Family Allowance/Child Benefit for sim parents?

[Muisie]

I'm with you, Nectere.  Every year when we have our taxes done (US), they try to convince us to have children as to drastically lower the amount.  Nah, I'd rather just pay up, be rich and go on vacation in Hawaii.  And when I'm old and cranky, well old, then I'll use my very own saved up money for false teeth and hearing aids.  Right, Pescado?  You buy your own false teeth?

[Renatus]

Would anyone happen to have any links to any studies showing that considerable amounts of young women are having more babies as a result of the child benefit monies being raised, or perhaps some direct anecdotal evidence ("I know someone that...", not "A friend of my cousin's husband said...")? I'm skeptical that these abuses are happening otherwise, when the reasoning looks to be that just because a system could be abused, it is being abused by many.

[Regina]

Of course the US has credits for kids!  I have three and one this year turned too old to deduct on our income taxes.

During my 21 years of marriage I think I've only actually paid federal taxes something like 5 or 6 years because generally speaking the Earned Income Credit refunds more than we paid in the first place--and you only get EIC for dependent children.

Naturally this all depends on your level of income and there's a very bizarre thing in those tax tables.  There's a really fine line between paying virtually no taxes or paying a ton.  If my husband gets a raise at work it bumps us up to the next level where we'd end up paying more than his raise would bring in.  If we stay below that point we pay no or very little federal taxes.  So, this brings about another problem:  either you stay in a 'low income' tax bracket or you need to earn twice as much to actually benefit from the increased income.

[Ness]

What I said about young girls having kids just to get the baby bonus in Australia came from a very close friend of mine who is an obstertrics registrar...

she's in the public hospital system so doesn't really see anyone who can afford private health cover.

In the months leading up to the baby bonus being introduced she started to see a lot more young women in the pre-natal clinics, at the time the baby bonus was introduced - there was a brief lull in her work in the days leading up to it, and then it got insanely busy as soon as the date rolled around to when the baby bonus would be paid - she said it was amazing what the brain could do in regards to a woman going into labour - the numbers of young, single women having babies did increase dramatically at that time - I do not know if that increase has been sustained since, but I will check with her again when the next increase in the baby bonus is due - I'm not entirely sure when it is, but I think it is some time this year.

[angelyne]

If my husband gets a raise at work it bumps us up to the next level where we'd end up paying more than his raise would bring in.  If we stay below that point we pay no or very little federal taxes.

My  coworker is currently in this type of pickle.  His wife just got a better job that pays about 800$ more a month.  They are currently receiving subsidized day care and pays about $300 a month.  Well they just had their annual review with the day care agency program and because of the new job, they were told their daycare would go from $300 a month to $1200 a month!. 

His wife is in tears.  She will have to quit a better paying job that offers her more prospect for the future because they simply can't afford it.  How mad is that?

[Kyna]

I spent 10 years working for Centrelink, from 1994 to 2004.  The last few years of that was in the family payments area, which handles payments for children and payments for single parents.  I think I may be qualified to give my professional opinion on this.

The statistics demonstrate that the majority of single parents in Australia are not teens - the average single parent is most likely to be in her late-20s to mid-30s, who has come out of a bad relationship.  The statistics also demonstrate that most single parents stay on the full payment for around 18 months or so while they get their lives back together, then they start part-time or full-time work.  It doesn't take long before a sole parent realises that the pension isn't going to cover the cost of giving the kids a reasonable upbringing.  When my marriage broke up I took leave without pay while I dealt with some of the issues arising from the break up, and I spent some time on the opposite side of the counter on the sole parent pension.

It is a myth that the majority of single parents are teens who get pregnant so they don't have to look for work, don't have to worry about housing, etc.  It is also a myth that a lot of welfare recipients keep having kids because of the welfare payments available.  I live in a welfare area now, I lived in a welfare area before I worked for Centrelink.  In my personal life I have only ever met one woman who was planning on having a lot of kids because of the payments.  She was in her late 20s at the time, and had several children already.  All the other mothers (sole parents or not) at the local school thought she was insane - knowing the responsibility that children entail, it was not an option they would ever consider.

[nectere]

Australia sounds like a lovely place to live.

[rohina]

I moved to Canada. Everyone says "but, but... the climate..."

[Kristalrose]

Australia sounds like a lovely place to live.

I second that. 

