Counting the kids

pqrdef

wotsthat wrote: »

How about getting a job? Isn't that more likely on balance than starting a drug dealing business or setting up as a prostitute?

Actually, if they could get any job worth having, and hold it down, they probably would have. Living on benefits isn't as much fun as the Daily Mail thinks.

(If it was, half the Mail's writers would be on benefits. You don't think they work out of moral compunction do you?)

But if you've been out of work for years, you've got chuff-all chance of getting an interview, let alone a job.

LisaW123

Itismehonest wrote: »

There will always be cases of step-families. That's just life & many find themselves in this position despite best intentions.

The real problem starts with totally irresponsible people producing children with various partners & who expect others to pay. They know the tax-payer will pick up the tab for their children's upbringing even before the kids are conceived & don't give a damn.

If more absent mothers & fathers were really held to account & had to take responsibility for their children then they may not go on to produce more & more children with various other partners.

I agree, but the key issue is how to make people take responsibility. I guess the only way will be disincentives via the benefit system.

It astounds me how people can think it is ok to have children they have no prospect of supporting. I was in a queue the other day and a young woman (probably around 20 if that) with a child in tow was talking about the council to her friend and saying "it's not my fault I'm in this position, I didn't want to have a child on my own". It was on the tip of my tongue to say "so why did you then" but my husband saw what was brewing and intervened. During the same conversation, these friends were talking about never having applied for any jobs.

I've lost count of the times I've overheard people talking about benefits in terms of "being paid". Being paid for what exactly? Procreating and creating more benefit claimants.

We live in a society where benefits, which should be a stop-gap measure, are seen as a right. The sad thing is some people seem to have no problem whatsoever with the fact that it is their working neighbours who put food in their mouths, clothe them and keep a roof over their heads. Many of these people then have the audacity to complain they aren't given enough. Do they ever look to themselves to provide for their families? Not on your life. What would someone who has a working partner and has paid into the system for years get if they were unfortunate enough to lose their job? 6 months contribution based jobseekers allowance.

On another thread I was told by a number of posters who are clearly advocates of the status quo that i MUST be getting more out of the system than I pay in. The BBC website has a calculator where you input your household income etc and it provides information on where your household lies in terms of the taxes paid against the benefits and services received. I was shocked to see how much more our household pays in taxes than it receives in benefits and services. This is racking up each year. For what? To support those who haven't the dignity, self-respect or gumption to even attempt to take responsibility for their own lives and provide for themselves (and any children they choose to have).

Jennifer_Jane

Agree very much with you, LisaW123, except where you are comparing your household with what you get out of it. Sadly, you cannot do this. It's not known what your future holds, whether you will need the welfare state to a greater or lesser extent. Most people would prefer to live in a country with a generous welfare state than without it.

But I agree with all your other points. It's tragic (for the Country and for the people involved) that people live these awful lives on benefits without trying to improve their lives and blithely relying on people who DO work!

People who are caught cheating the system should have the choice of repaying the money, going to jail, or having their vote removed for 20 years! (I can imagine Labour would hate that!).

ILW

Was it Karen Matthews whi refered to her benefit payments as wages?

ILW

I would like to see a system that works on a basis of deserving and undeserving poor. Cannot see why some see it as a problem.

chewmylegoff

pqrdef wrote: »

Be serious. The Tories are planning years ahead. If they're saying we'll need even more austerity after the election, they're saying that current economic policy is failing. That's not what they're saying.

And how much money would they save by targeting large families? Not a lot.

It's purely ideological. It's about votes, that's all.

And it's completely unimplementable, so if they win the election, they'll just fudge it. Same as they're meeting their immigration cap promise by losing zillions of postgrad business students from China and the Gulf, which isn't exactly what Dagenham Man thought he was voting for.

answer the question - how would you cut the benefits bill, or do you think that it's not necessary and we can keep spending 30% more than HMRC collects in tax revenues forever?

LittleMissAspie

Wookster wrote: »

If you can support your family, have as big a family as you want.

When you cannot support your family, then people have a right to interfere IMO.

People don't have the right to interfere with other people's choices but we [should] have the right not to be obliged to pay for other people's choices.

