AIBU to be angry about the benefits system

Right, but universal credit take carers allowance pound for pound. Despite it being a taxable benefit. Then the earnings at 55p in the pound.

So £333 per month carers plus £654 earnings makes £987, but only £254 cash income after deductions.

No. I’m not the one confusing the two different benefits, and frankly, £151 per week can be exceeded by working two weekend shifts on minimum wage at the local Co-op. It is so little money/work, that you can’t really be considered to be a working employee imho because it’s not enough take home pay to pay even minimum subsistence costs.

As a poor woman recently found out because DWP prosecuted her for benefits fraud because some weeks her weekend work at the Co-op exceeded the threshold by 30p. She was caring for her elderly mum the rest of the time.

You really don’t understand carer’s allowance, do you? It is meant towards family income.

Again, how many hours of care do you think £81.90 will fund? Hint not many. For DS1 it wouldn’t even fund 2 hours when you consider he is deemed to need 2:1. 6 hrs for DS3’s PA. And that’s only the carer’s wages not other associated costs.

Sorry but this is nonsense. As long as you care for the disabled person for 35 hours or more per week you can still work and earn up to £151 per week after deductions, and still claim carers allowance. Direct payments or any other form of care funded by local authorities are totally separate. You’re not just confusing two different threads, you’re confusing two entirely separate benefits paid for entirely different reasons.

Sorry but this is nonsense. As long as you care for the disabled person for 35 hours or more per week you can still work and earn up to £151 per week after deductions, and still claim carers allowance. Direct payments or any other form of care funded by local authorities are totally separate. You’re not just confusing two different threads, you’re confusing two entirely separate benefits paid for entirely different reasons.

You can’t use the unpaid carer’s allowance benefit to pay for a paid carer.
If you work, you are not eligible to claim it.

The problem is that the threshold to get the government to give direct benefits to a disabled adult or their family/guardian to then pay for a paid carer is very very high such that there is a high dependence on family members being forced to become unpaid carers. There is such a shortage of funds and carers, that many many families and disabled people are left struggling with no supprt.
edited because I have confused two dusability threads

Exactly. So use the allowance to pay someone else to care. Not keep it is a family income. Go out to work yourselves and have another life to compliment your disabled live in persons life. Holistic yes? Rewarding for all? Definitely. Improving society. Without say

Exactly. So use the allowance to pay someone else to care. Not keep it is a family income. Go out to work yourselves and have another life to compliment your disabled live in persons life. Holistic yes? Rewarding for all? Definitely. Improving society. Without say

Exactly. So use the allowance to pay someone else to care. Not keep it is a family income. Go out to work yourselves and have another life to compliment your disabled live in persons life. Holistic yes? Rewarding for all? Definitely. Improving society. Without say

Exactly. So use the allowance to pay someone else to care. Not keep it is a family income. Go out to work yourselves and have another life to compliment your disabled live in persons life. Holistic yes? Rewarding for all? Definitely. Improving society. Without say

I think you've misunderstood. It's a recognition that the person who cares is unable to be gainfully employed and it gives a token payment with the more important NI credits.

The rate is £81 per week. That would only enable care of around 4 hours per week.

If someone was going out to work and was gainfully employed, they would stop being entitled to carer's allowance.

You have badly misunderstood.

In the context of paid professional carers, the carers’ allowance is usually by seperate benefits payments. You (parent or disabled person) get paid their wages direct and then have to use that money to pay the carers.

This is different type of carers’ allowance from the carer’s allowance that an unpaid carer can claim.

Yes of course. The carer can be a paid external non member of the family. The gov supports paid carers so the families can get on and pay a carer to care for the person/child. The family should not assume it is their given rights to claim carers allowance if they can go out to work and allow another carer to help. Thays the gov incentive. Carers allowance is not an income. It is an allowance to help pay for the care of someone. That means someone outside of the home can do the job.
British e onomy will work if families help to put that back in.

I'm not sure I understand this post? Am I misreading it? Carer's allowance is for the carer, not the child.

I'm not sure I understand this post? Am I misreading it? Carer's allowance is for the carer, not the child.

I'm not sure I understand this post? Am I misreading it? Carer's allowance is for the carer, not the child.

I was a benefit adviser in a former life and l lost count of the number of times l came across attitudes like this. Some people sit in judgement believing that they know all the circumstances of someone’s life. Unfortunately l’ve been involved in some very sad cases where claimants have been reported and are actually doing nothing wrong - but have had benefit suspended while they are investigated. It causes a lot of hardship.

And of course there are paid carers to help toak the burden. Admittedly, will need to pay but hey, it's your quality of life and gov will provide this to help support. Mustn't take carers allowance as income. It's a given support for the child, not yours.

I get it. My youngest will probably never leave home. It's why we work different hours so someone can be home with him.

Completely agree with this! If you are entitled - claim it! Even if you think you dont need it , claim it and save some wages for a rainy day - because , believe me those rainy days can come out of the blue !

We claim it now - because we applied during a very rainy time. My husband had just gone self employed ( 2 weeks - so no time to save anything, we had just came back from holiday skint and were waiting for him to go back to work the next day then get paid the following week and subsequent weeks - me too, agency worker , so knew we had a tight week ahead ) well , then it RAINED! He had a life changing accident the same day and was off work for 7 months with no sick pay. In hospital for 3 - that in itself was expensive - i couldnt work barely for a few months due to this and it crippled us . A year later , we still feel the effects and are in massive debt. For a few months before , i was between jobs and didnt even think about applying as i assumed his wage meant we couldnt. But turns out we missed out on about £1000 per month. If we had , we would have had some aside to help us through and wouldnt have had to max credit cards for a month when he first went in to hospital and we were waiting for the first payment.

If you dont claim it, it doesnt go to " people who need it " - no one else gets more because it's unclaimed . It goes straight back into the governments pockets . So everyone saying " please dont claim if you dont need it, leave it for those who do " - thats nonsense and makes no sense at all!

The savings don’t have to be in their name, just used for their benefit. A lot of equipment and other things which make living with a disability easier are not automatically funded, and living with disability is expensive.

Even if you put it away for them as savings to use to make their lives easier later on.

If DC won’t have capacity as an adult, will need means tested benefits or social care support, saving in their name isn’t a wise idea.

This isn’t the case unfortunatly. As I have already stated further up this post we don’t claim UC a as morally we don’t think it’s right as between us our take home pay is just shy of £5000 and we own our own house via a mortgage. Despite our high income we are eligable for approx £350 of Universal credit a month. (I have done the online calculators and also worked it out manually). This is due to the disabled child element and carers element we would be entitled to. We have never claimed benefits in our life and have 3 kids all born before 2017. Two of those children are very poorly and receive the high rate care allowance as well as carers allowance. When you add these elements to the standard allowance and the child element we are entitled to get a total of £2898.55 before wages are deducted. Even when you deduct the 55p per £1 earned of this (and take account of the working allowance) we still would be able to claim £350ish a month which is ludicrous. We don’t need that money and we can’t morally claim it but I bet there are thousands who do because they can. We will be entitled to this for several years yet as the girls are a long way off 18. There will be people like us claiming these elements from a child aged around 2 up until their 18th birthday because they can yet there are people living in poverty and barely getting by.