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 said you want to discuss benefits, as its public spending...

Then make a ridiculous statement that its not so bad after all.

What we're you expecting? Pay theoretical single mum £200pm? £300?
She can always beg for the rest once her children in bed I guess.

We are just discussing, as you asked.

You are entitled to CB, if you can’t get that right I can’t really be arsed with the rest of your thread.

Do you actually want people to be hard up? It seems you begrudge people not living in poverty. Weird.

I honestly can't believe you've check what you'd be entitled to if you were a different person in different circumstances but haven't bothered to check your own.

Not at all, I’m happy to be proved wrong - can you do a breakdown and show me how it actually is, if you don’t mind? Because I know the calculator and real life are different things.

Agree. What WAS the point of your thread?

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

What WAS the point of your thread?

The point of the thread is to shit stir.

What on Earth are you talking about? £300 would be a pittance, no I would not want that.

Benefits are public spending and something any of us might need at any given moment. So yes we are entitled to discuss them without being accused of ‘hidden agendas’, provided it is respectful and factual. I also like to discuss NHS spending, education spending etc.

I've never seen anyone on here write benefits "are a pittance".

You saying you see it alot seems goady

It's not easy. I earn min wage + commission (but obviously that's not guaranteed
So take home can be between £1300 - £1700 depending

I don’t think single mums are ‘lucky’. I know how helpful it is having DH around and I wouldn’t want to lose that for a monetary gain.

What monetary gain? Based on your own figures you would still be substantially worse off as a single mother on top up benefits vs the income your husband contributes at the minute.

Yes, this. You don't know. Count yourself lucky.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4649078-to-wonder-why-benefits-should-rise-in-line-with-inflation-when-no-job-is

from last month.

I would be financially better off if I was single. But I know that would not make up for losing a co-parent and having to wrangle the CMS system.

Yes, we should be able to discuss welfare benefits, but your post was saying 'see, benefits aren't subsistence level after all!' Quite goady.

You picked one very narrow set of circumstances for your experiment. Not everyone will fit your criteria.

YABVU.

Yes, I noticed that. “Monetary gain”. Yeah. Right.

But you wouldn't be worse off!

Are you being deliberately dense here?

So we can only discuss them if we agree they’re not enough? And anything else is ‘goady’?

Sorry, better off! You'd be worse off...

Roll on OPs due date so she has a baby to keep her busy rather than posting goady threads about how easy people on benefits have it. 🙄 Let’s hope you don’t end up a single mum having to claim benefits OP. Life can change very quickly.

Again - what have I said that is goady? Or is anything apart from ‘benefits are too low’ goady?

This is one of those weird threads where the votes and comments tell a different story…

Plus child benefit and many get child maintenance which does not reduce benefits at all.

They're not enough.

Some people think they are enough, or even too generous, but honestly those people are plain wrong. Benefits are lower in this country than many European nations and a very high number of people on benefits in the UK are in deep poverty.