As for children providing our pensions, pensions are one big pyramid scheme, it will inevitably collapse at some point. Hopefully not before I die of old age

LisaW123

Jennifer_Jane wrote: »

Agree very much with you, LisaW123, except where you are comparing your household with what you get out of it. Sadly, you cannot do this. It's not known what your future holds, whether you will need the welfare state to a greater or lesser extent. Most people would prefer to live in a country with a generous welfare state than without it.

But I agree with all your other points. It's tragic (for the Country and for the people involved) that people live these awful lives on benefits without trying to improve their lives and blithely relying on people who DO work!

People who are caught cheating the system should have the choice of repaying the money, going to jail, or having their vote removed for 20 years! (I can imagine Labour would hate that!).

I didn't intend that comparison to be so stark. As you say, anyone can fall on hard times. In this economic climate who knows who will be next out of work. I do not object to contributing to the NHS, public services, pensions and even benefits per se. I do object to funding the lifestyles of people who choose to disengage entirely with the normal rules of society. Broadly speaking, to me this means sometimes you need to take out, the rest of the time you pay in. You have rights but you also have responsibilities. It does not mean disengaging with any prospect to improve your lot, ie, the free at the point of use schooling system, in the knowledge that your fellow tax paying citizens will stump up for you and any offspring you choose to have for life. People who live in this way are a huge drain on resources, not only in terms of the benefits they claim. The often extensive involvement of social services, police, and the NHS with such families all adds to the amount of money they cost the rest of us. I believe there are a (not insignificant) number of families in this country who cost the taxpayer over £100K a year per family.

These, and the people who are constantly bleating about their "rights" to have children even when they haven't a cat in hell's chance of supporting one child, let alone half a dozen, are the people I object to. If they want to live that way, they can fund their own choices, their own homes and their own lifestyle, like the rest of us have to.

harrup

vivatifosi wrote: »

It depends on why they are crap at working. If they have a learning difficulty for example, then they should continue to receive benefits if they need them as that's only fair.

However if people are just crap at working, then they need to get better at working. How do you get better at anything: football, computer games, driving, cookery, work, if you don't practice?

Mmm, I don't quite agree.

"Practice" is one one part of the equasion and, IMO, probably the least significant.

Whether you become good and proficient at anything primarily depends on 2 factors: incentive and motivation.

Your motivation to obtain and keep a job which you enjoy, or which remmunerates you well, are obviously higher than on one that pays poorly or is skull-numbingly boring.

But your INCENTIVE to get a job, ANY job, and hold down that job overrides motivation and practice. If you can't put food on your table, turn on the lights, see a doctor, etc, etc. ....your incentive to get a job is VERY different then when all of this is possible without it.

And that is the crux of the matter. For too many the incentive just isn't there. In fact, the way the benefit system works at present there is a HUGE dis-incentive to even give work a try! Who, in their right minds, goes to work if they are better off to stay at home and do nothing?

I'm not defending benefit scroungers. What I am saying is its understandible that people exploit the system if that system is so ill conceived to easily permit this. A system which effectively "punishes" people for taking a low paying job.....by removing their current benefits...leaving the working guy worse off.

Mad.

Either way, is has little to do with "practice".

harrup

LisaW123 wrote: »

I

These, and the people who are constantly bleating about their "rights" to have children even when they haven't a cat in hell's chance of supporting one child, let alone half a dozen, are the people I object to. If they want to live that way, they can fund their own choices, their own homes and their own lifestyle, like the rest of us have to.

Whilst I concur with many of your sentiments....I am a bit puzzled that you seem to lay the blame primarily at women ( see your prior posts). Single mothers, specifically.

I have no vested interest since I don't have kids myself. But as a fellow woman I find that more than mildly offensive.

Why not hold the chaps who fathered said children more directly responsible? It's a rather ossified viewpoint: young women falls pregnant = SHE is the sole culprit and the drain on society. But what about the person who GOT her pregnant?

Perhaps, we as a society, we should focus more on educating young men about the ramifications of their actions. I don't mean soft, woolly talks about " moral responsibility" and some such. I mean concrete action such as ....I don't know, the certainty that their car, their laptops, their mobiles, whatever would be reposessed instantly. Now THAT is a language which would make a young guy hastily reach for a condom. "Societal responsibility".... meh, not so much.