AIBU to be angry about the benefits system

I think one of my friends was like you, she sadly died of cancer at 53 last year. She’d been very ill and on PIP for a lot of her life, she’d been married twice, worked and paid taxes and NI and even had a flat (with mortgage). When her second DH died both she and her adult son moved in with her DM, unsure why her DS didn’t work, but her mum was on a Widow’s pension. They certainly didn’t have luxuries and I think just about scraped by but her mum owned her own house. My friend could barely walk anyway so there were no holidays or nights out but with the proper level of care (I was never quite sure what was wrong with her as she only gave half truths) she could’ve been more mobile. and now she’s dead which is dreadfully sad.

No problem

Sorry I clicked on the wrong post. It was supposed to be for @Lougle

System is not broken, thanks God there is UC. £4k is nothing in London with rent and childcare costs.

My girls will never be able to live independently so when they turn 18 they can claim UC themselves but this will be a fraction of what we could claim for them currently . Due to their disability’s our UC allowance before deductions would be £2898.55 a month. Even taking our decent wages off this (take home of just less than 5k) would still pay us over £300

When DDs claim UC in their own right it won’t be a fraction of the £300 you could receive now if you claimed now. Using the current rates, if DDs have LCWRA, each DD would receive £727.87 in UC on top of their PIP. This amount would increase when they turned 25.

Presumably they have EHCPs which could continue until 25, or 26 in some cases, too.

It is brilliant you can afford not to claim. Many with multiple disabled DC can’t afford not to even if they are high earners. As I am sure you are aware, having multiple disabled DC can be extremely expensive.

I work in a minimum wage job as does my husband. He is a full time TA. It works for us for me to work weekends and kids holidays plus no after school clubs is available.How do I work normal hours? At the moment it works better financially for us. I doubt we could afford several days at nursery.

The lack of affordable and available childcare is to be blamed. Not people claiming top ups for shitty wages.

It is absolutely shocking. That we can claim UC on our income but we obviously don’t as morally I don’t think it’s right . Once the girls tune 18 we won’t be entitled to anything and we know things will get tough then as i
wont be able to work by that point. My girls will never be able to live independently so when they turn 18 they can claim UC themselves but this will be a fraction of what we could claim for them currently . Due to their disability’s our UC allowance before deductions would be £2898.55 a month. Even taking our decent wages off this (take home of just less than 5k) would still pay us over £300 where’s I have friends who earn a lot less who aren’t entitled tk anything but they are the ones who could use it . It’s def the disabled child elements that bump it up in our case

Surely in this situation the parent can get a job with normal working hours and pay for childcare from their wages? Like most other people.

Thank you for having integrity.

I don't understand why there's such a discrepancy between what's provided for for disabled children and what's provided for for disabled adults. It's entirely right and good that disabled children get the provision that they need, but why when they become an adult are they suddenly expected to live on £800 per month?

I've been disabled (and single) my entire adult life and have never earned enough to feel even remotely comfortable. I'm entitled to absolutely nothing now as I'm just over the threshold for absolute poverty but my living standards are really poor - no holidays, no treats, no nights out. I'm agog at some of the amounts being quoted on this thread that families are entitled to.

I suppose not everyone has available childcare or jobs that work round school. I can only work between 9-3 so not many hours so need the UC top up. I suspect most have both working as you get wage and UC.

Everyone is being moved to uc

From having a little read of this thread

Universal Credit Managed Migration - thread 2 www.mumsnet.com/Talk/money-matters/4988309-universal-credit-managed-migration-thread-2

It seems if on tax c you can have savings - of any amount

If moved to uc you can't have savings over £16k

Ans between 6/16 is tapered

Under £6k savings are fine on uc

Well it isn’t happening as she works at my place 2 school age kids and does 15hrs she has no special reasons other than there are no hours available

So as long as a family earns a certain amount one parent can choose not to work more hours and just stay on benefits instead? Even though they are perfectly capable of working more and coming off benefits altogether? What a ridiculous system.

Take home salary per month is £1400 or so full time on NMW. Rent is £1300 per month for a standard small 1 bed flat.Rents are very high where I live and many cannot survive without additional state help.
Moving isn't an option either.

I honestly have no idea either. I think they only did it so they can cut peoples money. I lnow a few people who were entitled to uc, but they make it so hard to claim they haven't bothered.

I’ll just leave this here too… back in 70s, DM only claimed child benefit and the mortgage interest payments for a few years as there was nothing else. She was single income household though when stepdad arrived he did contribute to the household. Yes things were much cheaper then but my DM still had to pay her mortgage plus bills and not get any help. DB was in a nursery then too.

My nana always said that before WW2 there were no benefits and her eldest daughter born before WW2 she had to send to a milk farm and grew up in foster care and childrens homes (but then WW2 was on and we only found out about this 3 years ago) as my nana couldn’t afford to feed her and work, the father was in prison and her own family thought she was a disgrace divorcing, though her father paid for a very expensive divorce (you didn’t divorce back then).

There was no universal credit or working credit back then, it was the workhouse or starve and die.

Yeah it's up to, depends on earnings though. If it's minimum wage you have to do 30 hours.

Yeah, I was assuming the poster was talking about a single parent so that could be my bad.

Your child doesn't need a diagnosis to be awarded DLA. You might want to apply.

You can if you and your partner earn at least £1189 together. So when mine is three I won't be pestered to work more. As long as the couple AET is met I don't need to.

Why are you quoting me I didn’t say that

Is that 4000 net or gross? Asking because a friend told me we could claim something because my son is entitled to DLA. We went through the process to be told we aren’t entitled to anything. I wasn’t expecting anything us (as we do have a reasonable income) but I was told we could claim for my son as my friends, who I thought earned more than us (from a comment her husband made in passing a few year ago about being a higher rate tax payer) said they had got some for their kids who also get DLA.

Christ no wonder my tax bill is so high 🙄

You have to pay it back