A new report from the Centre for Social Justice has highlighted how the benefits system not only disincentivises people but subsequently leads to increased poverty.
The report, titled "The Stability Advantage", says there is a well-established link between family structures and economic outcomes. In short, children whose parents separate are more likely to grow up in poverty.
Despite this, the benefits system continues to incentive couples not to marry or live together, with the effect exacerbated for those on low income. One of the key problems is that benefits are provided based on household, rather than individual income.
This creates perverse incentives, the report argues, noting that “a mother aged 30 who is not in work and is looking after her one year old full-time, would be £5,700 per year worse off if she marries, or even moves in with, the child’s father who earns £20,000 per year gross. If he earns £30,000 per year, she would be £9,600 per year worse off”.
This “couple penalty”, the report said, represents “a serious policy failure” in which the state “is effectively discouraging the very behaviour that could reduce long-term poverty”.
In its conclusion, the report said that any attempts to reduce poverty, while doing nothing to address family stability, would be “incomplete”.
Responding to the report, the Coalition for Marriage said the current system is essentially “state-sponsored fatherlessness”, with taxpayer money being used to incentivise fathers to stay away from their children.
The group added that this policy hits the poorest homes, “where a father is needed most”, the hardest.
“The State is paying to dismantle the thing that protects children best," it said.
"The same report found that parents in the poorest fifth of the population who marry are more likely to stay together than parents in the richest fifth who never do. Marriage, not money, is the stronger predictor that a child keeps both parents.”
The coalition urged supporters to write to their MP in support of reforming the current system so that couples are not penalised for staying together.
