I am better off on benefits

[yousilvertongueddevilyou]

I make £1100/month self-employed. I now get £620/month in Universal Credit and £80/week in child benefit.

I'm on a £26K/year salary which goes a long way where I live.

If I got a job that paid £28K/year I'd have to work more, for £100/month more, which I'd lose in prescriptions, free school meals, and council tax support.

I'd have to make at least £30K/year to make working worth my while and then I'd have to lose even more on childcare to work full-time.

So I really need to make at least £35K/year and even then the slog wouldn't be worth it.

I'm grateful. It does trap you into a static income though. Unless my self-employed work becomes more lucrative.

I do work as much as I can, but only in school hours and before school, as it benefits my child to have me pick them up every day.

I'm certainly not incentivised to go back to work, but I am still seeking employment because I enjoy working.

Universal Credit was bashed but it actually works really well and rewards people to work.

Maybe campaign for harsher penalties for fathers who don't financially support their children then. If they were actually forced to pay, women might need less benefits. Millions of pounds of unpaid child maintenance is written off every year.

I think when you are a single parent you can be better off working part time on UC. I work full time now but when I first separated from my ex I had a job cleaning a hotel. I worked out that if I worked an extra day roughly six hours. By the time I paid NI then lost 55% then took off travel costs of £9. I was better off by about 1.60 an hour so ten quid for a day. If it was quiet and they sent you home early it could cost more in travel than you made.

You’re better off upskilling if you can.

Yep - I get nearly £3000 a month on benefits - granted both me and my child have disabilities - but I would have to go into a job that makes more than £3000 to get the same amount of money after tax which is very unlikely given that I haven’t had much work experience because of caring for my child and being unwell over the last few years.

So we hear about universal income all the time, let's take your figures. 800 per month X 12 months X 54m people approx over 18.

Work out how much that is, now on top I will assume you are going to give people under 18 a chunk as well.

At 800 per month you will still need to be paying loads of housing benefit.

The numbers never stack up which is why no country does it.

@TheSnootiestFox thanks. Yes I spent my whole working life in public and third. Yes it's underpaid.

I don't want to volunteer for the sake of it, only for possible career progression.

I have left it all too late perhaps.

Bear in mind that there would be no state pension, no UC, no housing benefit, no PIP, no child benefits, no JSA etc so that saving would go some way to making it viable. There would also surely be a huge saving on the costs of administration - no more 30-page forms for anyone to design and produce and for claimants to fill in; no processing and assessment of applications, no appeals to process etc.

£800 was merely a figure that I plucked out of the air. People other than me would decide on what would be an appropriate amount.

Concerning housing, I accept that it would have huge implications for the rental market, which would require radical reform (and I don't have the intellectual resources to be able to work out how!).

You have no scruples about failing to make a contribution to your community or country. Your only reason for doing volunteering would be to benefit your own CV. I have never claimed any non universal benefit - just child benefit. I am proud that I have always paid my way and have 4 similarly placed adult children. I have been a good role model, can you say the same? Will your children grow up to consider benefits as a way of life? I have never understood SAHM who fail to return to work after their children go to school, what the heck do they do with their time?

@Murdoch1949 I've volunteered my entire life since I was a teenager. I've worked the same amount of time. Now I'm prioritising myself yes. I worked in public and third sector my whole life and snubbed corporate for that very sense of giving back and it was actually to my detriment.

@Murdoch1949 I work and am not a SAHM except for the fact I work from home. She's seen me do various jobs in her short life. I've worked since I was 15 and worked full time throughout university.

I wasn't aware that I had to campaign for anything before being allowed to make an observation, but for what it is worth, I do happen to think that deadbeat parents - male or female, although mostly male - should be forced to pay for their children. I also happen to believe that the sustem shouldn't reward people for popping out children - not suggesting the OP has done so, mind you, as they haven't given any indication of why they are single.

What I was doing was observing that it is wonderful how the OP is having a better standard of life than many families with both parents working (and who pay significant levels of taxes) all because they live in a low cost area. I also live in a low cost area and I don't know anyone claiming benefits who is doing so well, so perhaps the OP could pass on their budgeting tips? My point was that bragging about having such a great life on benefits plays to an agenda we see here so very often, and without any doubt plays into voting patterns.

But far be it from me to suggest that this tale of being so wonderfully well off on benefits has more to do with upcoming elections than, say, veracity.

