[mytailorisrich]

The title was edited for some reason, the actual one is:

"Budget 2025: how inflation and the two-child benefit cap has increased poverty"

And indeed this is an article against the 2-child benefit cap.

This is obviously full of warm feelings but ignores the tough question of the individual responsibility not to have more children than one can afford. The article interviews a family with 4 young children and apparently no money, for example...

Regarding poverty in general, I think the main issue in the UK is that there has been no economic growth since the financial crisis and GDP per capita is decreasing, i.e. people are getting poorer, which bites those on low/no income first and most.

[wood_spirit]

People made the decision to have each child at least 9 months before the child was born. And in the subsequent years and 9 months anything could have happened, eg illness or losing a job. So even careful planners might be unlucky enough to need food banks?

[meheleventyone]

Not to mention that children are a multi-decade commitment. My kids are nine and twelve. In that time I’ve been laid off twice and had a serious medical emergency. Things on that timescale are just not realistic to plan for as if there are guarantees. The less well of you are the more precarious everything is as well.

This is also all on the back of people complaining about declining birth rates!

[bossyTeacher]

> Not to mention that children are a multi-decade commitment. My kids are nine and twelve. In that time I’ve been laid off twice and had a serious medical emergency. Things on that timescale are just not realistic to plan for as if there are guarantees. The less well of you are the more precarious everything is as well.

This sounds like a reason not to have them though. It's like saying the probability of X is high if I do Y. I do not want X to happen, but I will still do X even if I have no obligation to do so. Your decision might make sense to you but the way your comment reads it doesn't sound like a logical argument supporting your decision

[meheleventyone]

It’s hardly illogical to not know what might happen in the future and my family is fine despite any setbacks!

In some senses having children at all isn’t that logical and is a choice lots of people aren’t making more often hence declining birth rates and worry over the impact of that in a global economy requiring growth.

[mindslight]

Not to mention that children are their own people that we hope will grow up into being fully functioning adults. Mitigating their suffering due to their parents' failings is a worthy goal. There is a lot of suffering we just have to agree to disagree about (eg many religions), but lack of food is basically an unequivocal [0] evil. And are our western societies not wealthy enough to provide basic sustenance to everyone ?

[0] being HN I know I'm running the risk of having have some contrarian edgelord arguing about parents' rights to innovate with calorie restriction and whatnot.

[mytailorisrich]

This can of course happen but it is obviously disingenuous to imply that this is what usually happens in response to my comment.

[Loughla]

I don't think that's what they're implying. They're simply saying that careful planning isn't necessarily always what's needed.

Consider carefully your sentences before making deep moral judgements about people and situations you might not be familiar with. That, I think, was their implied point.

[solumunus]

I think the point is that you can’t easily isolate these issues. Are you suggesting that someone should wade through the cases and determine who should get benefits for every child, or are you saying that you find the collateral damage to the “truly deserving” worth it?

[Nursie]

The problem with that view is that it’s not the children’s fault, and the cap punishes them and messes with their life chances because of decisions made by someone else. If there are kids going hungry, that’s somewhere you usually want the government to step in and take the strain.

It’s a very difficult area to navigate, politically. While it’s entirely understandable that there’s public discomfort with the idea that a family could bring in more in benefits than the average national wage (like, why the hell am I bothering with working in a system like that?! Am I the sucker here?), you also have to take into account that kids are going to need a certain amount of support, just to stand a chance in life.

So how do you ‘punish’ the parents, or even just balance the feeling of what’s ’right’, while not punishing innocent parties?

I agree though - the underlying cause is that the UK is stagnating, the average national wage is really not good anyway. And that’s the driver of a lot of the problems we see with anti-migrant sentiment, with benefits restrictions, with all sorts of stuff. If the country was thriving it wouldn’t be so much of an issue.

[mytailorisrich]

Are those against the 2-child cap in favour of campaigns and incentives to make poorer families stop at 2 children? Indeed, that'd be the best way to help children...

[Nursie]

I honestly don’t know, perhaps find some to ask. To me that looks far too much like government overreach and interference. Not that government overreach or interference is anything but fashionable these days.

As others have said as well - people’s lives take all sorts of unexpected twists and turns. Jobs are lost, economies change and make whole sectors irrelevant. You can’t just assume everyone with more than two kids needing support has always been in that situation or always will be.

[mytailorisrich]

If suggesting that perhaps people should live within their means is government overeach and interference then surely the government should then stay out of it and not provide any children benefits at all...

I think you've shown exactly how this debate and complaints against the 2-child cap is one-sided and refuses to consider the issue of family planning and living within one's means.

