to think the Carer's Allowance scandal shows the uncaringness of the DWP

[cakeorwine]

In a nutshell - if you get Carer's Allowance, you are supposed to only claim it if you earn below a certain amount. If you go over that amount, you can't claim it.

If you go over that amount and don't tell the DWP, you have to pay it back. But say you went over by 30 p. you would have to pay back not 30p but ALL of it.

The DWP know if you have earnt over the amount. But they don't tell you. They let it build up. And then prosecute you.

‘They’re heartless’: how one woman fell victim to the carer’s allowance trap | Carers | The Guardian

"On weekends when her daughter stays with her father, Moon worked part-time at Tesco earning £9.50 an hour. This would comfortably keep her under the earnings threshold of £127 a week at the time, especially when deducting allowances for fuel and pension payments – or so she thought.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) contacted Moon in 2019 to say she had breached the earnings limit and would need to pay back every penny – or she would be taken to court.
Moon, terrified, contacted Citizens Advice for help. It analysed her payslips going back to July 2016, when she started work at Tesco, and found that – even on the strictest understanding of the DWP’s rules – she had exceeded the earnings limit by about £3 most of those weeks. Some weeks it was as little as 50p over.
She appealed for clemency but the DWP refused to budge. It refused her offer to pay back the amount she was not entitled to – about £800 over the course of three and a half years.
Instead, she would have to pay back every penny of carer’s allowance over that period – known as the DWP’s “cliff edge”. It amounted to £11,292.75 – plus an additional £50 civil penalty."

And the DWP response:

“Claimants have a responsibility to inform DWP of any changes in their circumstances that could impact their award, and it is right that we recover taxpayers’ money when this has not occurred.”

Thank you. Sorry I disagree re bit abut "not fair" if you are on "min or higher income"

As it is income based, so it is fair

What is the max you can earn a week and is it net or gross pay?

Just posting this again in case people earn over the limit for carers allowance they can claim for carers credit.

I do think there is different situations for many when it comes to carers though. There is a massive difference in being a care for a dependent child than it is for an adult, as there is other benefits that help in terms of having a disabled child so if you can’t work at all it is helpful
where as if your a carer to an adult it’s very different as it’s basically carers allowance and normal benefits.

It gets messy esp if you are salaried - paid monthly. CA is a weekly benefit based on your weekly earning. I had to fill in spreadsheets regularly. It sounds simple, but isn't esp if people are not particularly good with numbers. Plus sometimes, caring and working can be totally overwhelming. The last thing we have energy for is this sort of stuff on top!

I think the whole system is disgusting. I receive carer’s allowance because my DD has autism. I am too unwell to work at the moment (I have an autoimmune disease which can leave me bedbound) so I also receive UC. UC take all of my CA by deducting it from my UC every month. I used to receive the extra CA element in my UC every month (which is only half the amount) but now because I’ve been placed in the low working and activities capability group, I’m not entitled to it anymore. They give you it in one hand and take it again in the other and people are no better off really for receiving it a lot of the time. I think CA is one of the benefits that shouldn’t be means tested and shouldn’t be deducted from anything else.

@DistinguishedSocialCommentator that’s your opinion.

a lot of people are carers for family members as there is no choice as the care system is a joke in this country so someone who has cut their hours down to care for someone with no choice but earn over minimum wage won’t get carers.

I earned £20 over the limit in November (well I didn’t but I was paid £20 over the limit due to an admin error)
I contacted them immediately online, but I’ve had no reply from them and have still received the allowance each month since.
So I’m sitting worrying as they don’t even reply to you. For all I know in a years time or more they blow it up.

It doesn’t just affect self employed people.

Yes it’s going up, but my point was it is not increased in line with minimum wage.

Keep all evidence of you contacting them.
keep contacting.

It should be simple though.

If sum A is the amount of overpayment the carer has received over the years, and sum B is the amount of money that carer has saved the state, which would have had to pay to provide the care, and sum B is greater than sum A, then there should be nothing to pay.

The entire system is a disgrace.

Just to add - my grandparents do a lot of care for me when I’m unwell. I receive PIP and someone is entitled to receive CA for me. My grandparents tried and because they get a pension (a very basic government amount) they couldn’t receive CA on top despite doing everything for me at one point. It’s disgusting.

Yes this isn’t fair.

The way the government is cracking down on benefits and actively now targeting unpaid carers just shows how little disregard they have for them.

