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)

It is a disgrace. What kind of civilised society allows this?

@Babyroobs i bet that attitude is positively an attribute in the kind of role you claim to have.

I have never once said people aren't claiming CA fraudulently.

I don't think your clients would be happy to know you are sharing details about them, even anonymously. The detail you gave would be enough for someone to recognise themselves if they were reading this thread.

You can insult me as much as you like @babyroobs. I stand by everything I have said.

Could you please answer the post I tagged you in, I’m interested in your reply. Honestly even those who claim CA simply ‘not to look for work’ are in a very small minority. Not just for the reasons I gave in my own post (mostly that it is a non profitable benefit in monetary sense) but the fact that living from CA in itself leaves you in a financially poor position. UC as a system doesn’t work for those who simply refuse to have a job, that’s why the old benefits system was overhauled in the last few years. It makes little sense to claim UC just to add caring to your claim, carers allowance would be wholly deducted and you ‘make’ no money whilst also losing other UC Back to Work initiatives.

You've not understood. I'm not saying carers shouldn't he paid for the work they do, I'm saying the 'allowance' should be allocated to the person who needs the care. If it was a child it probably would be a parent. I get caring for a disabled child is hard. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able or willing to do it, but I don't necessarily think you should be paid to care 24/7...not for sure child however if eg grandma needed 24hr care I would expect someone to be paid to do it. If it was social care then it would be means tested and the recipient would pay. If they can't, (or their partner cant) the state steps in and offers bare minimum. If it's healthcare it hould be free, however i don't think you should becable to choose exactly what you want.

Do you mean you want Babyroobs to respond rather than me?

No I’m referring to the poor excuse of an apology that I responded to a few posts back.

@IClaudine ot was meant to tag @Concernedneighbour21 not you, sorry about that, I mixed the two usernames!

Paying the allowance to the cared for person, who then pays it to the person who is the carer would be hugely complicated. Not least because the carer would then be employed by the cared for person and all the legal, financial and practical issues that involves would kick in, including paying the minimum wage.

JudgeRudy have you ever been a carer?

if eg grandma needed 24hr care I would expect someone to be paid to do it. If it was social care then it would be means tested and the recipient would pay. If they can't, (or their partner cant) the state steps in and offers bare minimum. If it's healthcare it hould be free, however i don't think you should becable to choose exactly what you want

There is a massive shortage of carers right now. My local council recruit carers from abroad and there still aren't enough. Care homes are closing down too, so the aim is to keep people in their own homes for as long as possible. Unpaid carers are saving the day right now.

Not fulltime no. I've been an unpaid carer for 2 elderly relatives, a physically disabled friend and a mentally disabled neighbour. I have a relative who's a fulltime carer to an autistic child. She seems to love him but her life revolves around his needs. I'd never be up for that. I know my limitations but she seems to love him very much.

Actually I don’t think you have understood.

Carers are not being paid to care 24/7 (although in reality that is what many of them do). Carers allowance is only £76.75 per week. Just to be clear that would only fund under 7.5 hours of care at minimum wage. Tell me again why that already pitiful sum shouldn’t be paid directly to the carer?

To add insult to injury, anyone anyone earning more than £139 a week is exempt from receiving carers allowance, even if they are still providing that care for the required 35 hours as well as working (and saving the taxpayer a fortune to boot).

And who the fuck is choosing ‘exactly what they want’ in this situation? It’s not as though people are refusing exceptional fully funded state care in favour of giving up paid employment and working themselves to death caring for their loved ones with no respite so they can claim the massive sum of £76 a week. It’s a matter of circumstance.

The whole system is an utter disgrace.

I don't think carers get paid to do 24/7 care. I don't think most do that. I mean, you'll have to eat and sleep. Yes I know many parents to disabled kids continue to be responsible 24/7 for far longer than parents of normal kids...often until they are 18.
I know how much CA is. I've already said why it shouldn't be paid directly to a carer with no auditing...because you would be effectively employed by the statecand should be accountable. A carer should be an employee of the cared for person or of the state, the same as a nurse or teacher.
I think if you become a parent there's an expectation that you will be responsible for your child till adulthood. If they're disabled that will require more input. It's tough, yes.
I don't think the majority of cared for people 'chose' their care package. I never implied they did. I was considering eg someone wanting carers to bath them rather than assist them to shower, or wanting their home adapted a specific way because they don't want to move, that sort of thing. Again, for clarification, I don't believe the majority of disabled people get this at all.

I have to disagree. Caring is not a part time role, in spite of the fact that some people manage to fit paid employment around it. Of course parents should be and are responsible for their dc until adulthood, but having a child with a disability, illness or other additional needs is far more demanding than just parenting. I would argue that it’s very unfair to conflate the two. I’m a parent and I can’t imagine how difficult it most be to be a carer as well as a mum.

I know how much CA is. I've already said why it shouldn't be paid directly to a carer with no auditing...because you would be effectively employed by the statecand should be accountable. A carer should be an employee of the cared for person or of the state, the same as a nurse or teacher.

I mean, carers allowance is currently paid directly to the carer and I don’t know if carers are accountable as you put it or not. In fairness, if carers were seen as ‘employees’ of either the state or the person they care for then we would actually have to pay them the minimum wage. We’d also have to look at the legalities of having children ‘employed’ as carers within their own families. Perhaps your idea isn’t the worst as it might mean the government actually has to invest some proper funding into this rather the pitiful token amount they give to carers now.

Did they live in the same house? Is she provide any care? My dad and I share my mums care, I claim CA because he is pensionable age.

This issue should be solved by the dad being able to get ca as well as his pension. The state should be paying CA to someone for caring for this woman.

For a child to be in a position where a parent can claim carers allowance they have been shown to need care above and beyond that of a typically developing (I hate that phrase) peer.

ds is 13, because of his needs a full nights sleep is impossible. He is tube fed so that means getting up at least once (realistically 3-5 times) a night, add to that his struggles to sleep. That is way above the norm for his age. I sleep with one ear open all the time.

that’s just one example, and Ds needs are nowhere near as significant as many are dealing with.

sadly when you become a parent carer it often becomes more about the carer side and the “normal” parenting stuff becomes a thing of the past.

You can once you have been getting caters allowence for a certain amount of time- I think you build up one week of paid holiday per year you have been claiming, up to a maximum of 5 weeks. So I could now (after 10 years) have 5 weeks of paid CA while she was away. The fine happened when I’d only been caring for a few months.

Thanks Alltheclogs, that is useful to know.

@JudgeRudy

I know how much CA is. I've already said why it shouldn't be paid directly to a carer with no auditing...because you would be effectively employed by the statecand should be accountable.

… by this logic all parents who get child benefit are effectively employees of the state- they all get a benefit paid directly to them for doing and providing things you could argue they should do and provide anyway.

Also, carers are accountable in the same way parents are- doctors/day centres/police/neighbours/friends can all refer people they feel are being neglected or abused by their carer in the same way they can about children.

If I was paid minimum wage for the 35 hours (ha!) care a week then I would be willing to be accountable for those hours, assuming it also came with the normal employment rights including holidays. Until that point I will report to nobody!

So much this ^^

Along with this:

In fairness, if carers were seen as ‘employees’ of either the state or the person they care for then we would actually have to pay them the minimum wage.