They’re not ‘top-up’ benefits if you don’t work full-time

[Gobbledegobble]

If people do work full-time, absolutely those wages should be enough to live a decent life and not require outside support, and that requires systemic change (and higher taxation for corporations, closure of tax evasion loopholes and legislation to outlaw poverty wages). I’m a lifelong labour voter and will never vote Tory. BUT working 15, 20 hours a week and bemoaning that you ‘just’ need ‘top-up’ benefits is disingenuous. I couldn’t survive on part-time wages so I work full-time. I ‘top up’ my wages, if you will! But my own efforts. Outside of you or your children having a disability / chronic health need requiring ongoing care, if you can’t afford to live on part-time hours then you can’t afford to work part-time. My partner and I work full time and pay over £1k a month in childcare fees to enable us to do so. Having children does not mean you can’t work until they’re at school and then only school hours, as lots of people seem to think. The cost of childcare is outrageous and again needs systemic change through higher taxation on huge wealth. But it’s not a ‘top-up’ benefit (as if that’s somehow better or more moral than just plain old benefits). Sure I’ll get piled on but I fully support the welfare state and want benefits to be much more generous for when people need them, which should largely be a short-term crisis. Not until the children you chose to have are secondary school age with you being ‘topped up’ by full-time workers’ taxes until then.

Divorce is seen as acceptable regardless of the reason

So you think divorce can be an unacceptable outcome?

I earn good money . 40k a year full time.
I clear £2,000 a month . My child care is £1,300 a month . Now how would I pay mortgage , bills,
car , petrol , food and live off £700 ? I couldn’t !

Luckily for me i have a partner and we just get by but we can’t afford a second child even though we both work full time .

If I was single I’d have to quit my £40k job as I couldn’t survive. I’d have to work part time and then claim and I’d see my baby more . It’s crazy.

It would cost me £600 pcm more than I clear each month to send two children to nursery. So I may as well not work. But we can’t afford to live on wage . So no second child.

i hear people say . Don’t have kids if you can’t afford them . So A man and a wife who both work full time and pay all taxes and get no help should accept they can’t afford a child in 2022?????????

Hmmm yes you will get destroyed. 😂

Some jobs are NMW you’ll be worse off working full time and paying childcare costs of £1k a month?

You have a partner and probably access to a vehicle.

Some people don’t have children so someone else can look after them. (Goady but true).

Your informative posts and WhatWouldScullyDo's thoughtful responses are the reasons I am glad Mumsnet leave benefit bashing threads like this (with an OP unable to see past their own personal situation) stand.

Your perspective is ever so narrow OP, you appear to be unable to imagine a person whose full-time earnings could not match the cost of childcare, or f you get off your high horse you'll find that is the case for many people - even many couples ( given that on top of childcare comes rent, council tax, utilities, food, toiletries, clothing, transport and the rest).
I'm sure you have every right to be proud of what you have achieved OP, just don't make the obvious mistake of thinking everyone has had the same opportunities as you ( see 'Tory Fallacy' or 'Daily Mail bingo classic')

Comparing criticising benefit claimants (which I didn’t actually do) which is not an inherent characteristic that you can’t change with racism etc is ridiculous. Your point that people with disabilities are largely forced into being reliant on benefits because of inaccessible work practices is a fair one, though.

I know it’s the wrong people to be angry at, and I’m largely not angry at them in reality. Tbh it’s largely just the ‘top up’ phrasing as it feels minimising to me and an attempt to be superior to ‘normal’ benefit claimants. ‘Just a little top up’ that costs huge amounts feels disingenuous. Ultimately it’s poverty wages that need outlawing, I know. And I was a care worker for a year on a 0 hours contract and had to cope with shifts being denied when I dared to say of a whole week, 24 hours each day I wasn’t available for 2 of those hours (which they then scheduled me in for, and it really was 24 hours as I worked nights too). And no, I couldn’t afford to work full time, pay my £1200/month rent and pay £1k childcare on my own. Tbh that’s part of my frustration / being utterly worn down, my relationship isn’t great but I can’t afford to leave, or work, part time to spend more time with my son, or any number of things I’d like to do. And I know the people in charge are the ones to be angry at. But people living in lifetime tenancies in social housing on good salaries and/or choosing to work part time ‘around school hours’ and not seeming to appreciate that for the utter luxury it is still wear me down. I’m clearly evil, and I know I’m being unreasonable. But top up benefits are benefits, and when people pull out ‘most people on benefits are in work’ I don’t think that’s a fair representation of what’s going on. Most of that is part time work.

