To think Carer's Allowance is a fucking disgrace?

[BoobsOnTheMoon]

Not only is it an absolute pittance of £76 a week considering you need to be providing care to a disabled person for at least 35 hours a week to claim it in the first place.

BUT you also can't claim if you earn more than £139 a week.

AND if you claim low income benefits (ie UC), the Carer's Allowance is counted as income and taken off your entitlement £ for £.

It's just so insulting. People giving up their lives and careers to care for a disabled family member deserve better than this.

(Just feeling a bit down about the fact I will probably be poor until I die, even if my disabled child manages to leave home one day I'll be at least 50 by then with no prospects for earning decent money or building any sort of security for my own old age)

You are. The legislation is different but you are entitled to a carer’s assessment. For parents of DC under 18 it is covered by the CAFA 2014, and if you don’t have parental responsibility for the under 18 you care for it is the Carers (Recognition and Services) Act 1995. Whereas, for over 18s it is covered by The Care Act 2014. Have a look at this contact leaflet that includes model letters you can use.

If someone essentially needs a babysitter surely that's healthcare.

No, not always. It is clear who haven’t a clue about the level of need required for CHC funding for adults or child’s continuing care funding.

Entry level care or support worker gets an average of 22k a year. After tax, about £1500 a month. Someone on carers allowance gets £3990 a year, and they have to be earning less than £139 to claim it. It’s taken £1 for £1 from universal credit so if you claim both you’re not actually profiting at all bar for the pension credits. So tell us again how we’re all taking the mick claiming CA, whatever the family circumstances?

It reminds me about how I read people being in uproar that Katie Price applied for benefits for Harvey. Apparently since she was a millionaire her child didn’t need to be claiming. People seem to happily forget that we’re all individuals and are entitled based on those circumstances.

If you can work full time then you aren’t eligible for CA. If you couldn’t work full time then you would be able to claim despite DH’s earnings.

DH is a higher earner. I still claim CA for DSs (3 receiving DLA - 1 HRC/HRM, 1 HRC/LRM, 1 MRC). Why wouldn’t I? If DSs didn’t need so much care I could work full time earning far more than I get in very part time wages and CA added together. Claiming CA also protects my state pension.

The cost of having disabled DC is astronomical. We spend far more on their needs than we receive in DLA and CA. The government recognise that carers with higher earning partners should still receive recognition and CAs otherwise CA would be based on household income.

They also recognise caring for disabled DC costs a lot. We can’t claim UC as we have savings, but if we didn’t we would be eligible for UC despite a high household income because of disabled DC. We would need to earn nearly £110k before no longer being eligible.

THisbackwithavengeance I know what you are saying. I have a disabled DH who I care for and get CA. It doesn't feel like work on a personal level, it is just how our day yo day lives are. But if I take a step back and look at it from the outside what I do is "work".

If something happens to me, then the state would have to step in and the people who provide the care I used to provide would be paid for it. And it would cost a lot.

I would not be able to work even part time out of the home and care for my DH and it is likely that I am going to be doing this for the rest of my life, 20 or 30 years.

I think part of the issue is that traditionally caring for disabled family members has been seen as part and parcel of the unpaid work that women do. We need to start to look at it differently.

Benefits are for people who need them not just because people feel hard done to because they are carers

BTW, I think this is a little insensitive.

I agree with you.

Using that poster’s logic if DH has a high income, why is he claiming PIP? Surely using their logic he doesn’t need it. After all “Benefits are for people who need them not just because people feel hard done to because they are carers” disabled. (Just to be clear, that isn’t my view, but why is it one rule for carers and another for her DH, surely the judgement equally applies.)

What definition of ‘need’ is she using? Because someone who can’t work or work anywhere near full time due to their caring responsibilities imo does need it, if for nothing else to protect their pension contributions.

If you don’t need the money then why is your husband claiming PIP? You can’t have it all ways… either you don’t need benefits (so don’t claim CA or PIP), or you do (in which case claim what you are entitled to)

I don't begrudge additional care that I provide to my own DC or DH. I don't see it as "work". I actually do work FT as well. .

So you aren’t a full time carer then are you? I care for my child with special needs and my disabled mum and I have for 10 years. No school places/day centre or anything. 24/7 for the rest of my mums life, then probably the rest of mine caring for my child.

I could have earned £350,000- £400,000 and up in the last 10 years working 38 hours a week. Instead I have earned £36,000 in carers allowance working 168 hours a week…(which if you are interested, is less than 50p an hour) and you don’t think I deserve ANY income at all?!

And. 'lest we forget', to quote the annual award letter:

"If you earn over £139 a week, even by 1p, you may not be entitled to Carer's Allowance. If you do not tell us, you could face paying back any overpaid benefit which could be more than you have earned."