I work very closely with my county's department of social services and court system because I teach parenting classes.  I live in rural North Carolina.  The vast majority of parents that I see in the "system" are young, single parents with a brood of children.  Many of them are fathered by older men who do not work, who have criminal recrods, who make a living preying on these young girls.  They find a girl, tell them they love them, they're going to take care of them, etc.  Help her get an apartment, etc.  After baby is born, they show up around the time the monthly check comes in, brngs in a $10 bag of diapers and some McDonald's for Mom, make a big talk about being the man, woo hoo with mom,  take a little of her check, and then go off to the next girl.  The single mothers have it hard, and most of them have very low self esteem here.  They turn to substance abuse to deaden the pain.  Pretty soon, they are neglecting their children.  Neglect is much more prevelant that abuse.  Next thing you know, they are in the court system, kids are in foster care, and they're in my parenting classes crying because they love their kids but they can't get it together.  And where is Daddy?  Out on the street corner with his buddies, maybe selling drugs, maybe checking out the next 16-17 year old girl that walks along and seeing his next "conquest." 

I think that the men who do this should be locked up for life or nutered!!!  They are criminals, plain and simple.  They do not pay a penny of child support, they do not provide any real emotional support to the mothers, they just use them.  They benefit from government programs that are designed to help poor parents get "on their feet", but they do not have to submit to any of the regulations such as the mandatory job training or the alotted time limits to be on the programs. They talk the mothers into leaving their names off the birth certificates and not cooperating with Child Support Enforcement.  They officially live with there elderly Grandparents, but they jump around from girlfriend to girlfriend.  Ultimately, one will get fed up, march herself into the Child Support Enforcement office, and say, "Joe Schmo is the father of my three kids.  I want you to go after him!"  But, Joe's never worked a day in his life, so there's no paycheck to garnish.  They attempt to bring Joe to court to answer charges for being a deadbeat dad, and he hides behind his remaining girlfriends.  He tells them, "ah, that B-word is trying to pin me down as being her baby's father, but I'm not.  She's a ho.  I only love you, honey!"  And pretty soon, the mothers are all at war with each other, and he can sit back and enjoy the "good life." 

I think that men like that are a big part of our social problems in our local society.     Sorry for the rant.

[Kukes]

Australia, to me, is losing what it once had - I blame the government, because it seems these days that more people are focussed on their money and their mortgages and their brand new cars and themselves when people used to actually care about strangers and their feelings. And since our government wins elections based on interest rates, the economy, and how much of our tax they're piling away in the vaults (while hospitals, schools, transport, public works, etc. are suffering) for some "rainy day" - I'm very disappointed in what my country has become.

Kristalrose, your post made me so sad and angry - I wish it was fiction, but then the truth is generally worse than fiction. The worst part is that there is so little you can do, even if you act with all of your power and ability, in those situations. 

Kyna, I understand where you're coming from, and its good to hear from the other side of the Centrelink divide - when my parents divorced my Mum went on the single parent pension as well since she was unemployed at the time, and although we weren't able to remove ourselves entirely from the welfare (due to her working part-time to look after me) it did reduce after the initial money problems. Most people on Centrelink benefits are well-deserving; there are a lot of young people on the NewStart and Youth Allowances that I know, mainly due to lack of any work in the area I live in. But I have encountered quite a few women who do exploit the system in this way - they are not the majority, but most I have met come either from bad family situations or their mothers did a similar thing with their children.

I moved to Canada. Everyone says "but, but... the climate..."

Ha! I'd rather have been in Canada this New Year's, with the 45 degree temperatures... sure, the winters are mild but summer is getting horrendous.

[ZiggyDoodle]

Children should be made illegal and anyone who has one should be fined for it

Well, shucks, JM, that could have some serious consequences down the line.  How about a global license to procreate?  You could offer to administrate the program.   

[Sagana]

I think he wants to see how long it takes him to send us to a BFBVFS

[Kyna]

I didn't intend to give the impression that there are no drug addicts, alcoholics, etc on welfare.  There certainly are, as I know from my professional and personal life.  They tend to be more visible & more vocal, giving the impression they are the majority.  Yet they are the minority.

I mostly worked at two very different offices during my time in Centrelink.  The first office was in a country town, population around 12000, where most of the major industries had closed - except one remaining major employer which had cut its staffing from 2000 employees to 500 over the previous few years.  So there wasn't a lot of work about.  As it was a country town there was a strong emphasis in the community on 'old-fashioned values' and the work ethic with the consequent pressure on people to find work, but most of the community knew there wasn't much work about - everyone knew someone who had personally experienced the devastation of unemployment.  It gives you a different perspective when you work in a small town office where just about every customer is a friend, relative or long-term acquaintance of somebody in the office.  You know that the majority of your customers are looking for jobs that just aren't there.

When I transferred back to the city I landed in an office servicing an urban welfare area with a significant substance abuse problem.  We  had our 'regulars' - the addicts looking for some cash to score (which they weren't likely to get).  They tended to come in more frequently and were our more vocal and aggressive customers, and often potentially dangerous to deal with.  However the majority of our customers were just ordinary, everyday people.  Some were battling incredible odds, yet refused to give up.  Many of these ordinary people had never had any opportunities, or maybe their opportunities had been taken away when their employers 'downsized', or maybe they'd lost their opportunities through mistakes of their own (and we all make mistakes).  They still deserved a fair go, to be treated with the dignity and respect that is every human being's right, and not to be stereotyped because of the behaviour of a visible, vocal minority.

