To think £800p/m is pretty generous?

[Cuppasoupmonster]

Off the back of the ‘trapped women’ thread, out of curiosity I used ‘Entitled To’ to find out what I could claim if I was a single mum of 2 primary aged kids with no savings and an ex who paid the minimum in maintenance. The hypothetical single mum earns 1,300 p/m and rents a property costing £900 p/m.

The calculator said the minimum she would be entitled to would be £800p/m, which in my view is about right. Yet I hear a lot that benefits are a pittance and had assumed that to be the case, but I was pleasantly surprised by the result.

Am I overlooking something? Not trying to be goady, I’m genuinely curious.

YABU = £800 isn’t enough in these circumstances
YANBU = £800 is about right or even generous

£9600 per year? Are your calculations correct?

So essentially the rent is paid by UC and she is left with £1200 per month for everything else?

I think so, I just entered all the info above.

I suppose so, yes.

So 1300 -900 = 400 left
top up with 800
that’s 1200 to cover
council tax
electric
tv
phone
childcare of some sort
food for 3 ppl

lets be nice and assume she owns a car outright so
fuel
insurance
tax

plus clothing the dc, etc etc

i wouldn’t want to do it to be fair.

It's correct plus 80% of their childcare bill paid.

Why?

No but people on minimum wage with children are never going to be minted, the system can’t work that way. There will always be lower earners. Oh and that doesn’t include the child maintenance which I set at £280 per month for both kids (which I think is the minimum), sorry I should’ve said that before.

Assuming the 2 children are different sexes and one or both are over ten, the housing allowance where I live would entitle the mother to the 3bed rate which is 670 a month towards rent.
If they are younger or same sex she's only entitled to 2 bed rate which is 560 a month.
I hope she doesn't live in my area paying that rent although it wouldnt surprise me for a 3bed in a half decent area.
Universal credit is very easy to calculate and work out.

What you're forgetting is that not everyone fits in that neat little box.
For a start, UC use LHA to determine how much of your rent they will pay if in private rented accommodation. It is not a generous amount. For most in private rent it will not cover the full amount.
The other issue you have is the amount of children a woman may have. If she has 1 or 2, or all her kids were born before 2017, then she will be okay perhaps (rent depending). But when she has 4 kids, and only getting paid the child element for 2... she quickly becomes below poverty line.
So, no, I don't agree.

How much in 'minimum' child maintenance?

I am a single mum of one child, work full time bring home £1350pm. My rent is £470pm and I get £500pm in UC.

Child maintenance is not taken into account with benefits, you could get hypothetically get 2000pm in maintenance and still be entitled to UC.

This is going to turn into a benefits bashing thread in no time and inevitably the ableist tropes will start being repeated

But we should be able to (factually and respectfully) discuss benefits, as they’re part of public spending.

280 is nowhere near the minimum amount. Try 0. Most men get away with paying nil, or very low maintenence. I've been lucky. Both my ex's have paid - one voluntarily at £120 per month, never increased in the 13 years it was paid. I set it with him based on him doing 40 hours of work at min wage in 2008 with 1 overnight. It wasn't worth the aggro to increase it. Trust me.
Other ex, well, his had to be forced by CMS with attachment of earnings order. He has tried to dodge it whenever he can eg moving jobs. He also doesn't see the kids. I don't count that money in my income because it could never be relied upon.

Until something goes wrong you may manage on that money. Then an uninsured driver rear ends you writing off your car. Insurance takes an age to pay out and you struggle to find a car as well maintained as your old written off one.
Or your freezer/washing machine breaks down. Or your clutch goes. Or you need a new sofa. Or you get burgled and need to find your insurance excess. Or the nursery goes bust after you pay your bill for the month leaving you with a nursery to find and no cash to pay it. Or the landlord sells the house and you need a deposit upfront plus removal truck costs.

1200 doesn’t allow for the shit life throws at you. I don’t claim UC I’m very lucky to have the job I do but when people discuss UC they forget to factor in random rubbish events like those listed above. £1200 for all bills for a year is a doddle when you have decent clothes and furniture and a decent car. I bet I could manage off this for a couple of years . Not so much when you are on year 7 of all of the above still on UC and things start needing to be replaced.

Slightly off topic but I think the absent parent should be forced to self declare and pay Cms via a tax return. Facing the same penalties as someone who fails to pay a student loan or their income tax. I think that is what society should focus on - getting people to pay for their responsibilities.

Single mum here with 2 DC (one is autistic). I’m disabled but able to work FT. My take home pay is £1750. I get £1100 UC on top. Plus PIP. Plus CB. Plus CDP (child disability payment). And from next week the SNP are throwing me £50/week for having children. I also got all the cost of living payments. My rent is under £400/month.

If you're coming at it from the direction of they're not enough then as a disabled person I'd agree with you but from your opening and subsequent posts it's coming across as iM jUsT AsKiNg QuESTiONs type post

Benefits do end though, don't forget. When your children reach 18 and you're still earning £1300pm and your rent is still £900pm you're a bit screwed. You can of course downsize but if you've got kids at uni who still need somewhere to come home to in the holidays what then?

£2100 to pay for everything isn't generous for 3 people.

It might have been enough pre covid-19, but it isn't now.

Where is rent under £400/month?? Presumably you live in a house and not a parking space?

Would you rather she got less then op?
The idea behind universal credit is that you are always better off in work.
As a very low earner that might not actually be the case once you factor in travel to and from work, work clothes, 20% of your childcare bill, no more free prescriptions or council tax discount.
Work should be incentivised and no single mother working full time should be living on the bread line.
It's bloody hard work and soul destroying at times I can tell you from experience.
Maybe if rents weren't extortionate her benefit entitlement would be lower?
Alternatively if she was paid a living wage?
Maybe fair rents and fair pay would be better for everyone.

Where do you live that rent is that cheap? Mine is £470 and I'm in the midlands in a small 2 bedroom housing association flat.