Verbatim. Make of it what you will - and try and think what 1p is actually worth to you too.

But don’t forget we get a whole £10 bonus at Christmas which makes all the difference!

Oooh yes how could I forget that! Wasn't it set at £10 back in something like 1975?

Yes, I'm happy for those people to be paid but I think if they're being paid there should be some sort of auditing. So there's a care need, a relative has said they'll meet that need and they're able to demonstrate they are carrying out those duties to a minimum level. No problem with that, but if you're being paid it should be monitored.

Here’s an easy form of monitoring for you - I have looked after DD for upto 10 months at a time, and claimed carer’s allowance. Then I usually suffer carer breakdown, due mainly to exhaustion.

DD is deemed to need 1:1 care all her waking hours, and 2:1 in the community (although they can’t staff that). A care home has to employ 3 full time care workers to provide 1:1 care. Then she gets 1:2 care at night. I don’t know how many night staff they employ, but I guess they need 3 to provide back up in case of sickness. So DD needs 4.5 full time care workers to do what I do, although admittedly I do go to sleep at night, and we leave all the doors open, so we can hear her at night.

Five years ago, the care home quoted £175,000 pa for her care - I don’t know what they charge now with inflation. Social Services tells me £5,000 - £6,000 per week (ie over £300,000 pa) is reasonable for someone as complex as DD!

So auditing what a carer does at home for £76 a week is sensible, if the carers all give up, and say I am not jumping through any more hoops for this shit - my relative can go to a care home?

(Incidentally if I were going to audit anything, it would be the care homes, who employ 1 care worker to look after 8 elderly, frail people at a time; to see how much care residents are actually getting - because having visited a relative in a care home, with that care ratio, it was like being on the Marie Celeste. It was quite hard to find any care worker to come help our relative with a hoist; and they didn’t help her with eating, drinking or going to the toilet. She simply went without.)

You're not getting it.

Take a child/teen with additional needs. They don't get any other benefits. That's all there is.

Many need 24/7 care. That parent then can't work or build a pension. All for £76 per week. They are stuck in a cycle of never ending poverty.

How can that cash go to a child who has no capacity?

That £690 has to pay for an adapted motability vehicle so you are left with less than £400. Out of that there may be a restricted diet with more expensive food, therapies to pay for, extra heating for medical reasons. There's nothing left to pay for other carers.

Carer's save this country an absolute fortune and should be paid a living wage at the very least.

Haven't posted since early on on this thread, but can't believe some of the recent shite that's been posted.
Auditing carers to see if they deserve CA. 😂😂😂🤬

So, there will have to be proper, employed workers earning far more than £76 pw taken on to keep an eye on those in receipt of CA. Even an idiot can see that this will cost many times more than the cost of CA, so we can only conclude that that idea was not based on saving money, but more about punishing, showing contempt for, and making life difficult for anyone who has the audacity to ask for this paltry, inadequate payment in the first place, so as to act as a deterrent to the cheeky scroungers.

Carer's save this country an absolute fortune and should be paid a living wage at the very least

Amen to that.

Well said.

Incidentally if I were going to audit anything, it would be the care homes

Absolutely.

we can only conclude that that idea was not based on saving money, but more about punishing, showing contempt for, and making life difficult for anyone who has the audacity to ask for this paltry, inadequate payment in the first place, so as to act as a deterrent to the cheeky scroungers

I think you might be on to something there.

My brother is my mums carer, she is an elderly lady with multiple health conditions and receives Attendance Allowance. She has been taken quite ill and is now in hospital, we don’t know how long for. The AA & the CA will both get stopped once she is in hospital for 28 days .. and I do wonder what will happen. My brother can’t go get a job, they might discharge her the week after his CA stops, but, the bills still need to be paid.

@ExtraOnions what a difficult time for you all. I’ve never understood the logic that a hospital admission means that peoples income is suspended. As if requiring hospital care doesn’t mean that your situation isn’t already really stressful enough that precarious budgets are all but destroyed.

I hope your mum is at least comfortable and that none of the worst scenarios come to pass.

What a load of ignorant bollocks.

@Concernedneighbour21 can you give examples of this? Do you know how someone qualifies for carers allowance? I mean in exact details, or are you basing your opinion on Daily Mail-esque benefits bashing ideology?

I think in the real world most people who receive carers do a lot more than 35 hours a week, and many are on duty 24/7 365 days a year.

even when Ds is in school I spend a large portion of the time doing admin and chasing things up

So ignorant.

"financial reasons"? Sounds great £76 for a minimum of 35 hours a week, no paid holidays or any form of legal break.

I can't be the only person who knows someone who didn't bother claiming because it wasn't worth it?