Getting off my soapbox now.  I tend to become rather passionate when defending welfare recipients.

[PlaidSquirrel]

My sister has a 7 mo old baby. When she got pregnant she had a good job but not good enough to cover child care for two kids while she worked. She applied for a child care program offered by the welfare office. Turned out she would have to wait 6 months to have any assistance since she already had a job but if she was unemployed she would get the assistance imediately.
She quit her job.

[ZephyrZodiac]

That's the real trouble with all welfare programs, they only help those who don't try to help themselves!  I worked as a teacher and have a (small, since I only did 20 years before having to retire due to ill-health) but because of this I get no extra help beyond the Old Age Pension.  If I had NO personal pension, I would be entitle to so many things, probably wouldn't own my own house (since I'm single and when I took out my mortgage, it was only because I was a "professional woman" that i was able to get it at all!), and would not only get my rent and council Tax paid, but I'd have Pension Credit to claim, all my house maintenance would be someone else's responsibilty - need I go on?.......

[Renatus]

ZZ, you can go on all you like, but without statistics to back up your claims you are blowing hot air.

The information I have found applies to the USA. Some of it is rather old, but things have not changed significantly enough since the research was done to make it invalid, as the changes that have resulted are not substantial enough to subsume the costs of a baby.

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-welfaremothers.htm
http://www.voice.neu.edu/960215/welfare.html
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1302

I'm going to have to be done with this thread. It's making me very upset that there is a lot of finger-pointing at these assumed hordes of young women and not at all at the men who get them pregnant. I'm also feeling insulted on behalf of my mother, who has been on welfare twice in her adult life, and yes, she WAS a poor, unmarried, young woman with a history of drug addiction - and she is the hardest working person I have EVER met and did her damnedest to do right by me despite her problems, and she worked DAMN hard to get those problems fixed - and she would have been able to do a hell of a lot better if she hadn't had to spend most of her life working her fingers to the bone and gaining herself a permanent disability in her shoulders in the process to scrape by.

So kindly chew on that the next time you want to trash on these imagined hordes of leeches.

[smellslikecatfood]

ZZ, you can go on all you like, but without statistics to back up your claims you are blowing hot air.

The information I have found applies to the USA. Some of it is rather old, but things have not changed significantly enough since the research was done to make it invalid, as the changes that have resulted are not substantial enough to subsume the costs of a baby.

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-welfaremothers.htm
http://www.voice.neu.edu/960215/welfare.html
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1302

I'm going to have to be done with this thread. It's making me very upset that there is a lot of finger-pointing at these assumed hordes of young women and not at all at the men who get them pregnant. I'm also feeling insulted on behalf of my mother, who has been on welfare twice in her adult life, and yes, she WAS a poor, unmarried, young woman with a history of drug addiction - and she is the hardest working person I have EVER met and did her damnedest to do right by me despite her problems, and she worked DAMN hard to get those problems fixed - and she would have been able to do a hell of a lot better if she hadn't had to spend most of her life working her fingers to the bone and gaining herself a permanent disability in her shoulders in the process to scrape by.

So kindly chew on that the next time you want to trash on these imagined hordes of leeches.

I live in the U.S. and I used to work in a homeless shelter for women and children.   The financial help available in the U.S. for these women is dismal at best....  Most of the women I worked with had one or two children, with educations ranging from a couple of years of high school to college coursework, and I never encountered any that thought that having another baby would somehow help their financial situation.  The myth of welfare mother's living the high life with government handouts is a complete joke! Most of the women I worked with were trying to finish their high school educations so that they could get jobs that would actually allow them to pay the cost of child care and earn a decent living wage to house and feed their family.  In the area I live in $250/week for one child is the average cost of child care.  I have a college degree, a decent job and a partner with a somewhat stable job situation and the thought of us managing a baby financially keeps me tossing and turning at night. 

Renatus, I hope your mother's life has gotten easier in her later years.  I'm very familiar with the disease of drug addiction and I have loads of respect for her and her accomplishments in raising a woman like you. 

[Regina]

Years and years ago, like back in the 1960s, I can remember quite a few people on welfare who weren't necessarily living the high life but still drove around in Cadillacs.  That's no myth--that was fact.  I also personally knew single mothers who could have worked but instead were on welfare.  By some bizarre notion, though, I felt that was their choice--they were trying to stay home and take care of their kids and be good moms.  Over the years I've also known quite a few people who're drug addicts and the like and some came around and took up clean lives while others will die never having made a positive contribution to society--in fact, their contributions have been to try to get their own children addicted.  I think no matter where a person is, there are going to be both sides of the coin presented.  Some people will work their tails off to straighten their lives and others will just keep wallowing in the gutter.

