To ask for help with universal credit? As a sahm

[CallingPeopleACuntOnFb]

I honestly cannot find the answer to this anywhere 😩

I work in a support role helping parents and i have a service user who’s very worried about UC coming in. She has depression / anxiety anyway and it’s really getting her down.

She’s a SAHM to 3 dc, 3 year old twins and a 6 yo. Her dp earns 26k a year working long and irregular shifts. He works 45-50 hours a week. so being a SAHM is her only option atm as they also both have zero family support.

They have a mortgage so wouldn’t need or be eligible for the “housing benefit” element. She’s in Leicester. At the moment they receive tax credits but will move to UC at some point (no idea when)

She wants to know if she will still be able to be a SAHM as work isn’t an option for her while the DC are so small.

I have no clue, I don’t claim myself, we don’t even get TCs anymore and as I said I can’t find any info online other than the benefits checker on entitledto. Which says she’s eligible for UC at a similar amount to her tax credits. but says nothing about whether she’s going to have to job search as a condition of getting the money.

It’s so bloody complex ! Hope someone can shed some light 💡 x

The thing is that the state does and would subsidise her in any case. They are subsiding people through the numerous childcare schemes. It’s a total fallacy to pretend women in work are not subsidised and women at home are. The reality is that one sort of subsidy looks better - increasing GDP. Paying for childcare for families often does not result in more tax being paid, quite the opposite. So my point is that since we ARE subsiding the vast vast majority of families anyway, small children should be encouraged to be with their families for the majority of the week and that dads, grandparents and yes, mums who want to, be subsisted to provide that care for their children.

I sahm who starts a low income job would receive £910 a month is wtc for childcare.
That's in addition to any other wtc and ctc payable.
The mother in question may not be earning enough to pay a single penny in tax.
It " cost the taxpayer" £10,920 a year for them to be in employment.
That's a cost of £76,440 over the primary years for a mother to cease to be a sahm.

It " cost the taxpayer" £10,920 a year for them to be in employment.
That's a cost of £76,440 over the primary years for a mother to cease to be a sahm.

that's a very short sighted view though. Childcare costs are only really high between 1 and 3 (after mat leave and before the 30 free hours kick in) and there are many long term benefits of staying in work. lots of friends I have left work due to childcare costs and really struggled to get back at all.

State benefits aren't there to provide a choice to people who simply want to choose a lifestyle without working and relying on the taxpayer for extra money. That's my opinion. If other people have a different opinion that's up to them. But hardly surprising the taxpayer has rebelled and voted Tory. Which I didn't by the way. But didn't vote Labour either.

I'm very much against paying people to look after their own children.

If you can't afford to SAH without being paid to do it then you need to work. It's as simple as that for me.

It would be a crazy policy, in a country with a very rapidly growing population, to start paying people to produce more children which is effectively what you're advocating.

Vivienne I completely agree on all points.

Milk chocolate before and after school care for three dc, plus holidaycare, can easily average out at £300 a week.
Thus creating the £210 a week in wtc.
With three dc the earning threshold for childcare is approx £40 k. Therefore perfectly possible even with a pay rise they would qualify.
Also no free 30 hours for primary aged dc.

ShellyBoobs, what if i said
"I'm very much against paying people to look your own children while you swan off to work. If you can't afford to have children and go to work, you need to stay at home. It's as simple as that.
It would be a crazy policy, in a country with a rapidly growing behaviour problems in school and society, to subsidise inferior care when families could just take responsibility and do it themselves".

For the record, I'm NOT saying that, but that is the counter argument.

It IS a moral argument you are making Shellyboobs, Vivienne etc not a practical one. Most families with two low to middle income working parents are subsided. You have some moral feeling that it is better for the state to pay more for childcare than they get back in tax, I don't. I think it is morally better to subsidise parents to care for young children.

It's not a question of absolute cost to the taxpayer, since either option costs.

For a 'support worker' you are incredibly unprofessional. So is your manager allowing you to post about a client on a public forum. Whether identifiable or not- its unprofessional. Your user name, bad language, lack of knowledge, name calling, emoji's galore, confrontational attitude, I sitting here feeling totally bemused and shocked at the way you have conducted yourself. I feel sorry for people that really do need support if this is what they get. Your client deserves to be given correct advice, treated with confidentiality, compassion and respect. Asking questions about her situation on the internet on a public forum, whether identifiable or not, in the manner you have, gives her none of the above. Id be embarrassed if I were you.

