To think this child maintenance benefits loophole is ridiculous ?

[Strawberrrrry]

I was talking to my sister today. Love my sister, don’t begrudge my nieces and nephews etc. However, I find this benefits loophole ridiculous, though I appreciate she doesn’t make the rules and is just claiming what she can. Anyway.

My sister has just broken up with her partner, they have two kids together. He is a high earner and child maintenance will be £1,200 a month (via the child maintenance service).

She earns £900 a month working part time, school time hours.

She has just put in a claim for benefits and she has been told she will receive £1,400 a month. This includes housing benefits, income support, child benefit. It doesn’t include discounts from council tax etc.

This brings her total monthly income to £3,500 and some change (I have given rounded figures). Completely tax free. I had assumed her benefits would be reduced as she gets a high amount of child maintenance. But no. They don’t count it. She admits herself that her monthly income is massive and she did first assume that the children’s maintenance would warrant some sort of deduction.

As I said, fair play to her as she is only doing what the system allows. However, I can’t help but feel this is a huge loophole, and there should be some sort of cap i.e once you are getting £500+ a month in child maintenance, it starts to affect benefits? And I realise her ex could lose his job at any point or stop paying, but if that happens surely benefits could reassess at that point…

It just seems ludicrous that someone can be getting that level of monthly income from maintenance & benefits, completely tax free. I’m sure it can’t just be my sister in this position.

AIBU?

That scenario is even worse than it used to be now with universal credit. At least in days gone by when benefits were all separated out even if you lost entitlement to one portion you'd still get your rent paid. But now there's just the one payment, if you lose entitlement to that you lose the lot. And wait five weeks for it to come back. There would be massive knock-on effects from that, social instability etc - not a great look for any government.

And even when the kids go off to Uni the ones from the single parent families often get full maintenance loans despite having a high earning dad who they don't live with !

How about we question why the property market is allowed, nay engineered, to generate such high rental costs for often small and substandard properties?

Or why employment is so unstable and requires top ups from the state?

Or why the gig economy is being allowed to seep into sectors like retail, as was reported in the run up to Christmas, rendering staff essentially "self employed" with almost no rights or security plus the additional stress of the admin involved? And why more and more employers are thinking this is the way forward?

Or why it is getting harder and harder to start small businesses and build them up - the answer to that was partly in a Telegraph article I read a couple of weeks ago, trumpeting the benefits of big corporations over entrepreneurship.

Honestly, the big picture is the issue, not a handful of people getting what some think is "too much", when it's dictated by the ever rising costs of living.

And the "you're poor, move somewhere else more affordable" comments are laughable. It costs money to move on top of all the usual costs. If you can just about keep the stability of a roof over your head and are just about keeping your head above water, how the hell do you magic up a few extra grand to pay for moving?

Lentils for every meal and take in ironing ?

Think you need to ditch your husbands, ladies. You'd obviously be better off.

Yeah. Good for you. You can find some empathy and have a think about the reasons it might not come together for some people?

Think I'm gonna hit bingo in a minute the classics are all coming out now

So you'll do what instead? Not give the children who have separated parents access to the finances needed to study?

It is a typical MN trope... move someone cheaper.
Fucking tone deaf.

FFS

So are you suggesting that the rp needs to go to the nrp to request they pay the difference?

But you have each other for support.

My kids seem to be out of school more than they were in school. What was inset days, training days, school holidays. I was not employee of the year to say the least trying to juggle it all.
In the end self-employment was the only option which meant a few very tough years until it built momentum.

Lots of sleepless nights, all the physical, mental and emotional load on my shoulders.
Nobody to even talk things through with.
I can see why you’d be jealous of that.

Personally, when I look around and see the troubles in the world, the inequality, the misery, the degradation, the stretch of my aching heart fills my chest to its fullest extent. I see the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer, corruption at every turn, and I feel my fury rising.

But the greatest anger, the most terrible rage, this I preserve, to greater direct my righteous energies to righting an ancient wrong : the ancient wrong of rich single mothers and rich disabled people living in London. This, my comrades, is why we fight, why we rise, and why we will TRIUMPH.

I'm sorry are you gratuitously rude?

If the state stopped paying housing benefit for cleaners or baristas (per your example) to live in expensive housing in London I'm pretty sure cleaning would still occur and coffee would still get served.

Per your example again I'm not sure why taxes should subsidise salaries for cleaners and coffee shops in London through housing benefit?

Because it's not a race to the bottom?

£500 a month is classed as masses to raise multiple children?! Barely scratches the surface of the true cost.

This thread is really sad. Child maintenance is already pathetically low. £1000 a month towards your kids hardly seems a lot even given what the trust cost of raising them is. I’d rather my tax money went to supporting these children.

The older I get the more I see it over and over again. Men who walk out on young children, barely look after them and the women thrown into poverty because they sacrificed their careers to raise the children.

You think that? Would it be worth the cost/time/effort to commute miles into your posh ghetto where "poor" people are not allowed to live, but are absolutely expected to work?

@notbelieved said it better than I could.

Surely the solution is that the non resident parent pays. Any issues and the government will step into pay (so the children don't miss out) and they will reclaim it from the non resident parent as a debt. If the non resident parent has lost their job or has some other genuine reason they can't pay then they apply for a benefit to cover the cost.

I don't think the taxpayer should be paying for children when their parents are able to do so.

Eh? This makes zero sense.

Unless of course you're advocating for cleaners and baristas to be paid enough to afford to live in properties that have been made extortionately expensive by landlords taking advantage of "the market" without top ups? In which case I agree with you. Pray tell why this isn't already the case?

Yes. Rude when people can't think.

So hlwho would so all the cleaning and other minimum wage work in London if no housing benefit were paid? Seriously? Young Foreigners forced to live in HMOs? Will the government sort visa requirements so there will be sufficient workers plus sufficient churn? Or are we actually looking at modern slavery situations?

And even when the kids go off to Uni the ones from the single parent families often get full maintenance loans despite having a high earning dad who they don't live with !

Yes, how dare the kids with no dad living at home take advantage of one of the few perks offered to them. Compared to many more single parent families living in absolute poverty. No guarantee the high earning dad will even be paying his way anyway.

The vitriol is so often aimed at single mums who are doing their best to work what hours they can whilst raising their children but literally no one gives a shit about the dads who can leave with no consequence. Often, as in my exh's case, they can afford to take multiple childfree holidays a year, work about 10 hours a week, buy new cars, but it's ok because he's a Man and sees no harm in not providing for his own kids.

Agree that it's really sad.
For some reason - and not wanting to talk politics - I am getting a very Thatcher vibe from some of these posts. "Heaven" help us

Wait til you hear about the free school meals loophole 😬

100% agree with this

of all the unfair things in life this is what you have chosen to focus on?