Child Benefit Scrapped For Higher Rate Tax Payers From 2013

[TheDaddy]

Dave is going to do a speech today on fairness, poorly planned considering this idea, how can it be fair that a single person earning £44k can loose their benefit but a couple can earn £87k and still keep theirs and no amount of talk of not wanting to means test will change that.

It can be fair because a family with a single earner on £44,000 is still comfortably above the average earnings in the UK. If they were taking this benefit away from low-earners, then there might be a case for using words like 'fair' and 'unfair' in a perjorative sense.

Personally I think if we're going to get into deciding what's 'fair' we should be looking at the economic situation as a whole rather than focusing on the bits that best facilitate Tory-bashing. What's really unfair is the mess we are all in. What's fair is that this reform will claw back much-needed money from at least some people who can afford it, without costing more money in the process.

Interesting analysis on the BBC Politics blog Stephanomics

The bit that caught my attention was

According to the IFS, single parents are now about 13-16% better off as a result of Labour's tax and benefit changes, depending on whether they work. Non-pensioner households without children, on average, are worse off than they would have been if the 1997 system had remained unchanged. (These averages exclude people earning more than £100,000 a year who have been hit by higher tax.)

Interestingly, given this week's debate, Labour's changes also turn out to have favoured families with "stay at home" mums.

Other things equal, the average one earner household with children was nearly 6% better off in 2010 than they would have been under the old system, whereas, households with children where both couples work were just over 1.2% worse off.

But note this last group still did a lot better than dual earner couples without any children in the house, who were about 4% worse off as a result of the changes Labour brought in.

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by Chris

It can be fair because a family with a single earner on £44,000 is still comfortably above the average earnings in the UK. If they were taking this benefit away from low-earners, then there might be a case for using words like 'fair' and 'unfair' in a perjorative sense.

Yes I am aware of why they have done it and broadly support the idea that those that can afford it should shoulder more of the burden, just strikes me as odd that two days after launching such an 'unfair' piece of legislation he will be up on the podium banging on about what's fair.

I see where you're coming from ... but I really do think that an honest analysis of 'fair' and 'unfair' requires a far broader view than any one policy.

For example, this recession caused my contract work to completely dry up. I was unemployed for well over a year through no fault of my own. I was also forced to avail myself of the services of the DWP and go through all the rather dehumanizing background and financial checks that ensure I'm not cheating the system. That's not especially fair on me ... I'm an honest sort, simply trying to get the support out of the system that I was entitled to. But at the same time, I recognise that benefits are designed to cope with a lot more people than just me, and so I accept a little personal discomfort as sad but inevitable.