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

If anyjn

Oh ffs stupid phone

If anyone reading is affected by UC or gives a shit about people that are ..there’s a petition here to stop it

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/200213

I don’t understand why people including some of the posters here have kids, or as many kids, when having then puts the family in such tight financial circumstances, with resulting stress.

The odd few may change through circumstances but not all. There's plenty who have admitted they simply gave up work as they didn't want to pay the childcare costs. That's a known before TTC so not a change in circumstances.

If claimants were all due to a change in circumstances then the two child limit on tax credits would have never have had to be introduced. That showed how many continued to have children when not already supporting the ones they had.

Sadly, many never even look at the finances before having children unless you count a check on the benefits website to see how much they will gain.

That’s it tar everyone with the same brush cos there’s a feckless few

😴😴😴😴😴😴

What annoys me the most is that people are going to work till they're 67 before they can retire and collect a pension that they have paid into. And yet people decades from retirement age want the choice of not working or working only a few hours and claiming benefits and some haven't paid a penny into the system.

OP, in what way have the circumstances of the person you are supporting changed? You may have said in an subsequent post. Or did she and her husband always have an income of £25k when they started a family?

That’s it tar everyone with the same brush cos there’s a feckless few

Not really just a few though is is, it's very likely the majority claiming tax credits currently aren't having all the adults in the household work full time to support themselves as much as possible. Likewise the number having an extra child or starting a family on benefits isn't likely to be a few either.

Viviennemary, it is unfair. I'd favour a much more contributions based system for the majority of benefits with a hugely reduced pension if you don't pay in (excluding those too ill or disabled to work where contributions could be covered).

If you give people a reduced pension because they haven't paid in, all that will happen is that they will still be reliant on benefits throughout their retirement like pension credit and housing benefit. If you are still renting when you reach retirement age you get you housing paid for you, fortunately they don't just throw pensioners onto the streets.

I suspect this helpless woman may not exist and the story is an attempt to get us to sign the petition.

Viviennemary

People can work all their life and not pay tax, and I'm talking ft work.
do they not deserve a pension then as they haven't paid in?

I don't know who is working full time all their lives and not paying any tax. They will at least be paying NI contributions. The old age pension rules are governed to an extent by what people have paid in and how many years contributions they have. So not quite seeing your point as to who deserves a pension.

Most countries have a contribution based system for benefits. I heard a European politician once criticising the UK because we have a non contributory scheme for most benefits which he thought was totally ridiculous.

Exactly gillybeanz!

I don’t think anyone endorses the crime of tax evasion. Don’t conflate the 2 issues.

I have sympathy with posters who say that we shouldn’t be forcing young children into childcare so both their parents can work. But in this case, the mother has already decided to put the 3 year olds into nursery 15 hours a week. No one has forced her to do that.

The mother therefore has 15 hours a week free so the suggestion that being a SAHM is her only option is completely wrong. She could surely work for at least some of that time? If it is difficult to find a job that offers those hours, what about cleaning? As the OP said, we do need cleaners.

I don’t know much about the tax/benefit position but just about everyone seems to agree that the current rules have some very perverse incentives.

For what it’s worth, I went back to work when my older daughter was 5 months old. When the second was born I stayed at home until she was 2 and the eldest had started primary school. There was no free childcare in those days and it was not worth my while working and paying 2 lots of childcare, especially as I would have had an expensive 3 hour commute. My husband worked long hours and I had no help from family as they all lived too far away.

I have never had any regular time in the last 20 years when I was not either working, commuting or looking after at least one child (though my children are older now so looking after them is much less of an issue). The only mothers I have known who had the luxury of 15 hours a week to themselves are very wealthy!

Well from what I have found out it sounds like the lady I support wont have to work anyway if she doesn't want to...

Did you post that purposely to piss off people who are annoyed at the state picking up the bill for her choice?

You don't sound like any sort of professional, let alone one working in a client-facing setting.

However, if you'd said you were employed as a GF...

Nobody has to work if they'd rather not. But the problem comes when they still expect public money to support their choice. If your client prefers not to work then she must tighten her belt and budget accordingly and not rely on state support.

“Did you purposely post that to piss people off”

Yes I did 👌🏻👌🏻 🤣🤣🤣💅🏻💅🏻

I'm not that keen on UC tbh and thought the expensive helpline was a disgrace. But that's been stopped. But the benefit system did need to be reformed. How many different benefits are their in this country. Dozens and loads of people claiming. Do other countries have all these benefits and such a complicated system.

I’m so sad that so many posters see it as totally normal and right that a mum of toddlers should be in low paid work, have childcare paid for by the state just so our GDP looks higher and she is ‘in work’. If it’s work for a childminder to care for your child then it surely is for a mum too. The current system simply makes no sense. Often the cost to the tax payer of childcare is more than the tax paid by the person in work. It’s all utterly mindless and you’ve bought it... while I’m on a roll, children are better off cared for by their family than the state. So let’s encourage more stay at home parents and improve equality by having more dads at home rather than more children in nursery.

I'd rather women didn't see being an SAHM as a career. It's not something I'd like my DD to aspire to. And I don't think the state should be supporting it. That's my opinion.

I'd rather women didn't see being an SAHM as a career. It's not something I'd like my DD to aspire to. And I don't think the state should be supporting it. That's my opinion

Me neither, I want my daughter to have higher aspirations than to be unemployed parent reliant on a man or the state.

State support should be there for the bad times following job loss or illness/disability. Not for the any who don't want to work or do many hours.

Subsidising childcare benefits society far more than paying people to stay home. The person is in employment, the childcare provider in employment and both will carry on working after the help is needed. The children will have positive role models and more equality the more normal it is for both sexes to juggle work and children.

Totally agree with your whole post primaryteach.

I’m also massively in favour of a universal basic income.

(I meant that last post re universal basic income as an aside, it reads like I’m saying someone else has mentioned it and no one has. )

Who is going to pay for this universal basic income? The magic money tree. 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.