Do you judge single mums who claim benefits to be able to stay home with DC?

[username00000]

Specifically DC before school age.

Can I also point out, that there is no such thing as "claiming benefits" to just sit at home and not work. There are very few in the "not required to work" group. There is an awful lot of ignorance on this thread. UC has seen the end to anybody having children to just keep getting benefits..you are aware, aren't you, that unless you can prove you've been raped, a third child is entitled to nothing at all.

I suppose it hinges of what the rate of pay is...

Yes, that's a good point.

Who can stand up and say " I can't afford to earn money" and keep a straight face? If that were to be true it's an awful indictment of the system and the individual.

"But we understand that there are x amount of jobs to be filled which is far exceeded by the number of job seekers"

Interestingly I've just had to do some research on the ONS on this for a report. There are currently more roles than job seekers generally, but industries such as catering, cleaning etc are seeing the most unfilled vacancies. Thankfully I didn't need to dig deeper but I did wonder if it's because they are typically lower paid meaning they are less attractive - being honest if people got pretty much the same in benefits than they did scrubbing toilets I don't blame them for not working. There again don't people who could work but choose not to have to demonstrate they are at least applying for jobs? I do remember having to complete many a form for the Jobcentre confirming who applied, came for an interview/didn't show up etc, is that still the case?

SciFiRules

"I can't afford to earn money" my face is quite straight.
It's not a problem though and only temporary, for 7 years, I've still got 3 and a bit years to go.
It's not awful honestly, we are very lucky and grateful to the taxpayer. I'm sure it will be made up in the future with the tax we will contribute.

Why should my taxes go towards supporting those who make lifestyle choices which depend on others supporting them?

The children didn't make that "lifestyle choice", and the bulk of the money a single parent receives is for the children, or towards the cost of keeping a roof over their heads.

If we, as a society, aren't prepared to stump up the costs of caring for children, even if their parents are idle and feckless, then things have come to a pretty pass.

Imo, that's part of the social contract in any civilised society.

Thanks @TheFormidableMrsC - I was a head of dept in a challenging inner city comp before DS. Anyone can end up relying on benefits and nobody should judge.

So, 1.6 million jobseekers in the UK and 870,000 unfilled roles. The biggest problem for recruitment is the skills gap for roles in tech, communications and hospitality.

You'd be better off giving the job to the graduate and providing training opportunities for the single mum so she can hit the market when the kids go to school.

@anactualwoman
I think those claiming benefits who are obliged to look for work have to demonstrate that they spend 35 hours a week looking for work. The job centre has a system that you have to use to log your applications on. I don’t think they check whether or not you are invited to interview or showed up for said interview. Our HR Manager often says we get a lot of time waster applicants for jobs due to the job seekers applying for anything otherwise they lose their benefits.

I think the lower paid stuff is harder to fill because of the precarious nature of zero hour contracts that do not easily conform to the demands, restrictions and complications of the benefit system.

If the latter could allow people to take those roles without risking losing out to the slow moving rigid top-up benefit system, that problem would be easily nailed.

@teyem
You’ve touched on a bigger issue. Should we not be providing decent and useful training, skills that are actually recognised by employers, to those that are long term unemployed? I don’t think we do this very well. It applies to people in all sorts of situations, not just mums who have had a long career break.

Romany,
That is awful in my opinion, my tax pays for you to have 7 years off. I'd like to have 7 years off funded with my children but I view it as wrong in the extreme to ask others to pay for it.

Thanks Love, they used to check, would have been about 10 years ago now but I remember getting letters or calls from the Jobcentre asking me to confirm, always felt awful for 'grassing' people up if they didn't turn up for an interview, some of the jobs were horrible tbh.

Yes

we are very lucky and grateful to the taxpayer.

this cannot be a genuine post.

*Yes. Why should my taxes go towards supporting those who make lifestyle choices which depend on others supporting them?

Getting pregnant is a choice. It's not something which happens to you.

So yes, I do judge.*

What about people whose circumstances change?