As I replied before, the argument that "life takes all sorts of unexpected turns" is completely disingenuous because we all know that this is not what happens in the vast majority of cases... so again an odd refusal to face reality and the key, tough questions.

Edit: why such bad faith in the replies? Most larger families that are poor and on benefits started that way, they are not victims of a sudden life accident. It is totally neutral to state this, I am not passing judgement. But apparently it is wrong to state it and wrong to suggest that people should start by living within their means. This is madness!

Edit 2: I'll leave this here (census 2021):

"In 2021, 1.2 million households contained three or more dependent children; when compared with households with one or two dependent children they were more likely to contain no employed adults" [1]

[1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde...

[louthy]

> we all know that this is not what happens in the vast majority of cases..

No, we don’t know that, you’re talking from a point of pure prejudice. Unless you have some actual evidence to back up what you’re saying, I would hold back on those types of blanket statements about people in poverty.

[Nursie]

I’m not sure who hurt you but I find this outburst a little unnecessary, especially as I’m exploring arguments rather than making assertions on one side or other.

> we all know that this is not what happens in the vast majority of cases...

I’d love to see your evidence on that.

(Your restating it in your edit, still absent any evidence, doesn’t make it any more compelling. This is not bad faith, you are making factual assertions. Are they true? How do we know?

What is bad faith is saying that other people’s ideas are “disingenuous” or demonstrative of a failure to consider other viewpoints.

Your second edit tells us that 19.8% of families with three or more kids had no employed adult, in 2021, vs 11.9% in smaller families. It’s an interesting stat but it doesn’t give a full picture or confirm for us that the “vast majority” of those affected by the cap are long-term benefit recipients. Perhaps they are, even then it doesn’t address the root concern that the cap punishes children for their parents’ life decisions.

I don’t know what the right answer is. It may be there is no good one. As I implied before I’m not necessarily on the other side of this, I think it’s complex.)

[Loughla]

That's a very morality based argument. In general, those types of arguments aren't great and don't really serve a purpose outside of letting the individual take the moral high ground for whatever reason.

I had to rely on food banks when my parents kicked me out at 16. I had to again my second year of marriage while I was still in graduate school and our car got hit, forcing us to use our food budget (and we did have a budget that we followed) for the family.

For the second time, I had kids, I had a good job, so did my wife, I was seeking higher education to advance in my career. But times were tight due to factors out of our control, and we needed help.

What should we have done differently?

[solumunus]

I can’t understand what you think their argument is. This response doesn’t seem relevant to theirs.

[nobodyandproud]

I’m pretty sure the retort was aimed at the patronizing bit here:

> but ignores the tough question of the individual responsibility not to have more children than one can afford.

Which seems quite relevant. The only fool-proof plan for anyone is to have zero kids, which is ridiculous.

My wife and I live beneath ours means, save as much as possible, live debt free, and we instead try to afford as much as possible for the kids.

A job loss or major accident/medical problem where we survive is terrifying from a financial PoV.

[mytailorisrich]

Nothing patronising in my comment... it's common sense.

Unfortunately it almost customary here that any comments be interpreted in the most negative way possible for some reason. Perhaps to avoid discussion or, indeed, the tough, uncomfortable questions.

[jabberwhookie]

Your comment is completely patronizing. Every child who needs help has parents who should know better and let's make them suffer.. Not because it is rational or even meets the objectives of the community but because we should be a community that is mean spirited.

[GeoAtreides]

no, the other posters are right, your comment was not only patronising but terrifying in its implications.

[nobodyandproud]

I have no dog in this fight, but your intent matters less than what it signifies: The comment is patronizing in the abstract, because it’s out-of-touch.

That’s the best interpretation, and the response still fits if less harshly worded.

[mytailorisrich]

My comment was neither patronizing nor out of touch. In fact it acknowledges that this is a "tough question".

Social issues can't be tackled without facing the tough questions head on.

My point is that I think that the best way to actually help families and children is to incentivise and teach not to have children you can't afford in the first place instead of infantilising people and to tell them that anything goes and the state will pick up the tab.

No-one, no-one replied to my comments on the point. Only intellectually lazy outrage.

[blfr]

What is the point of having a civilization if we can't afford kids? Sure, if it was this or that couple, maybe it could be mere irresponsibility, but now the entire west (and plenty of non-western countries) is below replacement.

[bluescrn]

> What is the point of having a civilization if we can't afford kids?

It's not 'can't afford kids', it's 'don't prioritise having kids'. And IMHO, they've been taught to think this way. To put career and materialism above family. There's also the constant messaging about an impending climate apocalypse or the rise of new fascism/nazism - which helps justify 'I don't want to bring new life into this world' logic.