I have had carers allowance for 10 years but not been able to work, I will come off it this summer and this worries me given some of the stories we've heard people have started work and asked to close their claim and suddenly they ask for it all back. These are claims we're people had not gone over limits but DWP have decided they owe money now.

We don't have the mental capacity some days to fight those things.

The government don't care for those who are disabled or those who care for them. If we were to put our person we care for into care it would cost them hundreds of thousands of pounds to pay for the. Respite costs 1k a night as it stands in our area for severely disabled people.

CA should be a non means tested benefit and should be an higher amount.

Yes and this is why people don't claim benefits who need it. I never risked getting close to limit. I always kept £50 buffer and stashed more into my pension even if we were skint. I gave up in the end and stopped claiming as wasn't worth stress

@pointythings they will never look at it like that.
it took 8 years to sort out my DDs care package.
now we have someone paid to do 50 hours and it was eye opening really how under valued unpaid carers are when I see the month to cost.

No. UC pay carers credit but you don’t get NI contributions. It’s always better to apply for carers allowance separately.

@TerrysOrangeScot they will say that it’s too hard to navigate
in giving an increased amount of money / wage to unpaid carers and being able to check they are actually doing the hours.
hope that makes sense

@MrsSlocombesCat you can but it’s a lower rate and if you have income coming in from say a spouse it would effect it.
you also don’t get the same NI contributions.

for example
if a mum with a disabled child couldn’t work but had a husband who warned 50k then they wouldn’t be able to get the UC carers because they wouldn’t be entitled to UC.

Oh I forgot: I’ve contacted them twice.
I earned April-October under the carers allowance. Then my employer made a deal with unions (I’m not in a union and was unaware of negotiations!) that pay would be retrospectively increased by £1 an hour. This has taken me over the limit both in October when it was paid. I still average every month under the limit.
I also had no reply from contact regarding this.

Not sure what you mean.
I am aware it affects PAYE people as well as per my post you quoted and therefore not sure what you are attempting to say
Thanks in advance

Does nobody get it yet? If you're rich with an army of accountants and battalion of tax avoidance schemes, and crucially went to the right schools and are in the right clubs, you will continue to get richer and richer even if - especially if - what you're doing is illegal. And if you're caught you will be lauded because you're clever and deserving. You might get a tiny slap on the hand before you're invited onto the self indulgent talk circuit.

If, however, you're poor and powerless, and accidentally transgress by 30p because our systems are broken, expect to be made an example of and hounded to within an inch of your life.

Recently at work we had to listen to a drivelling presentation from the DWP about how wonderful they are and how much they're there to help. It wasn't entirely the fault of the presenters, they were very young without much experience yet of life.

But afterwards I and another colleague who have had to try to help genuinely ill and disabled family members get the pittance they're entitled to swapped stories and neither I nor my colleague knew whether to laugh or cry.

Supporting my family member is nearly killing me financially and emotionally. But I am very reluctant to even attempt to apply for anything else as I don't want to end up in the dock/with a criminal record for failure to disclose something I didn't know I had to or for accidentally earning a few pence over the arbitrary and severely outdated threshold.

And in case any Daily Mail readers out there are wondering why my relative can't work, they're a former frontline nurse who now walks painfully on double sticks when they can walk and is on over 25 medications for everything else wrong with them. So no, working remotely isn't currently an option either, and at least three of the conditions are progressive, they will not improve unless the aliens suddenly land and give us futuristic and affordable cures.

In our darkest days we reckon the governments of the world must be very bitter more of the poor/elderly/infirm didn't die during COVID.
(And yes, my relative nursed all through COVID in a setting with less PPE at the start than they'd had to combat Ebola and other conditions in the country where they trained.)

I despise what this country has become and if it wasn't too late would definitely emigrate. Instead we just have to keep putting one exhausted foot in front of the other until we mercifully drop down dead in harness )

Your post literally asked “Or are you talking solely re self-employed who can take expesnes etc and have to manage their own income status?” I was answering your question.

Tbh, I don’t understand why my pay at the end of the tax year can’t just be checked and confirmed to be under the limit. Why I’m mucking around that some weeks/ months are £20 over when the year is clearly under by £1000!
I don’t actually ever work more than the limit, I’m just at the mercy of claims being processed in the wrong month for my work. If my claim is processed late I can be earning £0 one month and over the limit the next, I can’t control this