Martin Lewis tackles 'gross unfairness' of child benefit system
27.01.2024 - 08:43
/ manchestereveningnews.co.uk
Martin Lewis has pointed out the "gross unfairness" of the current child benefit system.
During this week's episode of The Martin Lewis Podcast, he pointed out how some people are being left much worse off with the child benefits system because of the penalties associated with a claimant's earnings. He also gave a short-term solution that he believes Chancellor Jeremy Hunt should introduce while fixing the "structural issues" with the system.
The key issue he described was how some people earning more money on their own are left out of child benefits, while families with a higher total income are still eligible. This often means that those who might need child benefit the most are being excluded.
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Martin said: "There is a gross unfairness in the way the child benefit system works. You start to lose child benefit when a single earner earns £50,000, you lose it completely when they earn £60,000 or above."
He added: "Now, here's why that's unfair, imagine two neighbours. One, someone earns £60,000 and is a single parent or their parent only earns say £10,000.
"The next-door neighbours both earn £49,000 so they earn £98,000 in total, The first one doesn't get any child benefit, the £98,000 earners get full child benefit."
He goes on to describe how one viewer from his ITV show wrote him a letter saying that his son's partner died shortly after she gave birth to twins. The viewer's son earns £60,000 through a new job but he is struggling with the cost of living due to the loss of a second income.
HMRC also asked the viewer's son to pay back the child benefit. Martin added: "That is an unfairness, the chancellor said to me when I interviewed him he recognised