IMPORTANT. To ask if MNers are aware of this re Universal credit&SAHP’s?

[UnsolicitedCockPics]

So up til now on tax credits one parent can stay home while the other parent works.
And for almost 20 years it’s been seen as completely acceptable

An example is a family with 3 dc
The FT working parent earns approx £26,000. The SAHP receives approx £100 a week in tax credits

Not only on Universal credit will that amount be much less (approx 30% iirc) but the previously SAHP will be made to attend the job centre and job search as a condition to receive Universal credit

The aim is so NOBODY is on “benefits”

There seems to be an assumption from the general public that this will only affect people not in work. THAT IS NOT THE CASE

Can anyone explain to me where all of these 9am-3pm jobs are, or who is going to pick my hypothetical school age kids up from the school gate when I'm at work?
So your implying the state should organise your life and you have no responsibility to sort this out yourself, when you make the free will choice to have children!

I think the state should cost out the expanded butterfly effect of rejigging a policy like this. That's all.

Can anyone explain to me where all of these 9am-3pm jobs are, or who is going to pick my hypothetical school age kids up from the school gate when I'm at work?

After breakfast clubs, school clubs, childminders? Many options available. It’s not up to the government to arrange everything for you when you’ve decided to have children.

Why are we talking about people having to find full time jobs? The hypothetical family in the op are receiving £100 a week on tax credits, less on u/c, that's not a full time wage.

@chillpizza my forms stated ctc could only be claimed by one working p and one sahp if the child was under 3yrs old. I claim tax credits not UC and this has been on my forms for the past 2 renewals since I gave birth.

Re the mythical fruit picking jobs mentioned earlier.

Our local very famous fruit farm won’t employ locals. They only employ EU workers on “working holidays”. Knock accommodation and electricity off their wages let them have a few days off to qualify as a holiday.

I'm a sahm also single parent, I'm currently in receipt of full benefits I can receive child tax credits until my youngest reaches 18. I don't have to look for work until my youngest is 5. I'm not on UC atm, I'm still on the old layout but when I do change to UC. I should receive payment protection and actually receive £40 more I currently get around £878 a month.
I have been to college uni and worked atm it's not possible so for the time being It works for us.

No @Walkingdeadfangirl my point is that it puts people in a worse off position to force them out to work - when that work, because most part time hours if any are even available, are normally minimum wage and may not even cover the cost of wrap around childcare to enable them to work. I'm not talking about juniors or senior school age kids here. I'm talking about infants school where people generally are a bit iffy about letting a 5yr old walk home alone and cook their own dinner 🤷🏼‍♀️

And even if I was working now the hours I'd be able to do would mean I was worse off so being on benefits is like a safety blanket for me and my kids. Childcare would be paid at 70% but to make up the shortfall and only be able to work from 9am- 2pm it isn't possible.

I didn't know you got any tax credits for being a SAHM. I am a SAHM to an 14 month old and don't get a penny.
Over 4 ... I have mixed views on this, as I don't believe you should be able to sit at home claiming benefits or whatever just because you have a child.

I think you should go out to work, but I do believe that there are other contributions to society other than financial, and I think a massive contribution to society is dropping your kid off at school and being there to collect them, or at home when they come home and the family unit.

Hours that fit around school hours are ideal but hard to come by and don't often pay a lot, I don't have the answers but in the current situation, claiming isn't the answer so in my opinion YABU

The aim should be the benefits are there for the needy...Not people who choose not to work.

And for the record @Walkingdeadfangirl I'm lucky in the position that I have good qualifications and have had a successful career & recently trained for an even better one. I will be returning to work PT next year - but earning a FT wage for 20hrs work a week. It wont affect me! Other people are not so lucky and these changes will screw them over.

Can anyone explain to me where all of these 9am-3pm jobs are, or who is going to pick my hypothetical school age kids up from the school gate when I'm at work?

Surely you'll arrange suitable wrap-around care like most other working parents, if you and your DC's dad can't find flexible enough employment to do the school drop-offs and pick-ups between you. It's what thousands of other families do every day, so I'm not quite sure why you need someone to tell you how it might work. It's common sense, surely?