A few years back our state did a complete welfare reform, which in a way has been good, but on the other hand I think went too far.  Any person's time is limited to something like 18 months out of their entire lifetime they can actually depend on financial support.  When my sister's husband walked out on her to go after another woman, my sister didn't have the time or emotional and financial support she and her then 6-year-old daughter needed to get through the divorce.  Instead, she was told she needed to get a job immediately (which she did).  Truthfully, those first few months after the divorce were basically enough so that her life's pretty much been rocked ever since.  I couldn't help but think if she'd had a little bit of time there their lives would've been much more settled.  As it is, she basically just makes it from day to day and is going nuts in the process.  I know there's two sides to every story but her ex has turned into a first-class jerk and has done nothing but cause problems since he left.  He's now trying to get custody of their daughter--and this is one of those really lame things, because he seems to thinks it's going to be cheaper for him to raise their 13-year-old than to pay the $260 a month child support he currently pays.

At any rate, life is very bizarre. 

[Kyna]

I guess what stirs my passion on this topic is when people present anecdotal evidence of welfare cheats - and we all have such anecdotes, myself included - and then try to say that 'every single parent' or 'every unemployed person' is cut from the same cloth.  In my experience, most aren't.

It's easy to target welfare recipients - they're impoverished, relatively powerless members of our communities.  I know, why don't we start a topic on ... say ... tax cheats.  I wonder if it would be an impassioned thread blaming and stereotyping the people and companies who rort the tax system - after all in dollar terms (or whatever your currency is) they cost the community a lot more than welfare cheats.  (NB I'm not serious about a thread on tax cheats, I'm just making the point that it's easier to target people who are at the lower end of the economic scale).

[Regina]

No doubt!  LOL  I think the folks who cheat on income taxes in this country could probably support most of the third-world countries out there!

Oh, I thought of something earlier, too, that could make quite a few welfare/disability recipients look like they're living high on the hog when they're not.

I have two sisters on disability--one is extreme bipolar, has diabetes, horrid back problems and just a myriad of ailments.  About a year ago our dad passed away, which means when the probate closes she'll be getting a little chunk of money, so this is why we had to check this out.  When she gets this money she isn't allowed to put even one dime of it into a savings account to keep for an emergency like a car breaking down or even something like buying a pair of glasses (her medical coverage doesn't cover her glasses).  Instead, every dime has to be spent within 30 days of receiving the money.  No one item she owns (with the exception of a home) can be valued at more than somewhere around $2,000 (I don't recall the exact amount) and that includes a vehicle.  She can check blue book prices and buy anything that books at under that price and spend $25,000 fixing it up if she wanted to (not like she'll have that much money, just an example) and as long as the car still books at $2,000 it's okay.  She can buy big-screen TVs, video game consoles, computers, what have you, as long as no one item is worth more than the set amount and as long as all the money is spent within the 30-day period.

So in a case like this, it might look like someone who's on disability is living high on the hog, when in reality they may've come into a few thousand dollars and their only option is to spend that money as quickly as possible.  It would seem to me that with vehicle prices what they are the limit on that should be higher, like say around $5,000 or $6,000.  In that price range a person can actually buy a decent used car.

The entire everything's set up on such a wonky system.  While I completely understand the reasoning behind the limits above (like keeping these people from driving brand new Cadillacs), it's totally skewed.

[PlaidSquirrel]

I don't think my sister is a welfare cheat. I think she was in a bad situation and was forced to make a bad decision. She couldn't afford food, rent etc. and childcare as well. She only pays 250 a month in rent for a tiny basement apt. but in a good neighborhood. She's lucky she's not stuck in crack town where her rent would probably be higher anyway.
I guess I just think it's stupid that they claim they want to put welfare moms to work but they won't even help them keep the jobs they already have.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I apologise if I've upset people, I never meant to criticise people who are trying to do their best to make a life for themselves and their children.  And yes, the men who renege on their reponsibilities do seem to get away scot free in many cases.  And I would add that the kind of mothers you are all referring to don't, when they're already in a difficult situation with a couple of kids, go out and get themselves pregnant again!  And I agree, if single mothers of young, pre-school children were given help with childcare costs it would be easier for them to find work, but I also think that no-one with children of that age should be forced to do so because of financial constraints - there should be no pressure put on a woman with children so young to leave them in someone else's care!

[simposiast]

For anyone interested, here's a link to a recent BBC article on attitudes to parenthood:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4600455.stm.   

Child benefit is to help children, not the parents.  Children don't choose to be born to parents who can't support them, so they can't be undeserving of help.