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

£220 per month wraparound care would leave a lot left over, even from a NMW job.

If you have personal reasons for not wanting your child in any form of childcare then that’s a separate issue. But to try to say it’s not financially viable with school age kids is ludicrous.

Although I'm not sure they'd be eligible for uc anyway. It's all rather confusing!

Where are all these wraparound childcare schemes? I’d really quite like one! We have a breakfast club at school (full, and only open to 5+ year olds so many of year R can’t attend). The after school club at the local secondary could only offer me 1 after school session. There are/were no childminders who provided pick ups from my children’s room who had space. I tried SO hard to get somebody. In the end the nanny cost crippled us and I had to leave. She cost £400 more than I was earning - and DH doesn’t earn enough to make that up. It’s not as simple as ‘just get a job.’ If it was I’d be in work already.
I’m not the OP, or the lady the OP is supporting, but I’m in similar circumstances. There just isn’t enough childcare in our area. We live in a nice, ‘middle class’ high employment level area. There’s not enough space and what is there is chock full. I could plug the gap and become a childminder, but we live in a rented house and our tenancy doesn’t allow business use of the property.

Tax Credits are benefits and they always have been. The conceit that they weren't was basically New Labour trying to avoid being accused of 'tax & spend' policies.

BTW, I am not a benefit basher, I am a huge lefty (and yeah, I hated New Labour) and I still think Tax Credits were not a good idea, as all they have done is depress wages and provided a subsidy to employers who are able to get people to work for them on less than a living wage.

Tax credits in their first state weren't benefits, and were accessed and considered as separate to benefits.
You never had to sign on as you do for other benefits and only still have to let them know your income once a year.

What on earth was wrong with the previous system is beyond me.
If you were a low income family with just one person working and you could manage on the top ups then the other could be a sahp

If you were low income and couldn't manage on the top up then both of you worked.

It was all about cutting your cloth accordingly in these circumstances.

If you both wanted to work and attract huge salaries then you had enough money without tc.

The old system was wrong because it discouraged work IMHO. People on say 10 hours a week couldn't take more hours as their benefits would be cut. In other words they'd be worse off because they worked more hours. That system is totally mad.

And I agree with the two child limit. People don't get a pay rise every time they have another child if they are in work so why should benefits be any different. Far from being a short term help they are now relied upon indefinitely as family income.

Exactly gillybeanz

It was normal for low-medium earning families to have a sahp and TCs weren’t some kind of shameful scroungey benefit like people want to paint them as

Agree viviennemary. a system which acts as a disincentive to work more hours is screwed. Doesn’t matter whether you call it benefits or not- it’s fundamentally not fit for purpose.

Nobody here is saying Tax Credits are shameful

People are saying that a system that encourages people to work less (or not at all) because it means they get more money from the government is fundamentally flawed.

There is nothing wrong with being a SAHP or working part-time so long as you're not expecting the state to make up the shortfall in wages.

It was not normal at all for low earning families to have a SAHM parent when I was growing up. My mum worked, she had to, like all the other mums in our street who weren't on benefits. They worked unsociable hours or part time doing carework, cleaning, sewing, unofficial childminding. Some were nurses or even bus drivers. My mum worked around my dad, they both had to work for us to survive.

Good post deepestdarkestperu.

Nothing wrong with being a SAHM if it’s what you want and affordable. When I had my babies a number of my ‘mum’ friends were SAHM and didn’t come out with the sort of bollocks the OP is spouting. They were quite upfront about the fact they were SAHM because it suited them; sadly there is a small but strident minority on MN who believe the global ideal is for daddies to go to work and mummies to stay at home.

I can see what other posters are saying, is she taking any steps to get her depression/anxiety under control to allow her to be outside of the home? I have a family member who goes through bouts of depression but she gets counselling and takes anti depressants which allow her to work and she says it helps her to work and keep busy.

On the school hours jobs front well not everyone gets the luxury unfortunately. DH works 40+ hours per week and I do 18 in healthcare which allows for our 3 children to be dropped at school/nursery/childminder but it does cost us a pretty penny to have 2 in childcare during the holidays etc and youngest is there all the time until she is 3 in April but I see it as short term pain for long term gain as I will be able to
Increase my hours in a few hours instead of having to start from scratch but i returned to work mine were 9 months due to the job I have which wouldn’t have allowed for say 5 years staying at home due to skill set decreasing over that length of time

Although even if they were all in school it’s hard to find a job in just school hours. Which she’d have to as her dp works odd hours that change weekly

There are other options, she can use a mixture of nursery and child minders, my dp hours are all over the place and we have to still pay for them when we don't need them. Salary is similar too. it can be done.

And yes, I don't know many people who had the luxury of a SAHP when I was growing up in the nineties. Both my parents worked, and I think maybe one of my friends had a SAHP - and that was purely because her dad worked away a lot and it was easier for her to stay home - they could easily afford it financially, too.

I don't know anyone now who stays at home and gets benefits while their partners go out to work. In fact, I only know one SAHM, and she only stays home because one of her children is autistic and can't cope in full-time school at the moment, and the dad is not around to help.

I'm also pretty sure the OP is designed to get as many people frothing as possible, though.

Couples, particularly women, need to be think about the accessibility and cost of childcare before they have children, particularly if the woman is in already in a low paid, low skilled job. It IS difficult to find work after you have had two, three, 4 ..children if you don't have anything to offer an employer.

I hope the next generation of women strive to obtain good educational qualifications and go on to have well paid careers before they have children, which will allow them to afford decent childcare and a good work/life balance.

I don't really want to end up in a SAHM/WOHM debate, but my concern here, OP, is how you can give good, independent advice when your own ideological bias (she should be allowed to be a SAHM at state expense) is showing. I'm not taking a position on whether view is right or wrong, I'm just saying that I'm afraid you're seeing through your own lens, which may not be helpful for her.

particularly women, need to be think about the accessibility and cost of childcare before they have children, particularly if the woman is in already in a low paid, low skilled job

of course. Because children are only the mother's responsibility!

particularly if the woman is in already in a low paid, low skilled job.

sure - only women on high incomes with promising careers should have the option to reproduce

Babbity

I don't think anyone thinks mums should stay at home and dads work, what a weird assumption to make.

There are plenty who believe in choice though and that choice should include a sahp if a family wants this.
The old system gave choice, the new system won't.
It's going backwards not forwards.
The idea that both parents should have to work in order to raise their children at all costs is wrong.
The age that we are supposed to hand our children over to the public or private sector is lowering all the time and some people don't want this for their children.

I interpreted that post differently: that rather than suggesting that only women with high incomes should have children, it is wise for women in particular to ensure they have the means to support themselves and their children (which isn't necessarily the same as a high income) prior to having children.

Apart from that, I agree with the point of view put forward by bibliomania on the thread.

it is wise for women in particular to ensure they have the means to support themselves and their children (which isn't necessarily the same as a high income)

so dads don't have a responsibility? Why do women have to be able to support themselves and their DC but why don't you extend this responsibility to their fathers?

Like you said at the beginning of the thread the hours are shared. They need to currently earn nmw x55 between them. So yes she can continue to be a sahm.

Shaming tc recipients isn’t working thankfully . A total stop trying to make fetch happen moment

I would extend the responsibility to dads too. Takes both to bring a child into the world.

lol Queen 🤣🤣🤣👏🏻

Longle it's 35 plus 20 hours as the dc are under 13.