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Originally Posted by Xaccers
They get benifits for being unable to work, such as housing benifit, unemployment benifit, council tax relief, and the £10 (or what ever it is now) a week child benifit.
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Well housing benefit is as much for the child as parent I guess. Child support is not means tested - its just paid to all parents (I think). However people with low incomes and children will get additional child support on top of this standard allowance paid to all.
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Originally Posted by Xaccers
The majority of those benifit £ÃÆ ’‚£Ãà¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚£ are there for the adult to be able to live, not for the child.
The CSA says that the father should pay £400 a month for the child.
But the mother's benifits are taken out of that, so either the child gets the £400 and the mother has no benifits, or the mother uses some of the £400 to simply live, and the child then gets less than £400, less than what the CSA has deemed the child needs per month to have a good standard of living.
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I may be wrong but my understanding is that the amount the absent parent pays is not determined based on 'what the child needs' but on what the state determins is apporiate for the absent parent to pay based on their income. Earn loads and you pay more. That does not mean that a child of a rich absent parent needs more money than one of a poor absent parent.
If you imagine a person leaving their super rich partner and taking their child. Initally the rich partner pays nothing. So the state steps in to help support both the parent and the child (cheaper and better than taking the child into care). Then the missing rich parent starts to cough up £2000 a week in child maintance (to pluck a figure out of the air). You think in such a situation the state should continue to pay support to the parent with the child?