Tuesday 14 December 2010

Rogering 'em

There's a nice bit of shroud waving on the BBC by the super-quango Teenage Pregnancy Independent Advisory Group (TPIAG), who having been threatened with closure two months ago are now trying to justify their continuing miserable existence.

I could try and make a few serious points here, asking whether it isn't maybe the welfare system that encourages so many young, single women to have babies in the first place rather than the lack of contraceptives and so on, but by force of habit, the first thing I did was to look at the TPIAG's list of members (see second link above) to see whether the UK's most hilariously and inappropriately named quangocrat is still listed.

Yup, he is.

14 comments:

Scott Wright said...

What I feel the worst thing about the whole "do people have kids for benefits?" debate is that the people commenting in shock & horror at the suggestion that this occurs are all comfortably well off and have no fucking idea what its like to live on a low income.

I can say with 100% certainty, having an additional child because A: you will get maternity pay, B: Increased benefits is a very real discussion in the £0 to £50k household income brackets.

Chuckles said...

Bit of Nominative Determinism there perhaps?

Sue said...

It's a perfect career for girls that don't want a proper job. I've known quite a few friends of my daughters say as much.

They know they will get somewhere to live and be on benefits for as long as they keep having kids.

The only way to stop the pregnancy rate is to stop the money DEAD.

Many years ago, mums of wayward daughters were expected to keep them at home and help when their offspring got themselves into "trouble".. and the shame, that's gone too.

I also believe absolutely that any sort of funding should stop at two children.

The UK doesn't need anymore deadbeat babies.

Mark Wadsworth said...

SW, I think it's a bit more subtle than that. If a single unemployed woman has one or two kids and gets all her benefits sorted out (see what Sue says), then her living standard is approx equal to that of a child-less woman earning about £20,000.

So it's an actual incentive for those with low earnings potential, for women earning above that, esp. if they are married, there is no net financial incentive to having children, or at best, the benefits soften the blow of the loss of the mother's income.

Ch, so what do you do for a living, with a name like that?

Sue, agreed. I'd say the first three kids, not the first two, see UKIP Welfare Maniesto.

Bayard said...

"The UK doesn't need anymore deadbeat babies."

But it does need babies, to pay all our pensions, and who's to say that the children of single mothers won't grow up to be hard workers any more than the children of hardworking parents won't grow up to be deadbeats. The child of a single mother on the dole is going to get get much better childcare from mum than the child of a working mother.

Derek said...

Bayard is right. With the UK's current birth rate, it's encourage deadbeat babies, encourage immigrants or suffer big problems 30 years down the line.

dearieme said...

But the deadbeat babies, and many of the immigrants, are going to draw out of the welfare state, not pay in.

Anonymous said...

" Derek said...

Bayard is right. With the UK's current birth rate, it's encourage deadbeat babies, encourage immigrants or suffer big problems 30 years down the line.
"
I disagree having lots of babies being brought up in dysfunctional homes, believing that welfare is a good idea is not going to make things better but worse.

The only people our current policy will help are young prison guards who will have a job for life.

Mark,

Who is the quangocrat?

Bayard said...

Anon, so "single unemployed mother" = "dysfunctional home" does it? and does this extend to widows and divorcees and if not, why not?

I can think of many instances where "both parents out working all day" = "dysfunctional home" too. Of course welfare is a good idea, or else we would have people starving in the streets and riots. I would have thought that being brought up in a household surviving on benefits gives you a far better idea of what life is like on the dole and a determination to avoid such a lifestyle than being brought up in a rich, cossetted, middle class household.

Mark Wadsworth said...

B, D, Anon. There is a natural inclination for (most) people to want to have a couple of children. It is no concern of 'the state' of who and how many, and the welfare state taxes those in the middle (thus reducing the number of children they can afford) to subsidise those at the bottom (who thus have more children than they would otherwise be able to afford).

As ever, a flat tax (preferably on land values, but a flat tax on incomes will do) coupled with a flat rate Child Benefit of about £35 per child per week for the first three kids will compensate mothers for loss of income (hey ho, no more gender pay gap).

This will soften the financial blow, but without forcing some people to have fewer babies than they could otherwise afford and allowing other people to have more.

AntiCitizenOne said...

Subsidise the first Zero kids.

Mark Wadsworth said...

AC1, you keep saying that, so can you explain at what age you start receiving the Citizen's Dividend in your scheme or things?

AntiCitizenOne said...

There is no gender pay gap. There's a loss of wages from people who choose to look after children.

I laugh at the suggestion that despite 99.99% of the 7 billion people on the planet requiring no payment for their parents to have sex, the population of the UK will disappear unless they are paid.

Mark Wadsworth said...

AC1, indeed, I could have put 'gender pay gap' in speech marks to remind people that there is no 'gender pay gap', but there very much is a 'mothers vs everyone else pay gap', and it seems not unreasonable to address this (as I am pro child, pro family and mildly feminist, sweep it all up in one go).

And you haven't answered my simple question.