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Child Benefit - Why?

Brian

Eating fat, staying slim
It's been in the news, seems it exists in lots of countries in one form or another.

I think it should go and this is how you can get rid of it in the UK.

Give notice that any child born 12 months from now will not qualify for child benefit. That's it. You don't take anything from anyone, what people have now they receive until it ends under the current terms, so nobody loses anything. It's a long term plan, the cost will reduce each year and it will just fade away...

A second strand to this is the notion that perhaps what we should be doing is discoraging people from having lots of children.

If giving people money was previously seen as a legitimate way of encoraging people to have more children, perhaps a tax for having too many children is what we should be doing now. Maybe for every child after the second one you lose £x from your personal tax allowance?
 
That is a bit like MPs making students pay for their fees in that they got free education and living grants for themselves but it's alright to deny the next generation because of their mistakes.

I think we should abolish state pensions instead.
 
Brian,

I don't know the situation in the UK, but in Canada child benefits aren't about encouraging reproduction. They're about helping to reduce the level of child poverty, which apparently sucks at both the individual and societal levels and is thus best avoided.

Joe
 
Family allowance was introduced after the war to help grow the population again. I believe the threshold is currently too high and the cutoff should be a family income of around £30k, that way we could always increase the payment amount to lower income families. I don't see why parents earning a combined income of £90k per year should be entitled to it.
 
Brian,

I don't know the situation in the UK, but in Canada child benefits aren't about encouraging reproduction. They're about helping to reduce the level of child poverty, which apparently sucks at both the individual and societal levels and is thus best avoided.

Joe

Are you suggesting the "child benefit" might actually be intended to benefit the child?

Man, did they ever pick a bonehead name for it.
 
Family allowance was introduced after the war to help grow the population again. I believe the threshold is currently too high and the cutoff should be a family income of around £30k, that way we could always increase the payment amount to lower income families. I don't see why parents earning a combined income of £90k per year should be entitled to it.
+1. It should be means tested, by signing a declaration that you earned less than £x per household last year, and authenticated by parents' NI numbers. The wealthy don't need it.
 
Joe,

It's not like that here despite half arsed changes by the tories, it's not about reducing child poverty here. They may say it is...
 
Blimey, what a corker.

I agree.

It's a great idea for how to remove the 3rd biggest benefit burden in the UK while taking no money from anyone. Think of how much could be used for disabled and needy people. I wouldn't be lining tory pockets with the savings.
 
For the eldest or only child it's £20.50, with each additional child £13.55 (per week).

"I'm living the dream! It's like being a member of the royal family!"

A benefits scrounger
 
For the eldest or only child it's £20.50, with each additional child £13.55 (per week).

"I'm living the dream! It's like being a member of the royal family!"

A benefits scrounger

Not sure of your point if you have one one there, John.

The 3rd biggest benefit cost in the UK should be taken more seriously than that.
 
Of course, the "wealthy" are already taxed on child benefit upto 100% for an individual earning over £50k.
 
I think the problem here, Brian, is that you have not made a case for removing it other than saying you "think it should go". It might also help if you said what you intended to spend the £16bn savings on.

To answer the "why?" part, child benefit is paid to families with children because bringing up children is more expensive than not bringing up children (duh!). It was also not means tested (until recently) to encouraged take up and paid directly to the mother to maximise the chances of being spent on the children.

You can make an argument for means testing it and/or reducing it although these are usually arguments of the Conservatives.

Also on population note that for growth and demographic reasons and if you want the nation to be collectively better off, we need to increase the birth rate not decrease it.
 
I voluntarily gave it up a few years back as it made very little difference to me personally and was going to disappear eventually but I know my parents relied on getting it and it was an important part of income to them.

I think its time has come and the money should be allocated in a different way focused on the whole low earning population not just parents.
 
We always found it usefully paid for our weekly intake of gin, no small matter when you've got two children to look after. Now they're grown up, scrap it, yeah, waste of money, besides food's really cheap down Lidl and Aldi these days.
 


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