Graduate DD not qualifying for job seekers. The buck stops with us

[drivinmecrazy]

DD1 graduated this summer and moved home to us in October.
Since then she's been applying for entry level jobs in publishing and copywriting in London.
We live in a rural town with limited employment opportunities, for which we feel really guilty for, but that's another story.
We agreed to give her until the new year to focus fully on finding the ideal position before we expected her to apply for local jobs which would tide her over.
Since then she's applied for job seekers allowance. Found out today she does not qualify because doesn't have enough NI contributions.
She's certainly not work shy, she supported herself largely through uni and spent time from graduation until she me of September working full time at her uni job so was paying NI and tax.
Now she's home it falls to us to support her. She has dwindling savings so has enough for her socialising and we obviously don't charge her for board and lodgings.
But at 22yo surely she should be treated by the state as independent.
What if we didn't have the means to support her at home?
TBH I was hoping she'd qualify for the £200 odd per month for job seekers so she might be able to contribute £20 a week to the household, which would obviously not come close to what she is 'costing' us , but might give her some self worth.
We are fortunate we can accommodate her but it's a hefty weight for us to carry with the cost of living etc.

We have never claimed anything as a family but surely as an independent 22yo woman she should have some autonomy.

I realise probably shouldn't have put this in aibu cos I know I am, but where do our parental responsibilities stop?

She has obviously started applying for local jobs in what she has experience of and her cv is fortunately full of work experience so shouldn't take long.

But I guess my real AIBU is what would happen if we could not or would not cover her living costs

“Over the past week she has applied for several catering jobs”

Good to hear she is making such serious, committed efforts to find employment. I hope the applications didn’t take too much time away from her portfolio tweaking.

my dd worked after uni, basic and took home universal credit, gl dyou have been pointed in the right direction op

But what if we couldn't do that for her, and she lived in an area with low employment opportunities (as we do) how would she manage?

Do you live in the middle of nowhere?

I can't believe there is not a pub, supermarket (where do you shop?) or restaurant within 5 miles.

Does she drive? can she access a car? Is there a bus service to your nearest town?

If she's thinking of working in London and will only break even, after fares, you must live in the SE, so nowhere is THAT rural.

I live rural but there is a shop and 4 pubs within walking distance and they are all crying out for staff - in fact they are closed half the week owing to lack of staff.

I have the impression she is being too fussy.

When she is applying for jobs ANY job looks better on a CV. Months of doing nothing does not look good.

And really, the WFH is a dream. Young people need to be in the workplace to learn from others, to get better soft skills, not hide away at home.

This is slightly off topic but a good way to get in to publishing is to apply for less popular assistant roles in production or foreign rights that have a higher turnover of young people and then move sideways into editorial or marketing.

some of these comments are extraordinary, what a load of argumentative posters there are
i hope you can see through the messy threads for some advice op.
very off putting.

I would rather she used her time between applying for jobs doing something she loves at that might be beneficial to her in the long term than sit in her room becoming anxious and depressed.
She has had mental health struggles in the past so mocking her creative side is not very clever.
Also I've said up thread she's been doing on line courses in coding and other IT skills which should help in future.
The idea she's idling her time away while she applies for one job a week is far from accurate

as regards to your responsibility, that is up to you
if she moved out then she would have to support herself, by hook or by crook.
she can claim

You sound nice

DD1 graduated this summer and moved home to us in October.

So she graduated summer of 2022. Courses finish by June. So for 4 months she was still living in her uni accommodation?
How was she funding that? Was her rent being paid by her all of that time?

Many students start work straight after their course is finished.

You say she worked up to 30 hours when she was at uni.
What kind of work?
Can't she use that now as a way back into some paid work?

You might not know this but until UC appeared as a single benefit, young people under 25 could not claim housing benefit. This was because it was seen as their parents role to house them if they couldn't fund it themselves.

Maybe if your own income is so tight that you are worried about the costs now she is at home, you could be thinking on how to increase your own income?

If you want to take £20 a week from her to help out, then you must be pretty close to the breadline. Are you working?

I think a lot of posters are surprised at what sounds to be a pie-in-the-sky hope for a career combined with a not very serious attempt to provide for herself while hoping for the perfect job to fall in her lap.

Many people (me included) never moved back home after university, we packed a few things in a bag, begged the use of someone’s sofa for a week in London and then just turned up and made it work.

I still think this is the best way to make it happen.

Please don't feel bad that she's claiming UC. It's a benefit and an entitlement and that's what it's there for - a safety net.

Please tell her not to worry about repaying student loans. That starts once she is in a paying job over a certain level of earnings. Many people never earn enough and many people don't fully pay off student debt ever and it gets written off (eventually).

