People earning up to £80,000 can now claim child benefit

The maximum threshold for claiming child benefit will be raised from £60,000 to £80,000, it was announced today.

Jeremy Hunt said this was part of a structural change which he hoped would see the help for parents assessed on household income rather than individual income by 2026.

But as this was not a ‘quick fix’, he said the existing thresholds would simply be raised in the meantime.

The threshold at which people begin to lose their entitlement will be raised from £50,000 to £60,000, while the top figure will increase by £20,000.

These thresholds have not moved since 2013, meaning wage inflation had seen many more people lose entitlement since then.