Access to benefits

Spoonbill · February 2022

@racyguy Intervening again, can I suggest that you've set yourself a trap of homing in on "what about"s and then expanded these beyond the evidence base (anecdote) to create a general theory of (highly managed) distribution?

You're being met with arguments which take into account wider social implications, and attempt to highlight documented systemic social problems of conditionality. This doesn't resolve your concerns about exceptions, but attempts to put them into perspective and introduce bigger social factors to consider.

I would briefly suggest also that you might not have considered that changes might be funded in ways that don't impoverish anyone nor increase costly bureaucracy: on that, however, I feel it being too expansive to introduce to this thread (not to mention not the ideal place to discuss macro-economics).

Would it help if we were to grant that universal measures might produce anomalies which aren't 'fair' to the finest measure? (But consider: what part of life is?)

calcotti · February 2022

Spoonbill said: Would it help if we were to grant that universal measures might produce anomalies which aren't 'fair' to the finest measure? (But consider: what part of life is?)

And similarly means tested also creates unfairness in that there are usually thresholds or boundaries of one sort or another where somebody on one side of the boundary gets treated differently to someone on the other side.

No system can be perfect so it is a balance between fairness and practicality.

racyguy · February 2022

Username_removed said:

I love the idea that Child Benefit was being handed out and frittered away. In what sense I wonder?

If you had Child Benefit snd saved it that was because it was the only thing which enabled you to save i.e. your income was too low.

If you spent it on the maintenance of a child then that also showed your income was too low. Children thrive by having something more than maintenance.

The idea that you should claim something because you have an entitlement is basic. To ridicule your own wife for having a sensible core belief seems rather odd. I note @racyguy that you don’t get around to telling us what you’re wife spent it on. I didn’t it was anything she didn’t need.

It was frittered away by many of my friends, work colleagues and my wife. What my wife did with the weekly allowance was to either buy things for the home or more clothes, shoes and handbags for herself all of which were not needed with much of it being unused or given away. The children were funded in all ways out of my income.
All of our savings came by way of profits made in selling and moving our homes and the residue out of my salary each month.
My wife saw nothing wrong in taking what she saw as an entitlement for which no need existed.

chiarieds · February 2022

I would add my perspective, if I may. Many women (tho it could equally be men) stay at home to look after their children; an unpaid 'job.' Do you therefore not consider anything that you might have brought home in the way of any income shared for the good of your household?

It's very easy to say that this money is for specific things, & comes from this certain amount of money, yet normally money comes from a common 'pot,' to which your wife also contributed with Child Benefit, n'est-ce pas? May I suggest that your children were 'funded' out of your joint monies.

It's dissimilar, but my now ex-husband 'argued' that he'd paid my National Insurance contributions as he crossed over the road from our business to pay them into our joint bank account. Condiments, we were not only married at the time, but had also been business partners for decades, & shared all our money.

Lisatho11987777 · February 2022

I am only commenting on what I used to do with my child benefit I would give my children pocket money put ten pound in the sweety in pay a baby sitter once a month so I could go out and whatever was left went in the emergency tin if one of them needed new shoes things like that I have always been told if I am entitled then claim it and I always did

calcotti · February 2022

Username_removed said:..Means-testing of CB is a near perfect example of the proven continued failure of means-testing.

Far from being better targeted, it has resulted in thousands being too scared to claim their correct entitlement for fear of overpayments,

To which one should add, as a result thousands of people (predominantly women) not accruing NI credits to which they are entitled which will reduce their future State Pension entitlement.

Access to benefits

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