I appreciate that childcare costs are expensive if you don't have the skills to earn a decent wage, but there is help available for people in that situation. Of course, if you don't want to work, you can choose not to - you'll just have to tighten your belts or find another way of increasing your income.

Why are we talking about people having to find full time jobs? The hypothetical family in the op are receiving £100 a week on tax credits, less on u/c, that's not a full time wage.

^ yes, to replace the £100 it would be around 13 hours a week at min wage. Less obviously if you earn more per hour.
And it doesn't have to need childcare, 4x4 hour shifts a week, in the evening when the other parent could be available, would earn more than the £100 tax credits. Similarly for 2x9 hr night shifts and sleep when the children are at school.

Some MN reaction to a higher minimum wage

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/politics/2908900-Min-wage-10-per-hour

@AlexaShutUp that was my point. Fgs. Wrap around care costs money. For part time or low paying jobs the wrap around care takes up most if not all of those wages. For the sake of what?!

Is it not that SAHPs would be expected to look for work once the child reaches statutory school age? You therefore will have lower childcare costs, not low but lower than if you had a 3 year old and 1 year old, for example.

Based on what some people are saying, people should be enabled to be SAHP - if they choose - until their child is old enough to get to and from school independently and all day in the holidays AND receive UC. Essentially, we may as well as well say parents can choose to stay at home until their child is 11 or 12. Working parents, even low income ones, juggle wrap around childcare. My views on single parents are different but in a partnership, why should a working man (it’s almost always the man) be able to continue as they were while his partner picks up the slack? On top of this, the man is expecting his partner to use state funded income instead of taking a more equal role himself.

Or... @Buswankeress how about pay fair fucking wages and then if a family decides it's best for one parent to stay home (as they may have 2, 3 or more children so working wouldn't even be viable with the cost of breakfast clubs, dinner clubs and wac) they can still afford to live and eat and turn their gas fire on.

Or would you prefer to economically limit the number of children people have now too? Didn't China do that? How did that work out?

Just a thought 🙄

@UnsolicitedCockPics how does that tax credit work then, I am a SAHM and have been told I can't claim anything, do you need to be on other benefits or something ?

@tigger001

You don’t need to be on other benefits, many aren’t. It all depends on your household income and how many dependent dc you have

Go to entitledto.co.uk and there will be a calculator

It is for low income families, not just sahm

I’m lucky I have a great childminder.

But I would like to point out my daughters School does not do breakfast club or many after school clubs (they don’t run the full term either), they don’t do a general one like many schools do, only activity based ones. She goes to one a week and it finishes at 4pm anyway, I’m lucky I can leave work early to get her. Very few childminders do runs to our school.

Childcare is still an issue that needs to be sorted out countrywide.
If my childminder quit I wouldn’t be able to work.

It's not for sahm's. It's for low household income.
Sometimes the top up is enough to allow a sahp sometimes it isn't.
When it isn't enough for a sahp then both parents work.
It depends on your outgoings like anything else to do with income.

Someone mentioned family size. I thought we already had a new system where the 3rd child and more are not subsidised any more.

how about pay fair fucking wages

If it was that simple the western world would have taken that measure already during the past decade, mass inflation would have helped the baby boomers with their assets and watered down their debt and normalised house prices for one, we have had a comment on this thread regurgitating right wing rhetoric that immigrants two working parents are a Government conspiracy to drive down wages and yet even when Labour have said the benefit/tax credit system needs an overhaul people decide to play partisan politics instead of displaying their apparent economic knowledge as to how the situation can be resolved in a globalised economy that isnt just loading our "but what about the children" in the future, its all just superficial bollocks without even the backing of a squawkbox economist.

@UnsolicitedCockPics yep as we thought , not a dime, only 1 kid and hubby not a high earner. Thanks for the site though 😀😀

I don't think you should get money once your kid is over school age ( or even under in my case lol ). It does go back to the thing of don't have kids you can't afford to keep, and don't have kids you don't want to actually want one of you to be there to bring up.

However I get it that circumstance change for people and that's what benefits are for, a safety net for when you need them, not a lifestyle choice IMO