I once had a client with 3 young children, who had been comfortably off. Then her husband's business failed, he killed himself. Their life insurance didn't pay out, because it was suicide. She lost her home, her children were distraught (one was later diagnosed with PTSD). Her life completely fell apart.

But you'd begrudge someone like that a few pence of your hard-earned taxes.

Even if you make an exception for those who've fallen on hard times through no fault of their own, who gets the job of deciding between the "deserving" and the "undeserving" poor?

Far too much scope for value judgments there imo.

@teyem
Is universal credit not supposed to solve this problem.

We used to have a cohort of single mums in my last job who all did 16 hours a week and wouldn’t ever take overtime as it would mess up their benefits payments for months.

@thetonsillolith That is exactly it, nobody but nobody knows what is going to happen to them or what's around the corner. If anybody had told me I would end up in this position, I would have laughed at them. I still can't quite get my head around it some days. It's not forever for us, we will get there in the end

Lakie, there is a huge difference between someone falling g in hard times and someone choosing benefits. Who makes the choice - the system! Allowing people to choose threatens removing the help available to those in need.

I have no idea Lakes. It'll be the only good thing I've heard about universal benefits if that's how it works.

myDH, much like thetonsil,my son also has complex special needs, he does go to a special needs, holiday club, but it is one day a week /school,hoilday and he had to meet a criteria to access it ,it is not childcare it,is a chance for him to socialise with other children with similar disabilities, they tell me which day in the weeks of the school ,holidays he can have and he has to dressed and ready from 8am as he can be picked up any time between 8am -9am I also have to be home to meet his mini bus from 3pm ,I don't know if any special needs after school clubs and he goes to a special school or special needs childminder, and actually we have more special needs support in my town than many other places in the UK.

I don't think anyone actively has babies for benefits, but they certainly have them to avoid work, ie not very desirable work.

Every single care home that I have seen has banners outside advertising work. In fil's care home the Matron told me that the pay is good, the contracts very fair and there is lots of flexibility. Still they couldn't find anyone to work there - it was newly-arrived immigrant men or women 55+. To be fair if I had the choice of benefits or wiping old people's bottoms I know which I'd choose.

My ire though is reserved for a relation of mine and her bf. Neither work because they are parents . !!!???!! They have just been given a new-build social housing house in a very desirable village, and he manages to "lose" any job he has to start so he can go back to gaming parenting.

I would judge yes. Personally I think opting out of working to provide for a child/children a person chose to have is morally wrong.

Children need to see a work ethic modelled and that things in life have to be worked for and are not just handed to you.

NRPs are slated for not working, not paying etc so we shouldn't have double standards,

There was a really interesting programme on a few years ago, it was putting modern day benefits claimants into the benefits system of the 1950s. Interestingly the person with a disability was well looked after, as was the widow.

There was a woman who was open about her decision to be a single mother on benefits and considered herself to be an independent woman as she wasn’t dependent on a man (100% reliant on the state though). When she went in front of the benefits panel she was absolutely amazed that they found her to be undeserving and sent her off to a church for charity. She was told that benefits were a safety net for those who had suffered misfortunes, not those who had deliberately sought to live off other people. She wasn’t particularly likeable - brash and gobby - but it was a bit of an eye opener for me to realise that some people see having a baby as a career choice to get as much as they can from the state and actually consider themselves to be independent women???

most single parents don't start off as such - most people don't choose to become single. And the myth of the young mum is just that - the average age of a single mum is late 30s. Plus under Universal Credit, new rules mean you have to go to work when your youngest child is 3. Plus there's a whole host of other rules which mean that it really isn't the easy choice to choose benefits (e.g cap on benefits, limit on number of children etc etc). No one's comfortable (income wise) on benefits.

So stop with your judging and live your own lives.

if you add on the fact that most single parents are faced by very different challenges re childcare, support, finances than other parents, then I think you'd be foolish to judge single mums. The single parent who scrounges off the benefit system really is a rare thing.