So you're angry at your lot in life and take it out on those with less.

But top up benefits are benefits, and when people pull out ‘most people on benefits are in work’ I don’t think that’s a fair representation of what’s going on. Most of that is part time work.

No it isn't.

Nurses, care workers, hospital porters, train workers, supermarket workers etc etc
The people everyone cheered and beat pans and pots for, they're the ones working long hours and being paid crap money that need to have the wages top upped just so they can keep going to perform the actual necessary tasks of the world.

The real issue is crap wages v high housing (and other) costs.

My parents maintained a good ( not flash but certainly comfortable) standard of living on just one salary. Now DH and I (similar level jobs to my dad), barely reach that standard with BOTH of us working full-time.

Not everything is as black and white as we want it to be.
I work full time, because I can't afford not to. So does my husband. I can do this because I have great, local family support. And my employer is very flexible with wfh (not with kids at home) and hours.

If I didn't have the work flexibility and the support, I'm not sure how I'd work full time. We pay a small fortune each month in nursery fees and wrap around care, but still rely on family support. Summer kids clubs here run 9-3. Nursery 8-6. The jobs locally aren't in my industry, and don't pay well enough to afford the full time nursery costs.

I'd have made different decisions if I had a different job, and likely wouldn't have moved here. But things change, and I'd be pretty screwed if I lost my job. Or family support.

Not everyone makes decisions based off being able to claim benefits. Lives change beyond our control, often.

How far do you go...should no one have kids unless they could afford to support them if they lose their job? How much savings would they need for that? £1m?

What a strange post. If you didn't pay £1000 a month for childcare, you could afford to be part-time! The majority of people I know work part-time, because they are:
studying
have young children
care for elderly parents
have poor physical or mental health
I don't necessarily see virtue in working full-time while your children are farmed out, sorry. And in this economy, you'd be amazed how few full-time jobs exist for non-professionals.

Problem is @Gobbledegobble that you're not taking into account single parent households. If your partner ups and leaves you and you are in rented accommodation with no assets, how are you supposed to find yourself a rental, pay the costs of that, the bills, fuel to get to work and childcare on top?
Even if I worked full time as a top band 5 nurse, on my own I couldn't afford to do all that and feed my child. Plus who picks up my child from childcare when i do 12 shifts? It's just not feasible and people's lives and circumstances change at the drop of a hat.
I know the system has a lot of room to be abused but the fault lies with the government who run the system and not with the people, of which many are hard working and struggling to make ends meet.

*12 hour shifts that's supposed to say!

I didn’t have children to ‘farm them out’ either; see not being able to afford to work part time or manage on just my partner’s (mid 30s) wage and be a SAHM, good for you if you can (or rather, good for your DP for being such a high earner).

You are not wrong OP, but prepared to be called names and have the thread deleted.

Not that easy when you have children in school and need to drop off and pick them up and are a single parent. It sounds easy. I'm not a single parent but my friend is and she does two 12 hour shifts and I have her kids some of that time, and she's really in debt and struggling. I always share anything I find that will help her get something more because she works hard and it's not her fault she is a single parent.

I am not on benefits myself but the amount of money people on benefits use it's nothing compared to fraud from politicians, squandering money on bad business deals by out of touch political class, second home scams from MPs, spending on arms, or misappropriation of funds in our public services, so it's the bottom of my list of things to care about in this regard.

Why is it at the top of yours?

In the tax and benefits system there are always cliff edges and traps.

