Shard

Speaking of bath water or perhaps pendulums, that is now changing. There's a much tougher regime for proving disability, and many who have genuine disability are now finding they are unable to claim benefit and having to join the dole queue.

Shard

Yup. An affordable number

Sally Redux

I couldn't take someone's kids away for adoption in those circumstances. I must be a big softy.

I guess it's what used to happen. Very hard all round though. Maybe they could do those more modern adoptions where the birth parents retain an involvement.

Alan2005

Apart from the questionable ethics of taking kids away from people just because they are poor, this solution seems like it would actually cost the state a lot more.

Sally Redux

These kinds of 'solutions' always do.

Shard

I'm a softy too believe it or not. However, you might find with a limited-pay policy that the incidence of excess kids decreases, so there would be little need to take kids away. Also, you're assuming that extra large families are big happy families; to the extent that they are, and the kids are well looked after there would be no reason to take them away. It would only be in cases where the kids were not looked after (which does happen) and in such cases, as a softy you may well be happy to see the kids removed.

On a more general note, I find extra large families in this day and age a bit weird. I can understand perhaps up 7-8-9 kids, but families like that Christian family on cable TV with 16 or something are just freaky. I assume the parents must be on some kind of narcissistic power trip to procreate at that level.

scrubbedexpat091

It probably would. Not sure about the UK, but in BC a foster parent gets paid more money then a welfare parent would receive, so seems better off just letting the kids stay with their own parents and let them stay on assistance.

Shard

This assumes that the policy has no effect on reducing the number or excess children. If poor parents had less kids because, like "not-poor" parents, because they realised they would be unable to provide properly for them, the the burden on the state would reduce. That's the whole point.

BristolUK

A couple of years ago they increased the rates here for a single person to something like $580. No rent money. If you don't live with family - and disgustingly their income may mean you don't qualify or get less - you're going to need a rooming house or something to survive.

Worse before that increase when it was about $320 with no rent.

Those who jumped $320 to $580 must have thought it was xmas.

When I first started work for DHSS in 1973 there was something called "The Wage Stop" that meant if the benefit assessment gave an income above the person's income when working - most likely due to the number of kids - the benefit was reduced so there was no gain.

It was abolished as I started benefits work the year after so I never saw it in operation.

Compared to caps now - where high housing costs is a major factor - it doesn't seem such a bad idea, providing it could be shown the family wasn't suffering in some way on their in work income. But how to do that? Maybe they appear to have been managing but really were not.

Perhaps that was why it was abolished.

Alan2005

Taking a child away from his/her parents requires a court order and there is an appeals process. Judges/lawyers/social workers are not cheap. And that is before the costs of actually looking after the child are taken into account.

As annoying as it is, paying the extra cash to look after the kid is going to be far far cheaper. The marginal per child increase cost to the state in doing this (when added to the cost for every child: education, health etc) is going to be negligible.

Shard

Is it? I haven't done the sums so wouldn't know. However, for the sake of argument, if it proved significantly more expensive for the state to keep funding large families would you be in favour of a cap?

scrubbedexpat091

If you live with family here, it may affect what someone gets, so many rules and exemptions and such its impossible to keep track of it all.

In the lower mainland of BC, its not possible to rent something on the housing supplement, most end up using most of their entire assistance on rent, and then use food banks, and shelters for food, and other needs.

They do now permit those on assistance to keep tax refunds and certain other payments, before it was deducted dollar for dollar.

If they let people go to school, and maintain their benefits, I think it would be a more useful program, let people go get skills they need to become employable.

Alan2005

No, because that is arbitrary and unethical. It's a punative measure against the child for something that is not their fault.

This is for the sake of argument as your scheme us definitely economically unsound

Shard

Is it ethical to facilitate the birth of children into welfare dependency? Is there not a greater arbitrariness in certain individuals deciding they want a family 5-6 times the size of norm?

Sally Redux

This is all getting a bit weird for me.

How would it be enforced? Police standing by as soon as a baby was born? Who would be prepared to do that? Taking older kids away forcibly? Would it really be a 'deterrent'? The birthrate is actually falling in developed countries, hence the need for immigrants.