15 kids and counting

johnwey

elvis86 wrote: »

I totally agree that benefits should be capped at 2 or 3 kids and assistance with rent capped on a 2/3 bedroomed house. You should only have more if you can afford them without the state's assistance.

The most sensible thing I have heard in years , it should be capped at 2 and thats it . Anymore and you pay yourself !!!!

Derivative

johnwey wrote: »

The most sensible thing I have heard in years , it should be capped at 2 and thats it . Anymore and you pay yourself !!!!

Why cap it at two?
Why should taxpayers pay for you to have children?

bubbles2012_2

Hi guys PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE could someone tell me how to post a new thread/question.... I am going insane trying to find the 'button' Evidently Im a newbie here... and blonde! Please could a nice person direct me! Lol!

Thank you!

xx

Derivative

hardassets wrote: »

The best thing is a total benefit cap, the question is - is £480wk still too high?

It quite clearly is.
I don't see how this is even questionable.

Why are we comparing taxpayer funded benefits to the median wage?
Surely we should be comparing to, at the maximum, national minimum wage.

Derivative

hardassets wrote: »

But we could be looking at big falls in rents and bringing down with them property prices.

If it was lower than £480 a week then not many families will be left in London. No one with a few kids could afford to rent on min wage, even if they were working 60 hrs a week. At the moment all families renting in London, who are on low income have to rely on benefits.

If the cap was lower, then the property market could collapse even further. The high housing benefit payments is one of the main props along with low interest rates that are still holding up rents and property prices.

Your argument is that currently, benefits are essentially an economic stimulus.

Our problem is that we need to take in higher tax revenues, and to do so, we need to foster economic growth.

In providing incentives to stay out of work, and making it less profitable to actually climb the career ladder (tapered benefits based on income level), I would posit that we're actually achieving the opposite.

Of course, knocking benefits down to £10-£15k pa tomorrow would be rather suboptimal - in that situation people would indeed become homeless, and demand for cheap housing would rocket.

I would suggest a gradual decrease, say 10% per year until we reach the required level. Freezing them will not be enough.

London is our crown jewel. Most of our well paid jobs lie within the M25 or the surrounding area. Yet many people are locked out of renting, not due to natural unaffordability, but due to distortions created by Housing Benefit.

lostinrates

bubbles2012 wrote: »

Hi guys PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE could someone tell me how to post a new thread/question.... I am going insane trying to find the 'button' Evidently Im a newbie here... and blonde! Please could a nice person direct me! Lol!

Thank you!

xx

Welcome to mse!

Find the board you want to post on then just at the top left above the thread titles is a green bar and above that a little new thread button which i think is blue.:)

Gillybean

The family from Bradford were only recently unemployed. The dad had been made redundant from his driving job that he'd had for 20 years. Can't recall what the mum did, if anything. But far from being scroungers they did work until recently.

I'd also commend them for taking in her sisters kids rather than letting them drift into the care system, which would I'd imagine cost the taxpayer even more had they not hung onto them.

Smilver

Gillybean wrote: »

The family from Bradford were only recently unemployed. The dad had been made redundant from his driving job that he'd had for 20 years. Can't recall what the mum did, if anything. But far from being scroungers they did work until recently.

I'd also commend them for taking in her sisters kids rather than letting them drift into the care system, which would I'd imagine cost the taxpayer even more had they not hung onto them.

I saw the program, Im sorry that family from Bradford looked like a typical benefit claiming family that is previlant now.

No way they could both work with that many kids, and he did not look like he could earn enough to not rely on benefits.

The thing that anoyed me the most was when he said he became unemployedagain, then the got given a bigger house. Its just telling people who watch it, you are better of unemployed. How may bedromms was that house? I think at least 9 bedrooms, for an unemployed family

johnny_storm

It would be so easy to make child benefit only be payable for the first two children. Would stop a lot of these situations.

Darthvader

johnny_storm wrote: »

It would be so easy to make child benefit only be payable for the first two children. Would stop a lot of these situations.

The £480 week cap is better all round. For lots of families around the UK they still will not be getting anywhere near £480wk even with 2 kids.

It is only London with artificail high rents that families will have to move away from.