Child Benefit Cap

estebanrey said:
As monkey nut said on the last page, if your solution is increasing birthrate you are basically advocating a pyramid scheme.

The current average life expectancy in the UK is 80. The retirement age will be 68 for most of the current population. So on average, pensioners will be subsidised for 12 years of their lives.

Compare this to a newborn child who will be heavily subsidized for the first 16 years of their life, and generously subsidized for a good years after that too (colleges, universities which still get a lot of money from the government despite the rise on fees, apprenticeships etc).

With that in mind let's compare the figures...

Government Money Spent On The Aged Annually
£74.2 bn - Pensions
£8.11 bn - Pension Credits

Total: £82.31 bn
Total Over 12 Years: £987.72 bn

Government Money Spent On The Young Anually
£56.27 bn - Dept For Education
£51.54 bn - Education funding agency
£46.42 bn - Schools

Total: £154.23 bn
Total Over 16 Years: £2467.68 bn

Source
* Of course there are other things I couldn't get like the age related breakdown of NHS spending (I can't see maternity and children's walls being cheap though), free bus passes & T.V Licenses (although they may be counted under the Pensions figure) and a few other minor things which are unlikely to change the picture you see above.

Solving the ageing population by producing more kids is like trying to solve a £10 debt by borrowing a further £20.
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You missed health costs for ageing population which are huge, nearly everyone in hospital is over 60 and that's just me going to work looking at the ward day sheet and seeing that nearly everyday it's all over 60s and its not even a care of the elderly ward
 
If that woman can afford to pay her kids university tuition fees, she can afford to loose child benefit.

Why its not tested against the family as a whole is beyond me.




 
Why should the state pay for anyone's children? Pay for your own. If you can't afford them, don't have them.

My first is on the way. We can afford to pay for it without government handouts. We've waited until we could afford it.
 
Jokester said:
Immigration is no different, you're just providing workers from a different source.
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Yes but the investment has been made elsewhere ie education etc. the only problem with immigration to deal with low birth rate is the irreversible change to the makeup of he country.
 
Dabbles said:
Why should the state pay for anyone's children? Pay for your own. If you can't afford them, don't have them.

My first is on the way. We can afford to pay for it without government handouts. We've waited until we could afford it.
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I bet a penny to a dollar that you claim child benefit. :D
 
Bear said:
Yes but the investment has been made elsewhere ie education etc.
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That's not the issue though, investing in the care of the elderly and the young both have economic benefits. The issue is that as the population ages and more and more people are reliant on state support - paid for by dwindling numbers of working age people.

Edit:
This is what awaits us in the near future:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_of_Japan
 
MrMoonX said:
You missed health costs for ageing population which are huge, nearly everyone in hospital is over 60 and that's just me going to work looking at the ward day sheet and seeing that nearly everyday it's all over 60s and its not even a care of the elderly ward
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Also life expectancy is rising, and fairly rapidly at that.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/e...ctancy-rises-by-44-days-in-just-one-year.html

I'm no actuary so don't know how this affects us in monetary terms. But I don't think the government will allow a 22 year retirement period.
 
Jokester said:
That's not the issue though, investing in the care of the elderly and the young both have economic benefits. The issue is that as the population ages and more and more people are reliant on state support - paid for by dwindling numbers of working age people.

Edit:
This is what awaits us in the near future:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_of_Japan
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I understand what you are saying but you are missing the point Esterbanrey is making. If for instance all British people stopped having kids so in 18 years there would be no British born workers, you could conceivably get immigrants to do all the work necessary to earn and pay tax. The country would not have added to world population and utilised available skilled labour without any of the investment in providing the skills.

I'm not condoning such an approach but it is possible. The Japanese example is misleading as Japan has very low levels of immigration unlike the UK
 
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Moses said:
Except poor people will still have kids, with the result being children living in poverty (and a lovely poverty cycle being created/perpetuated as a result).
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What about those who have say three kids, whilst working in well paid jobs.

Then their employers up sticks and outsources the work to India?

What happens to the family then?

Are they suddenly "undeserving poor" who "shouldn't have kids if they can't afford them".

You can't give them back if you suddenly find yourself unemployed you know.
 