You say you enjoy working… so you wouldn’t really be better off would you? I guess you might be able to get that satisfaction from volunteering etc.

It's not about bragging, it's about looking for ideas on coming off them that won't just hurt my quality of living.

there's been lots raised that I will look into. I don't actually get prescriptions but thought they were free but seems I was wrong. I also assumed about school meals but mine insists on packed lunch anyway.

@Paturday I enjoy what I do now, and if I did it at a real slog I could make 2K/month and this is one option I'm thinking of when all the crap I have to deal with outside of my work ends.

But then of course if I make 2K/month I don't actually make 2K/month, I'd make 1769/month which is only £100 above what I make now and would require significantly more effort.

It depends what want for you and your DC op. I don’t doubt that you are in fact, right now, better off on benefits. I grew up in a single parent household, with an absent fuckwit father. We would have, at times, been better off on benefits and we went without. But, my mother grafted her arse off, worked her way up and gave us a better life. But, more importantly, she gave me a work ethic. And that has absolutely been a game changer in my life. She wanted more for me, she worked to make it happen, I learned from what she taught me and I put the work in. And now I pay her back, she absolutely benefits from my (relative!) success, but I only have it because of what she taught me? It’s not just about today op, when you have DC there is a long term impact…..

I'm ten years on from you.

I went back to fulltime work and took a hit for the first few years - but that means that I now earn above median wage, have ten years of pension contributions, a checkable work history (as you may find that being self employed isn't acceptable to employers in at least the public sector bloody NHS withdrawing their offer because I didn't have a line manager to give me a reference) and, more to the point, I am not dependent upon the whims of Government wanting to get re-elected or spunking billions on their mates and clawing it back through 'austerity'.

The only way I lose my income is through unemployment, not a DWP type clerical error or a new Departmental Minister wanting to make a high profile/vote winner statement.

It's worth going back to work just to not have the insecurity of wondering what a brown envelope means or if the payment is actually going to drop into your bank account in three days' time this month.

Oh, and you're only very recently on UC as a single parent. This could mean that the award is only in respect of a part year, rather than the full twelve months. It can change (and show an overpayment that gets taken back in large chunks) without notice.

Lol - what is this supposed to mean?

@NeverDropYourMooncup No it doesn't work like that, that happened with tax credits.

I earn 1100 a month and get top ups.
I also hope to get a job in a school soon too.

I'm not work shy.

My child has always seen me work and will have a work ethic too. Hell, I have one even though I was brought up on benefits. I started work at 15. Your assumption that children of a parent on benefits won't have a worth ethic is just not correct.

It's just not worth me working full-time again until I have a clear plan what to do. I often get more advice out of a post worded this way than one worded 'help me figure out what to upskill in'

conspiracy theories. I’ve been on benefits as a single mum and it’s not that bad. Also for many on low wages there is not much in it.

I see threads like this and a I think why the fuck do I go to work…when in simple terms I could get rid of DH, go part time and claim benefits and I’d be better off?!?!?

Of course Dh could visit a few nights a week after our divorce…

@BodyShapeWoes Presumably because you like your job and love your husband?

I also work, I just work from home, for now.

@BodyShapeWoes Oh and also because presumably you make much more than 26K/year?

I don't earn that, but I don't have DC so I don't get any UC and not quite ill enough for PIP but unwell enough that 40hrs a week is a struggle
Think my wage works out as 23k a year

Bear in mind, once your youngest is 13 you will need to make the equivalent of a full time minimum wage salary, as self employed. That's the minimum income floor. You are likely on the start up period at the moment so your income is irrelevant. This was put in place during COVID and is automatically put in place in your first year of trading. It gives you 12 months to grow your business to a turnover that's the equivalent of a full time salary. There is absolutely no help in this though.
Outside of COVID or the start up period, it's usually not worth being SE and on UC.
However, I do agree that for most people with kids and on low salaries, UC is more worth it.
The salaries in the UK are a huge problem and have been stagnant for years exactly because of this system that created a subsidized society.
Higher wages would be much better for the economy and tax income.

I don’t understand, do you get free school meals and prescriptions or not? If so, how are you eligible?

@BodyShapeWoes Do you have young kids and earn close to a minimum wage? If not, this wouldn't be something you'd be better off doing. Being on UC is only 'more worth it' if your kids are under 13 and you are on minimum wage or close to it, and have expensive rent. For almost all other situations, bar having a disabled child or being disabled yourself, you would not be better off on UC because you'd be expected to work full time.