Stat maternity pay should be relative to earnings

[nappyvalley2024]

Why is statutory maternity leave a flat rate after the initial 6 weeks?

It would be fairer to have it linked to earnings for 3-6 months. Families in higher incomes will find the drop in pay more significant than those on lower incomes and would have been paying more NI.

This leads to higher earning women having to take shorter mat leaves than those on lower incomes.

No, the government should not be paying wealthier mums more money to be on maternity leave than poorer mums; think how ridiculous that would be!

Look at the maternity pay your work pays-if you are a higher earner, they probably pay you money on top.

@Parker231 yes, as a higher earner you can save up before the baby arrives and of course you would, but what about people who can't save? Cost of living crisis means there are a lot of families who are just about managing, and definitely can't save. Should they just not have children?

I think we are in agreement that £700 a month is not enough to support a new family, even if only one of two incomes.

Cost of living crisis means there are a lot of families who are just about managing, and definitely can't save. Should they just not have children?

And yet every time someone posts about struggling to feed their children some helpful soul will pop up and ask why they had children they couldn’t afford. Why do we expect those at the lower end of the financial spectrum to have financially planned to have children but not those on good salaries.

I actually agree OP but MN is very anti high earners (jealousy).

It’s not jealousy to say people who earn well should pay their own living costs including funding their own children.

Maybe if more people actually thought about their finances before churning out kids this wouldn't be such a problem.

Families on higher incomes should be more able to save than those on low incomes. Richer people don’t deserve more money for having babies than poor people do.

Does this mean low income mothers would have to go back to work earlier than high income mothers?

Nailed it.

Presumably their costs would be lower. It's all relative isn't it.

If your earning £1300 a month and statutory maternity is £700 it's not much difference. It's a huge drop in income between £700pm and £3000pm.

There seem to be a lot of assumptions on this thread that a higher earning mother is on a par with her partner - I’m the higher earning between me and DH. I’m in a public sector organisation that tops up mat pay to 50% of my salary after the 6 week drop off, but only for an additional 12 weeks, then it’s statutory all the way. DH earns half what I do, so this is a huge dent to our household income.

However, I don’t think that I should be getting more statutory mat pay than anyone else. Yes I pay more in tax etc, but I don’t get upset when a less well off person gets hospital treatment or goes to a decent school, so why would I be upset that they get the same entitlement to mat pay as I do?

Ultimately the issue is that mat pay is crap for everyone. I wish my employer enhanced mine by more, but they don’t. I wish my husband earned more, but he doesn’t. I wish I’d be able to take a full year off when I have my baby, but I won’t be able to and that’s just how it is. At least I’m not worrying about how to afford to feed my family.

In an ideal world people would have savings to cover the drop. But in the current climate there is a huge amount of people earning what should be a good wage but it's impossible to save enough because of increased everything. These are the people earning too much for state assistance but not enough to be well off and even a fairly common package is a significant drop.
I do think employers should offer better maternity and paternity leave though rather than the government funding.

From personal experience, dc1 I earned 22k and mat pay was 100% for 6 weeks, 90% 6 weeks then 50% to 6 months and statutory after that. Dc2 earned 30k, 100% 6 weeks, 90% to 3 months and 50% to 6 months then statutory. Both times I'd saved 3-5 months worth of pay through luck and scrimping.
Now on 45k (not that there will be mat leave!) it would be much harder to save that much because everything costs more, mortgage has increased, bills, food, insurance... all higher.

And that's not even including unplanned pregnancy.

Now someone on UC isn't going to have that drop or need to save.

On the flip side though, people working are more likely to have better standards of living or better prospects of bettering.

If your earning £1300 a month and statutory maternity is £700 it's not much difference. It's a huge drop in income between £700pm and £3000pm

Someone earning £3k a month has more capacity to save for mat leave. And for someone earning £1300 a month with reduced capacity to save, the drop to £700 can be catastrophic.

In what world do you boldly state the difference from £1300 to £700 is 'not much? It's £600 a month. The difference between paying your rent or not for some.

I started a thread a few years back to suggest that the minimum mat pay should be your contracted hours × NMW for at least the first 6m. I was flamed. "Who will pay for it? / people shouldn't have more kids than they can afford / people should save for it"

About 3m ago a thread was started saying that the 30 funded hours should be available to those earning over 100k as how ridiculous was it that someone earning 120k had to pay for their childcare for their 3 kids.

Well, posters were tripping over themselves to agree. Of course people on 120k shouldn't have to pay for their childcare for the kids they chose to have. Completely ignorant of the fact that they should have not had more kids than they can afford / should save for costs etc.

Fucking irony.

I am not sure the costs will be lower? If you rent you are more likely to paying more than mortgage. More likely to formula feed than wealthier parents etc.

I saved hard for my mat leave

It's a shitty provision

There is a huge difference in money to someone on a low income.

Do you also think that high earners who become unemployed should receive more in benefits than lower earners who become unemployed?😂

My moral compass tell me that you should save for a child and not expect any help from the gov for time off after they baby. But in reality, I was the higher earner when I had my dd and the mat leave from my company was brilliant. 90% of my salary for 9 months. I felt very lucky and because dd wasn't planned, I'd have been screwed if I'd only got SMP.

I think employers should fill the gap, but if we did this then it would be another reason not to employ child bearing age women. Illegal or not, employers would indirectly discriminate again. I think it would be a step back for women in the workplace.

Everyone should be able to pay their own living costs and for their own children. Have what you can afford.

Flip it around- why should I the tax payer subsidise higher earners more than lower earners?

I actually think flat rate of state support is right, but increasing this is more important, for all

It is possible to disagree with the op (I do) without saying vile things like "churning out kids". Ffs internalised misogyny much. Giving birth is hard and we have a plummeting birth rate in the uk, significantly lower than replacement level. Even if you're OK with that, there's no need to use such disrespectful words for motherhood. You're on mumsnet, go hate mothers somewhere else.

I personally think the base rate should be higher but I don't think it should be based on income.

You think the state should pay higher benefits to those who earn most?

If you’re earning 3k a month when you get pregnant you have scope to save to top up your maternity pay. A woman on low income won’t have that ability.

This but it's usually capped in European countries, ie 80-100% of your pay up to a certain amount (somewhere around the average salary, usually a bit above). This is the case in the European countries I'm familiar with, though individual companies might top up mat pay further. I'm extremely in favour of this kind of system and have seen the positive effects! It doesn't tend to come at an extra cost for the state, because the higher employment levels of women bring a net benefit.

The main point surely is that our statutory mat pay is woeful for everyone.
I really hope this becomes a major policy issue in the UK. It's shocking how far behind we are on this.