My DD was at home in her early twenties and qualified for UC. She had tiny savings though.

The other option is for her to move out, claim higher benefits but that's probably hard, given renting prices and deposits etc and she'd probably be very, very poor!

Tell her to have faith, a job will come. It will. My DD was unemployed and trying everything for months after covid thawed. It was so hard and she is so work driven and talented. She finally got a role that's she's still in. Very successful, loving it. The same will happen for your DD too. Give it time.

She was working over summer, as OP says.

@drivinmecrazy I did suggest in a previous post all sorts of skills which your DD could be learning which would be relevant to a future career in publishing – which came from DH who spend 20 years in newspaper, magazine and book publishing and is now a freelance writer/editor…

Alternatively, as PPs have said she could write to magazine publishers/content agencies about work experience. DH used to take on new graduates every year when he was the editor of a big monthly magazine. It was unpaid, but they were treated as part of the team – they got to write articles, go on interviews and photo shoots, learn how to liaise with the sales and marketing teams, work with designers to create and edit pages, and learn how to research images from picture libraries. All valuable skills.

If you're happy to support her for a little longer, I would definitely recommend the work experience route, there were occasions when work experience people were offered full-time jobs too.

AIBUYESYES she stayed on in her accommodation and fully self funded while she was working so covered her own rent.

As to the £20 a week, we don't need it but why is it so unreasonable to expect a 22 year old to contribute? Surely we'd be sending out a worse message if we didn't have that expectation?

We are fortunate we can accommodate her but it's a hefty weight for us to carry with the cost of living etc.

You started off by saying that you found it hard to feed her now she's back home.

I can't think of any parent who'd use the words 'fortunate we can accommodate her' about their child coming home after uni. They were there for 18 years full time, so why is it that different now?

On the one had you seem to regard her as an imposition, asking where your parental responsibilities end, (never, is the word!) but on the other you are defending her choices at the moment - and seem to think she's doing all she can to get work- and it's the state's job to pay her while she's at home.

Thankyou thing47 that's helpful.
I'll suggest to her to approach our local newspaper to ask about some work experience.

you are right @ImmigrantAlice - and great it worked for you, my own dd only came home due to covid!
but it does not apply in this case
it is too late, she has come home, with a mental health stress from university - quite common - now her parents are struggling financially.

well that' s not how it came over in your first post where you appeared very angry about having to pay for her living with you. And expected tax payers to do it for you.

You've still not answered about location. Nowhere in the SE is that cut off and I simply don't believe she can't get a pub or cafe job close to home. She needs to go in and ask not just apply for things in writing/online.

What work did she do before at uni?

As for taking money from her once she is working.

I don't know any parents who did this TBH.

We allowed ours to save for a deposit for a rental (a shared house) and that was over £1K. We didn't need their money (and yes, not everyone is like us) but it seemed better to allow them to save for rent, a car, a house deposit etc than take a few quid each month.

She also needs to accept that if she does get a job in London she either has to be able to live there (has she searched for rentals and the cost?) or be prepared to spend most of her income on fares. That's the reality.

agree, if you are after £20 a week, that you dont even need, why bother asking - let her save for her future with that £20

Does she read/ buy The Bookseller? All the jobs in publishing are in there.

AIBUYESYES absolutely no reason why she can't get that kind of job and that's why she's applying now.
We gave her a break after uni from supporting herself and she used that time applying for her ideal jobs and doing things that might help her CV.
Made it clear that she's expected to now get a local job.
I had a very different up bringing to her in that my parents were extremely well off and didn't expect me to contribute or pay my way at all.
I don't want her to have that so if it means she has to pay £20 per week it will hopefully mean that she has more drive than I've had because I was so fortunate.
I'm not going to say where I live just to satisfy your curiosity, but we are in the east as opposed to the southeast, and there are indeed areas that are not as affluent as the Home Counties

OP I don't think it is unreasonable for your DD to contribute to the household but I think it is unreasonable in her circumstances, to claim benefits. I think you all (you sound very involved) need to take a realistic look at her future. You talk about her previous work as if she has done something particularly wonderful when she has likely worked for the university catering team and run some shifts in a coffee shop which is great but pretty standard. Also staying home doing online courses and working on a portfolio is a bit indulgent (especially if she wants to fund this with benefits). You have had some good advice both from people who work in publishing and also others who suggest she needs at the very least a part time job. You mentioned Bristol and being at the end of a train line so I am thinking you might live in the far south west maybe? - I might be wrong but we live similar and there are part time (yes low waged) jobs. Can she drive - that would open things up more. Hope she gets to Bristol and moves forward soon.

she can join an agency and do all sorts of temping work that might give her freedom

That is the tax payers contributing, not your daughter. 🙄