What you’re failing to recognise is that just as you and your spouse are in the particular spot - the “trap”- of being above the thresholds for help and having high childcare and living expenses, other women - often lower down the income scale and/or single - are in the equally sticky “trap” of low wages/single income/ renting/ childcare and so can’t work FT.

Feeling trapped and without a sufficient safety net is always a horrible feeling, either way.

Most single parents even working full time, would struggle to provide for their family without benefits. Wages just don't pay enough for that, and for if, whatever reason, parents split up, of course the resident parent should be subsidised to help bring up their children, whether working full or part time, a single income household will most likely not bring in enough money to support a family. Me and my DH both work (him full time, me part time) he earns a very decent wage, I don't, as my job fits in around school runs, and I need to be able to drop off and collect my children, this is what works for us and is a similar set up to most other families we know. But if we split, I'd have to rely heavily on benefits to survive. I couldn't just quit my current job and walk into a full-time position with decent enough pay to cover the additional costs of running a household. People's circumstances change, and yes benefits should be a short time solution, but sometimes it's not as simple as that.

Here we go. Anyone working full time to support their family is farming their kids out, apparently.

Why do you think other people should pay for your privilege to kit work full time? While they themselves very likely work full time.

The epitome of entitlement, that has hardened the public’s attitude towards welfare.

But what is actually wrong with part time?

Its the erratic nature of shifts at some jobs that make part time the necessity.

Especially when childcare is based around 9-5 jobs.

I think many full time workers seem to want the benefit of the part time workers to pick up their kids from school and mind them.for a couple of hours til one if you gets home, or to feed your cat or walk your dog , or deliver your pizza when you are too tired to cook, or take your kid or tag team the gymnastics or swimming lessons .

But at the same time you dont like them and think we are the source of the countries financial ruin. Makes no sense

I suppose in the OP's logic you could have got a second job to top up your hours to full time, rather than wait for your employer to offer more.

I work in a job with zero flexibility in hours and very little support locally. I’m a single parent. Ex-h lives 90 miles away and is far too important to be bothering with helping out with his children.

There is no way I am able to work anything other than part-time - couldnt afford the nanny I’d need to do that on my salary, or scraping by with wrap around care - that won’t cover the later evenings I sometimes have to do either.

I’m taking a hit on my pension, my career hasn’t been able to progress and I’m responsible for every single thing to do with running my house, my life and my children’s. I’m also the one who loses money or holiday if one of my kids is sick and needs to be off school.

Part-time isn’t a choice, it’s a necessity.

It’s really sad when struggling people turn on one another instead of at the system failing us all. How is this helpful OP? Can you understand that the ones who are abusing the system don’t give a toss of your opinion, but the ones who are in a sinking ship might do and your post might push them over the edge entirely? It’s like talking to the people in charge of my kid’s secondary education in a way. They keep pushing more rules onto the kids, becoming more and more strict, taking away whatever little enjoyment they had. And guess what- the ones who didn’t give a fuck beforehand STILL don’t and the ones you could rely on end up severely depressed.

The point of the above - words HURT. We are all just trying to stay afloat in a dire situation.

I think a bit more empathy in all directions would help.

Very few women, especially mothers get a free choice to pursue their careers and their families according to their preferences. There are always constraints and unexpected events and this economy is making everything much harder.

As 55% of people are net recipients of the state, I’d guess most people probably aren’t funding my benefits.

I take home more working part time earning £16,000 in a child friendly job with a small amount of universal credit than I would working full time. The UC is literally towards for childcare. My old pre children job isn’t compatible with young children as you had to be on call 24/7 and having a husband that deploys continuously.

When my children go to school I’ll go back to my old career and be a net contributor again. That’s the point of benefits, help when you need it.

I guess they would say if you can't afford children don't have them, but they just fail to realise that without a surplus of poor people there would be no one to serve your starbucks on the way to your high powered job. The surplus of poor people drives the economy; the use debt (create money) and spend cash. they work the crap jobs, they use the pharmaceuticals, they join the armed forces.

The ruling class know this.