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

You certainly seem to be suggesting they are equal when you can’t see the difference between someone with your income and someone with the income of your hypothetical OP.

You need to make sure you have a carers element on your UC claim. you can get that element added without claiming carers allowance as long as one of you is caring for the other for 35 hours a week and the other is getting a disability benefit. The one with PIP will need to claim the LCWRA on UC (assuming they have been awarded that or support group of ESA ) and the oother will need to claim carers element. Unfortunately, carers allowance is deducted from UC pound for pound also so you are no better off claiming it except that it pays a better class of NI contributions. If you are both claiming contributions based ESA separately to UC then I don't think one of you can claim carers allowance if getting ESA - they are overlapping benefits. It's hard to advise without knowing exactly what you are getting. You say you are both getting ESA but do you mean contributions based ESA separately to UC or the Limited capability for work element of UC only?

Curious but are the people saying it's a benefit bashing thread actually on benefits? I'm a single parent working full time and renting and am surprised at the amount of top up I get from UC. The OP does not offend me in the slightest. It's factual. If you rent and have kids and work with earnings under a certain amount you will get a top off which I consider fairly generous tbh and which I am thankful for.

Not sure how stating a fact is offensive.

I’d like to know what the trapped women thread is please , link ?

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/relationships/4672879-can-we-just-be-honest-and-say-many-women-are-trapped?page=1

If quitting work meant your rent/mortgage was paid, you had money for holidays and savings, what fucker would work?

Once again, benefits do not pay people's mortgages (there may be a very small number of special circumstances, but not as far as I'm aware).

And second point - who is "quitting work" to claim benefits? Isn't the system set up so that someone can't do that?

Yes I agree. I don’t think there should be a choice - you work full time like I have too as a single parent to keep the roof over my head and my kids.

I agree

@Cuppasoupmonster you've just missed the point of my comment altogether? Noone should be in this position. If minimum wage was increased, the cost of living was decreased and the childcare and housing crises addressed properly then why should anyone be in that boat regardless of the source of their income? There's loads of benefits to working that people on benefits can't get like the routine, the social aspect, less stigma attached, possibility for progression and training for more pay, sense of pride in their work, boost in self esteem and confidence, easier to be approved by a landlord etc etc. You may not choose to do it but that's not to say others wouldn't. I work with loads of young people who are on benefits who want to be working for all of those reasons. They even work for free to build up their cvs so your argument doesn't really hold water. Plus having a benefits system directly benefits ft workers like myself because it means I have a safety net to fall back on should i be made redundant/find myself unemployed. I see it like paying insurance and trust that people who need it for legitimate reasons can access it. Having a strong benefits system in turn lowers poverty rates/demand on healthcare/ crime etc so it benefits all of society as a result. If you're unhappy with a low wage for work you are doing then go after government for that that. That has nothing to do with someone else's benefits entitlement.

@IneedanewTV what about people who can't work full time though? Because of mental health/ physical health/caring responsibilities/ lack of work in their local area/ lack of transport in rural communities? A lot of the people I work with can manage a part time week quite well but mentally couldn't manage a full time week not for want of trying.

To be honest that’s probably all of us… its simply a luxury most people can’t afford 🤷🏼‍♀️

@Cuppasoupmonster this attitude is why UC has been one of the worst things for women in abusive relationships in recent years. It has much less caveats for women in situations of financial abuse than the old jsa system even had. It was really clear noone had thought that through when the system was first rolled out and when it was questioned noone had answers strangely enough.

Having a mental health condition/complex ptsd meaning you're unable to hold down a ft is a luxury? Now I know you're trolling.

@Cw112 the state cannot work on an individual case-by-case basis - it deals with millions of people. It’s reasonable to assume if a couple are married and living together then one will support the other in times of financial need if they can. Marriage is a choice, it’s not an unreasonable assumption.

No but the state needs to have mechanisms in place to protect people who are vulnerable instead of penalise the most vulnerable. At the end of the day that's who benefits are mainly aimed at are they not. And that happens by considering case by case scenarios to see what's missing/ could work better. And since 1/4 women in the UK experience dv can you imagine how many women that is out of your millions of people? Enough to be worth considering surely.

@Cuppasoupmonster

But then anyone could claim to be vulnerable in order to access the cash. So many posters seem to truly believe the state is responsible for intervening in every aspect of their life to make it as comfortable as possible. It’s not. If you choose to marry someone, your finances are for all intents and purposes merged. That’s why people wanted Martin Freeman to pay his wife’s tax bill. Do you think he shouldn’t have done it? It works both ways.

God yea. My life of luxury that saw me unable to leave the house alone for 2 years.

My life of luxury that means I've asked my parents for winter boots for Christmas, but can I have them now because I'm fed up with cold wet feet.
My life of luxury which means I have intrusive thoughts and suicidal ideation.

If you want to swap then I'm more than happy to.

It’s true though. I would like to go part time and spend more time with my kids, I can’t afford to 🤷🏼‍♀️ I have had serious MH issues in the past and I’m not unsympathetic to that. But if everyone who found work stressful or who suffered with poor MH went part time the economy would collapse.

But you need to provide evidence of vulnerability in order to claim higher rate benefits or have appropriate measurements put in place? Have you ever had to go through this process op because I do it with claimants regularly and it's quite robust and often very difficult for the most vulnerable to access independently without support which in my opinion is wrong. You don't seem to be overly familiar with the nuances of uc and other benefits.

Of course but how do you prove financial abuse?

So you know that wanting to spend more time with you DC isn't the same as having MH issues then. And if you can still work full time (or at all) without having another breakdown then that's fab for you. I can't at the moment.

It's not about "finding work stressful" or "having poor MH" it's about being literally too unwell to do more than the bare minimum.

There's a scale though from people who just find work stressful and would choose to be pt if they could, to people who have genuine and legitimate reasons for being unable to hold down a ft job with no choice in the matter. The empathy isnt exactly hanging out of you is it. It's like the argument in America - why should I pay for another person's healthcare (including my own if I need it) and then watch people die because they can't access vital medication/ face bankruptcy because someone rang an ambulance to get them to hospital in an emergency. Benefits is similar in that its a backup for everyone. I know I'd rather have a decent benefits system and the NHS than live in a society where I'd watch many people suffer for the sake of not paying as much in taxes. The difference it makes out of taxes really isn't comparable to the impact on someone who really needs it. With a better benefits system, there would be less poverty, better physical and mental health which in turn would boost the economy.

I live in a rural area. It’s my choice. I drive to work. Unless you have a disability or your caring responsibility has a disability I think you should work full time. I have no idea why you wouldn’t? I certainly don’t think that if you choose to work part time the state should fund you so that you have the same income as me working full time. Otherwise why do I work? I certainly don’t enjoy working.

With the way the housing crisis is going its not always peoples choice where they live its what they can afford and rural areas typically have lower rental prices because less people choose to live there/less demand. What about people who's family live in that area and they depend on them for childcare or they need support in other ways. So while it's your choice to live rurally it's not the case for everyone. There's already been reems of examples as to why some people can't work full time or find it significantly harder than other people to do so and sustain it.