Bear said:
I understand what you are saying but you are missing the point Esterbanrey is making. If for instance all British people stopped having kids so in 18 years there would be no British born workers, you could conceivably get immigrants to do all the work necessary to earn and pay tax. The country would not have added to world population and utilised available skilled labour without any of the investment in providing the skills.

I'm not condoning such an approach but it is possible. The Japanese example is misleading as Japan has very low levels of immigration unlike the UK
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If Brits stopped having kids, yes you would saved money in not providing an eduaction, health care, child care etc but at the expense of laying off huge numbers of people involved in those industries. That's a massive negative economic effect - there is a benefit in having children for the wider economy.

UK immigration was about 2.5million people in the past 20 years. Japan needs an estimated 1million a year immigration to offset it's aging population for the next 50years. If our demographics go the same way, we would be looking at needing 0.5million a year to deal with it. It won't be popular at all!

Edit: Or raise the retirement age to 77!
 
Amp34 said:
So you earn a fraction of his wages yet subsidise him? I'm guessing here but I assume you pay a fraction of the tax he does as well... He is subsidising you significantly, the only difference now is he is subsidising others more.

The idea you are subsidising someone who pays vastly more tax is not really a valid argument...
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It is a valid argument when you look at the maths. You've oversimplified the issue and forgotten the how of percentage his tax paid that goes towards child benefits (taxes that pay for everything else are irrelevant to this issue) minus the £3,000 a year he gets back is what you should be comparing to the amount I put in to the CB system.....


His wage: £100k
My wage: £24k

He pays in tax (yearly): £29,884
I pay in tax (yearly): £3,179
Source
* National insurance can be ignored since it doesn't go toward paying for CB.

Gov income tax take: £155 bn
Gov Spend on Child Benefits: £13 bn
% of income tax spent on child benefit: 8.4%

8.4% of his tax paid: £2510
8.4% of my tax paid: £267

Child Benefit He receives: £3,000 (as mentioned in the report)
Child Benefit I receive: £0

His total: £490 up
My total: £267 down

So currently, only looking at his contribution to the CB system versus mine and comparing that to the take, he is £757 better off than me. It takes nearly two of me to pay for the shortfall in his net Child Benefit contributions.

Amp34 said:
Yet child benefit could be seen to be the same. Just because we take something for granted now doesn't mean it will always be.
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You cannot compare a payment like CB (especially a cash one that can be spent on anything the claimant chooses) with a subsidised service that is free at the point of delivery (Like schools and the NHS).

Benefits are a wealth distribution system. Schools and hospitals are institutions that provide a free service to all for benefit of society.

Amp34 said:
Grumpy much? Go marry a rich woman, she can work that jealousy out of you.;)
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Not grumpy at all. I just think describing a CB cut for the wealthiest in society as "morally outrageous" more that a little OTT.

Amp34 said:
I'm very much an all or nothing guy myself, either benefits are available for all (not income assessed) or they aren't.
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So, as the OP suggested, should we all be able to demand a free wheelchair from the NHS regardless of whether your can walk or not?

P.S FYI I claim absolutely no benefits or government support outside my tax free allowance (he has it too though).
 
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MrMoonX said:
You missed health costs for ageing population which are huge, nearly everyone in hospital is over 60 and that's just me going to work looking at the ward day sheet and seeing that nearly everyday it's all over 60s and its not even a care of the elderly ward
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No I didn't, I mentioned it in the star. There was no breakdown on NHS costs but whatever they are for the aged you have to offset them against the cost of maternity wards and children's wards which aint cheap. I also didn't actually include Child Benefit itself (for some reason the Guardian figure doesn't show that) but it's around £13 bn annually, so times that by 16 and add it on the cost of young. Nor have I included the extra in in the housing benefit that is used to house families based on the amount of kids they have.

I've shown the cost of subsidizing children is far more expensive than the elderly (go it at over double with the figures I used so far), so you'd have to find a HUGE bill that's spent on the aged which I've missed to make up the difference.

The point remains, a child costs more than old person per head and producing more children raises the welfare bill.
 
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Benefits are dealt with in this country so badly. They give them to people who don't need them and deny them to people who do.

Pretty bad guidelines for most benefits.
 
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