exactly 5 minutes in between drop offs.

It was fun for a while until younger sons school suggested dropping him off early in an attempt to settle him in, which had the impact of actually making things easier for me time wise.

LilacPixie

Malcolm. wrote: »

£60 a week is sufficient; it's cheaper by the dozen.
Clothing, toys e.t.c. can be passed down from older sibling.

Coming back to Moral Hazard: how much would a working parent need to earn to afford the same net income?

Surely that depends on area. Up here housing is cheaper than SE England both to buy and rent. £230.77 per week for a 5 bed home in Angus is the maximum LHA rate so 12k net a year then add in 3k x 8 kids so another 24k then another 3.5k ish income support and about £1500 council tax benefit so 41k in all but only 27.5k the claiment would actually see as the LHA would go to the landlord and the CT benefit to the local council. That is a little over £58 per person per week net income.

I would hate to see the heating bills on a 5 bedroom house or the washing for 8 kids.

Passing clothes down through kids sounds nice but really the cheaper supermarket stuff or the likes of primark/matalan stuff does not last one kid never mind 2 or more.

I have no doubt some areas of society choose to live like this willingly giving birth to 6-7-8 kids to keep themselves from having to activly seek work but it's not a lifestyle to be envied or desired.

taking out housing costs for a second that means my family would have £235 a week net income to live on which is about £1018 per calander month.

I am £80 on utilities, £300 on food, £30 for phone/broadband/tv £25 B&C insurance, £12 tv licence, £30 mobiles £16 life insurance, £80 car insurance, £100 ish for kids activities £180 petrol/diesel then 2 x MOT and 2 X car tax plus servicing is easy another £50 a month. so I am at around £900 a month already without clothes/shoes for 4 of us plus dentists perscriptions, optitions, hair cuts birthday and christmas savings maybe saving for a small holiday and a bit of a slush fund incase washing machine/cooker breaks or something similar.
I really could not live that way.

I think £1018 a month net is around 15 k a year gross pay not including housing costs. If we were a family of 4 getting 15k gross incoe from employment I would imagine tax credits would topp that up considerably as would LHA and CT benefits. so no idea how I would go about making an accurate calculation

Malcolm.

LilacPixie wrote: »

Surely that depends on area. Up here housing is cheaper than SE England both to buy and rent. £230.77 per week for a 5 bed home in Angus is the maximum LHA rate so 12k net a year then add in 3k x 8 kids so another 24k then another 3.5k ish income support and about £1500 council tax benefit so 41k in all

I think we're debating different things. You're questioning peoples decision to have lots of children. I'm saying there are families that do, this is a known fact. I'm questioning the moral hazard in relation to lifestyle decisions (working versus not working).

41k net. Rough calcs. To afford the same lifestyle, with many children, they would need earn around 60k (assuming 1/3 of income goes tax and NI). This ignores the extra time they would need in education, or uni expenses e.t.c e.t.c

How is this fair?

LilacPixie

it would be less than 60k net because everyone (at the moment) gets child benefit so presuming 8 kids 6k of that is child benefit. Even with a 54k gross income and 8 kids you would still get around 5k tax credits presuming you had no disabilities or childcare costs. would actually have an additional 11k net income from benefits. In addition to this even with a 54k gross income and tax credits the £230 a week fictional rent this person would receive £53.93 a week LHA.

In all a single parent with 8 kids all over 1 with no disabilities or child care costs payin g £230 a week rent £1500 a year council tax and earning a 54k a year gross salary working more than 30 hours a week would still receive £264.36 a week in benefits between tax credits, child benefit, and LHA. That is almost 14k a year.