I'm afraid I agree with the argument that if you can't afford to stay at home with children then you need to get a job. Or else tighten your belt. And that might make people think twice about having more children as nearly all working people have to consider costs of children.

Only the state gives an increase (soon to be stopped) every time a person on benefits has another child. Companies don't pay according to how many children you have with an increase for every child. The argument for paying people not to work is a really poor one and in an overpopulated country and world incentivising people to have large families is a bit mad to say the least.

LakieLady has it pretty much spot on. UC is designed to mean that no household is better off claiming benefits than those who go out to work. There are no plans to lower payments for existing tax credit claimants with no change in circumstances.
By the time UC does migrate existing benefit claimants, this lady's circumstances will not be the same at all. The 3yo's will definitely have reached school age and the 6yo could almost be leaving primary. It's too far down the line to worry about right now.

I don't think the argument of not having kids if you can't afford them stands tbh, unless it's taken across the board and tax payers aren't expected to subsidise workers childcare bills.
Surely, it's one or the other.
It makes no sense to work to pay somebody else to look after your children if you are out of pocket, whether you receive tax credits or not.

And this SAHM thing is beginning to annoy me. Nearly every day on MN we see posters bemoaing they are being treated as skivvies and financially abused and kept short of money by their partners. Who wants that for their DDs. Not me.

Financial abuse? You mean when the woman can't be bothered to work so sponges off her husband, then moans he doesn't give her enough money for coffees and manicures?

Gilly I think the argument should stand. Have kids if you can provide for them without the state. Don’t if not. No one should have to pay for someone else’s child rearing biological imperative

The reality is that society does support children, it supports childcare, education and healthcare. All of that costs the taxpayer but the government and society agree it’s important. So the issue here isn’t paying for other people’s children. We all do that already. The issue is that you would rather pay childminders than mums or dads even if the actual cost the tax payer is the same. I disagree with you on that.

It isn't as clear cut as that.

There are numerous tasks we can elicit to do ourselves that would cost money if we had to pay others to do it. Cleaning, car washing, home maintenance and driving are all examples of this.

Working incurs some costs: travel and suitable clothing for example. If you have a child, childcare is another one of those costs. Subsidising childcare to enable parents to provide for their family is very different and out bluntly long term not as productive as paying parents to stay at home.

It makes no sense to me for the state to give stay at home parents 15 or 30 hours of free childcare. In many cases they do not need it.

I would much rather target the free childcare at those who do need it: working parents, who might need more than 30 hours; parents of disabled children, who need a break; disabled parents; parents who are also caring for eg elderly parents; children whose interests would be better served by time away from parents.

Sahm don't get 30 hours childcare.

They don't get 15 hours childcare either, the dc receive 15 hours education.

Yes, the children get the education, but in this scenario I think the stay at home parent is having their cake and eating it. Saying “I want to stay at home to look after my children because I am the best person to do that” and “I want my child to be looked after/educated by someone else for 15 hours a week”.

In this case the state is paying twice for the children to be looked after for those 15 hours.

Yet, no one would begrudge (I hope!) children their school place. I think it’s an important question here is nursery provision for the child or the parents so they can work? When it was introduced it was for the child not the parent, but it’s very clear how that has changed.

There are numerous tasks we can elicit to do ourselves that would cost money if we had to pay others to do it. Cleaning, car washing, home maintenance and driving are all examples of this.

Many of us work long hours and do pay other people to clean, wash cars, iron, do gardening, decorating etc, etc. All jobs we could do ourselves, given time, and jobs we feel would be better if done ourselves.

Following your argument, should the state subsidise us to work less hours so that we can do those jobs ourselves instead of paying someone else?

I wholeheartedly agree with PPs that it would be utterly ridiculous to start paying people to produce children.

There’s already enough incentive for some people to make sure they have another child just in time to avoid having to go out to work when existing DCs start school.

Imagine actually making having children a career, which is effectively what some people are advocating!

Our population is growing faster than pretty much any western nation. We really don’t need to pay people to have kids.

Confirmation bias is strong here - it’s a parenting forum after all - but the vast majority of the general public would be horrified by the thought of paying people a salary, which is effectively what it would be, to produce and rear children.

“the vast majority of the general public would be horrified by the thought of paying people a salary, which is effectively what it would be, to produce and rear children.”

Then why do we pay for childcare for people earning up to 100k each per year?

Families ARE subsidised already.

Then why do we pay for childcare for people earning up to 100k each per year?

Families ARE subsidised already.

You’re missing the point I, and others, are making.

The current system doesn’t make producing children profitable for the parents; what you’re advocating potentially does.