To be frustrated that I’m worse off work working more?

[Financialfrustration]

Name changed.

My husband and I both work. I’m part time just now, but plan to go back to full time by gradually increasing hours.

Currently we are managing without paying for childcare because I have holidays to use which I accrued while on maternity leave, plus using family. These holidays will run out soon, so we are going to pay for nursery.

If I remain 3 days we are entitled to £95 universal credit and £50 Scottish Child Payment per week, which leaves us of a balance of 79p per week which we have to pay towards childcare for the three days we require it.

If I go to 4 days per week, we are entitled to £64 universal credit and £50 Scottish child payment, leaving us £77 to pay for childcare for the 4 days we require it.

Working 3 days per week I take home £338 per week, working 4 days I take home £466. That’s £108 of a difference.

In other words, if I work an extra day per week, by the time I pay £77 towards childcare, I am only £31 better off. Off that £31 I also need to sort after school care for my eldest, and get everyone to school/nursery/work on time by public transport (possibly taxi as it’s going to be impossible to do with the drop off times otherwise, and my partner is already at work by the time we leave)

I find it absolutely crazy that working more actually doesn’t pay, even for someone who has a “well paid” job.

And I totally butchered the title - Woops! I didn’t mean I’m worse off, I mean I’m not better off. And not sure what happened to make it add the word work in there.

So you are saying you want more universal credit ?

But won't you also be paying more pension contributions if they are a % of your salary?

So short term it might not feel like you are better off but long tern you will be

No - for the record I don’t currently get universal credit, and haven’t applied yet. I’ve used the entitledto calculator. I’ve never claimed anything in my life; a friend told me to see if I’m entitled to anything and it came up with these figures.

Im frustrated at the system and think there should be more done to make working more pay more, for example tax relief which could be used for childcare costs. Or even the ability to use some of your funded childcare earlier than your child’s third birthday.

But you ARE better off.
Tiny amount of salary, pension.
And then when the nursery fees drop, you will be better off again.

Yes, in the long term I will be I suppose - but it will make a very minimal difference in the long term to be honest, given that I plan on being full-time within two years anyway. My pension payments are smaller as the % you pay increases with your salary.

It's crap but it's short term. When I went back to work part time after having dc2, my net salary/child care costs amounted to me taking home £200.
It was hardly worth the stress but it's short term and within a couple of years after there was no more requirement for nursery, we were much better of with me working.

Benefits should rightly be there for people who need them because, for whatever reason, they are unable to work or work as many hours as they need. They shouldn't be treated as an alternative option to working. I could understand your point if you were worse off, but if your income is the same (or thereabouts) it's right that if you are able to work, it should be earned income rather than benefits.

Can you not opt out of pension for a short while? I've had to

Yup and the older people wonder why our generation are ‘lazy’. If it doesn’t pay to work people won’t work.

I don’t understand why we don’t have a model which fully deducts the cost of childcare from the income of the parents. It should always pay to work full time.

You have fallen a bit into the trap of thinking that childcare costs should be compared to the woman's salary

The childcare is also allowing your partner to work, it's a shared costs which allows both of you to work

So whilst it has the same impact on your household income, by comparing it to your income alone it can feel like your problem alone to solve

Also do you not drive (I don't so I'm not judging)? Because if you do it sounds like your partner is sailing off to work in the car without a care in the world whilst you are left to struggle with schools, nursery's and work commutes on public transports/taxis. Can you partner not investigate public transport for his job ( ignore this if you both are using public transport)

Childcare costs are a joint/family expense, not your personal expense. Your contribution to that cost should reflect your % contribution to the household income.

Nursery fees won’t drop for another two years, by which time I’ll be full time and it won’t make much difference anyway. The reason for increasing from 3 to 4 days is because we are financially struggling, £31 per week isn’t going to stop me from struggling financially, especially if I need to pay £15 for after school care, £7 in bus fare to get me to work, and probably at least £7 in taxis to get my daughter to school and my son to nursery in time to get myself to work.

Open to ideas to make it work though as I really want to work more but I don’t want to do it for free (eg would it be cheaper to hire a nanny and could I use the childcare element of UC to pay for this?)

When work doesn't pay, or doesn't pay enough to justify the effort, people respond to those incentives. It's a fact of life. People care more about their own pockets and circumstances than they do about other people's abstract moral principles.

Meanwhile, on a societal level we suffer because of a general failure to realise this. Work has to pay.

Does your husband get home in time to do pick ups? And if he does would your work be willing to let you do compressed hours so that you effectively go back full time, doing the 5 days a week hours over the four days you have childcare?

That would bring in more income for the same amount of childcare and therefore might ease some of the financial strain?

Can you partner not do some or part of the drop offs? If youre going to have to fork out for taxis which is nuts, you have to try and solve that problem.

adjusting DP hours either for morning drop off or evening pick up. It shouldnt be only your problem to solve.

If your DH doesn't work weekends then you are able to work weekends

Is it really worth it? Wait a couple of years until kids in school then it will be worth it. Don't kill yourself trying to do something that is really difficult. It's not lilke you're not working at all.

It’s actually my partners earnings who make us eligible for UC as I’m the higher earner. It’s him who would be claiming, not me. Previously I worked FT and he has always worked PT as it worked out best financially to do it this way, which is why I’ll be going back ft. All our earnings are pooled anyway, everything gets paid into the joint bank account and we both have full access.

My partner drives, I don’t. He starts work when everyone else is still in bed hence it’s my job to sort everyone out. If I could drive I’d still struggle to get everyone everywhere on time:

nursery drop off 8am at earliest
school drop off 8:15m at earliest
ive to be at work 20 mins drive away (on a good day - if there is traffic it takes longer) by 8:45am.

Hence the need for taxis.

I lecture on the welfare state and work hasn't 'paid' since the 1990s. Back in the 1950s, work was a guaranteed route out of poverty, now it isn't. We've fiddled with it so much since then that we've created a bunch of new problems. In-work poverty and poverty traps are two of the biggest ones.

What h yes I will definitely keep working - I’ve still actually got a full term contract, I’m only doing a temporary flexible working request so I can go full-time at any time as long as I give them 1 months notice. We will certainly be far better off when I go full-time but we had saved money for me to go back part time, which unfortunately has now been swallowed up quicker than we hoped due to the cost of living.

More of the older generation didn't work because they had to look after the children.

My parents are only in their late 50s but it didn't pay for them to both work full-time either. My dad worked during the day and my mum worked a minimum wage job in the evenings to avoid childcare costs. Once we were at school she went full-time and worked her way up. It's not a new problem for this generation.

I don't disagree with your assessment of human nature and I would certainly support a move to improve wages at the lower end of the scale and increase minimum wage.

The fact remains that being on benefits shouldn't be a choice - it makes things harder for people who don't have a choice.

I agree that in terms of day to day stress and overall household finance, £31 probably doesnt feel very motivating.

in terms of keeping your skills current i doubt there is much difference between 3 and 4 days.

In terms of pension, it matters a little how much your employer contributes. Mine does the minimum which is 3%. So maybe £3 a day on that amount. The rest of a pension contribution is just your own money you are saving up for yourself. I am a big fan of pensions but I do think people sometimes over egg just how motivating A small difference between two part time roles, when people are feeling very stressed with logistics and a bit iverwhelmed.

However all in all, in I think you are better off on 4 days and it will get easier.

There are health reasons why my partner works part time.
I would still be on state funded SMP leave but chose to go back to work early to make us better off, but it seems that’s been a mistake. I’m not at all work shy.