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Thats exactly what tax credits and housing benefit do. With tax credits, once you hit a certain threshold (which I don't know off the top of my head) benefit reduces by 55p for every £1 earned until the entitlement is nil. Similar figures apply to housing benefit as far as I know.
Anyone should be able to say it, that's the joy of free speech. I'm not sure what you mean be "be inactive" though. We all pay tax and we can only affect how that is spent through the ballot box
No one should be. We, the human race that is, can produce more than enough food to feed everyone, we have the capabilty to ensure that everyone has clean drinking water and we could educate every child on the planet. Unfortunately for us all we don't actually do that.
I think that this example proves that such a system doesn't work in some cases.
/rant
There are a few hypocritical people in this thread. Those saying "don't have children until you can afford them" and then mascerading an example of a family with children who can't afford them... Like mr. my mum worked every hour under the sun, which in my book means she couldn't afford the kids- couldn't afford to look after them, raise them, nurture them, educate them herself. Or Ms. can't buy a suitable house for them, keep them all together under one roof in the country of preferance for the child's education. Both of these are examples of different situations where the parent(s) can't afford to raise the kids and yet they are being paraded as better examples of parenting than the family in the article- looks the same to me. One, two, or twelve children, the onnly difference is the poster's prejudice of what a family unit ought to look like.
There's every point in trying to explain. That's the point of P&D, it helps people develop more rounded opinions.
I've certainly looked at this story in a new light since reading this thread and talking with people on here. I may not happen to agree with what posters are saying, but i respect their opinion.
I think thats a really good point.
If you are a lone parent you will nearly always be better off on income support than you will be on tax credits, unless your job pays more than about £6.75 per hour. And there are very few entry-level jobs for people with no qualifications that pay more than NMW.
And just to go back to the point about house prices that was raised before, we can afford to comfortably own our house, which is in a nice area of the city we live in. Our combined income is only around £34,000. So if someone is earning £50,000 or £100,000, then if they can't "afford" to buy it simply means that they are being too choosy.