Not only does it deter people from seeking support, but it also deters some people from getting off of benefits because of the amount of hoops they had to jump through to get there in the first place.
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Forgot you need to start from scratch every time, another reason it fails!
Whatâs also unfair is innocent children living in poverty because of decisions made by their parents.
I think everyone then has to decide which of these two unfair things bothers them more.
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Completely valid point but always following the âright thing to doâ will leave us perpetually in the same scenario.
Sometimes harsh and shit is the only way to trigger the action necessary for the long term. I donât have a solution that does both but I did mention it would be better to have a different targeted plan for those already in the position and therefore keep the longer term policy.
This is gonna be a long one isnât it 
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I find it hard to get on board with that cos weâve basically just had 14 years of harsh shit and I genuinely donât think anyone can sincerely point to how we are better off for it.
I did see you say that, so donât think I was casting any judgement on you as some sort of heartless bastard haha.
And I did mean it about people having to consider what bothers them more, because I wonât deny that there are definitely people out there who take the piss, and occasionally when I see an egregious case it annoys me a bit too lol. Here I am working for a living and very carefully weighing up whether it would be financially viable to have a second child and there are people out there with no jobs, 4 kids they already canât afford and no plans to ever start using any sort of birth control lol
But then I try to weigh it and think that child number 5 in this already poor household didnât choose to come into this world (same goes for the other 4 too obvs)
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Not too long in the end (I hope), just took a while cos I kept having to stop typing to do bits and pieces round the house before bed lol
@Starboy Out of interest why do you think capping at 2 is a good balance? Itâs just a random number not measured by anything.
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I work in the welfare system here and this has always done my head in.
I got a proposal done up once for essentially an âalways onâ system for people that qualify. All youâd have needed to do was log into the secure system flip it back on and a few simple checks later youâre done. I know for a fact itâs possible technically. It will never happen 
As for the UC cap, itâs a bad idea. No policy that essentially keeps people in poverty, forces them into using food banks etc can be considered for the good of society.
The outlier cases, 5,6,7 kids and huge money going out to them are so rare they are not worth even the investment in developing the policy in the first place. This type of rhetoric is popular unfortunately.
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Well exactly this, again weâre not gonna be able to put numbers on it because proving whether someone had that extra child because of the benefit available (or not now) is nigh on impossible, but itâs ridiculous that people would be able to do such a thing without some sort of financial sense about the decision.
It should be the parents getting punished not the kids but how do you make that happen? I donât know how rigorous the checks are as to whether the parents are doing everything they can to maximise income, bearing in mind someone needs to look after the kids as well, but that should be the first point of call.
Problem itâs always gonna be after the fact and then the kids canât be the ones who suffer.
Doesnât help I have a starting point for a lot of our countryâs issues being down to overcrowding. Only one remotely ethical way to help that is to find ways to discourage/limit births so anything that even half works, iâd be in favour of.
@RockyMaivia it could equally be 1 (simply a first child benefit) but I think 2 is a generally fair number. Families were often seen traditionally of 4, a 2 parent 2 child household. Whether that number has the desired impact on funding I couldnât tell you. Iâm not talking as someone whoâs researched the numbers and success/failure, just giving my opinion, but Iâd like to assume the government did the research before implementing.
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Could you elaborate on this point a bit more please?
In your view, is having a 2-child benefit cap encouraging immigration or deterring it?
I donât think we should be paying people for having children they canât afford. Thatâs poor planning on the parents side.
Sure, itâs not the kidâs fault - but where is the money to fund all of these kids?
From what Iâve seen, child benefit money doesnât even get spent on the kid anyway; just goes into Mummyâs bank account so she can get her lashes done.
Would much prefer it go into an account that canât be assessed until the kid is 16.
Thatâs a pathetic generalisation.
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I agree with the policy tbh.
If you canât afford more than two dont have more than two.
Simple maths
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This is an ignorant point of view. Weâre experiencing a cost of living crisis with high levels of inflation over the last few years and minimal growth in wages.
Some people had kids when they could afford it and now maybe find themselves in a position where they are struggling.
People need to stop demonising people when they get themselves into situations of struggle as if we are living at a time of booming economy, amazing real wage growth, ample amazing employment opportunities and a low cost of living.
Its a hard life out there for a lot of people. Look at the interest rates, peoples unaffordable mortgages, tiny percentage increase in wages year on years whilst inflation reached near record levels last year.
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Ok so what if I had 4 kids at a time that me and my partner were living comfortably.
Suddenly food became extravagantly expensive, my bills doubled, the mortgage went up by a few hundred pounds or rent increased dramatically over the few yearsâŚ
Yet in that time my wages went up by about 2-3%.
So now all of a sudden I donât have the same amount of money I had 2-3 years ago. Iâm struggling. And suddenly the 4 kids that I used to live comfortable with, are becoming a real struggle to manage.
Am I stupid for having 4 kids and not being able to forecast record inflation levels, huge hike in energy bills, increase across all other bills, interest rate hikes from less than 1% to over 5%?
Just seems like everyone thinks itâs a case of âif you canât have kids donât afford themâ when itâs actually a case of the government have failed to manage the economy for the last 14 years and when you throw in wars, a global pandemic and stuff it just makes everyoneâs situation considerably worse.
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Basically itâs a policy which punishes children for the actions of the parents, and some people think this is a good thing.
Just to add to @SRCJJ point. Circumstances change out of your control. Donât really talk about my personal life but my dad passed away 2 years after I was born (I was a twin #3 and #4). 1 year after marriage to my mum. This was when the UK ecomony was respectable and life got harder in an instant. How you âplanâ that?
Not that I think it matters anyway, viewing having kids as a negative is the wrong approach. This is only a thing in the west.
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Very fair point tbh. I always tend to look at things as black or white and never see different scenarios
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It seems to be becoming more and more unaffordable to have children in the UK.
We need young people to actually be working and paying taxes.
We donât have enough.
We are heading for demographic collapse unless we get young people in from elsewhere in this case.
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This is a terrible justification. We live in an unequal country. I would strongly suggest visiting a deprived area in the UK. I never knew how bad it is personally until I left London (and thatâs just to the South East, the North is even worse) Should those places have no aspirations of having kids or a family?
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