Other cultures continue to have kids even in relative poverty, they don't choose to stop having families because times are tough.

[blfr]

Which cultures still have kids? India is now below replacement as well. SE Asia is doing worse than the west.

There's Africa, sure, and maybe Mongolia. But it's not clear that it will hold or that they have any secret sauce beyond just not having been yet hit with the full blown modernity.

[api]

African birth rates are falling faster than projected.

[api]

I’m just going to throw this out there.

What if reducing birth rates at this point in time is rational?

On the employment side, we have rapidly advancing automation and AI that are dramatically reducing the work force required to maintain society.

On the ecological side we have a combination of climate change, soil depletion, and many other factors that at least threaten to impose a bottleneck on us. We are smart and adaptive but adapting takes time and energy. During the transition it may be harder for us to support vastly huge populations.

Put those things together and… are we, in fact, doing the rational thing here?

Keep in mind that no trend is forever.

In the 1970s people predicted global Malthusian collapse in part by extrapolating past birth rates infinitely far into the future.

Seems to me that population collapse alarmists are doing the same thing. “If this trend continues forever there will be nobody left!”

[docdeek]

This runs into trouble when the older people rely on the younger ones to pay for their retirement and government services. Having fewer children means fewer people to pay taxes, so while a lower birth rate might address environmental and automation/AI challenges, it creates significant headaches elsewhere and requires a society-wide shift in expectations and responsibilities.

[api]

I’m in my 40s and have never believed retirement would be a thing for me unless I make a whole lot of money.

Retirement for all was an artifact of rapidly growing populations and shorter life spans. Back 50-100 years ago you had each young person supporting maybe 0.1 to 0.25 retired people, and a retirement age in the 60s meant you’d get a few years before now easily treatable heart conditions would kill you. (Everyone smoked too, which “helped” clear the retirement rolls.)

In a world with even a stable population (let alone a declining one) retirement isn’t viable. Or at the very least the age will be raised a lot. I could see 80 as a retirement age in 2050.

Honestly an institutionalized retirement age in the 60s today is unfair and exploitative toward young people. It’s generational economic cannibalism, stopping young people from establishing themselves to fund the old.

[bluescrn]

Young people can't pay for their own retirements, as they're effectively funding their parents retirements.

[anon191928]

social welfare in almost any nation (excl. energy rich countries) is not sustaniable long term. maybe we can start with ack. that fact? Sure retired people can get some amounts and free food but bigger amounts in budget just don't make sense? I mean calculate and see it. Countries literally pay these with DEBT. How hard it is for avg people to get this? It is such a simple thing to calculate too. When debt gets too big for so many countries, entire thing collapses? we know that already

[Nursie]

This has been a refrain of the political right for several decades now, particularly in the US, and appears to be ideological rather than factual.

[bigbadfeline]

> What if reducing birth rates at this point in time is rational?

Well, lower birth rates are the perpetual excuse for more immigration. Even Trump made a U-turn on H1B and he's now OK with more immigration. Low birth rates and high immigration give credence to the various "replacement" theories and become a political force that can bring nationalists to power.

Next, lower birth rates could be "rational" if they led to higher standard of living and better quality of life, but that's not the case now, in fact we are seeing the opposite because less children make the work force cheaper thus increasing profits. Increased profits go towards increased power and influence which make the trend irreversible.

> During the transition it may be harder for us to support vastly huge populations.

Nonsensical in the current environment of birth rates below replacement level and falling.

> In the 1970s people predicted

Not people - the mass media. They are just noise and BS which should not be considered in a serious conversation - one way or the other.

[bluescrn]

> What if reducing birth rates at this point in time is rational?

If rational people stop reproducing, all we'll have left is irrational people.

[mindslight]

> constant messaging about an impending climate apocalypse or the rise of new fascism/nazism

Or perhaps, and I know this is a wild idea, we could attempt to address these problems instead of complaining about the "messaging" ?

[louthy]

When I was 8 years old my father got ill. He lost his ability to work, lost his business, and eventually we lost our house and ended up in social housing. Then three years later, when I was 11 years old, my father died leaving my mother with 3 kids to raise and no income.

If the two child benefit cap was in place then, we would have been in food poverty in one of the richest nations on earth.

Not every situation is as mind numbingly simple as you paint it. Most people don’t have additional children in an attempt to game the system. That’s a moronic point of view.

[adammarples]

Your situation is obviously tragic and very rare. I don't think anybody claimed that gaming of the system was at work.

[GeoAtreides]

>the tough question of the individual responsibility not to have more children than one can afford

quite the juicy implication there, chief