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?

The benefits help mitigate the problems of the past, such as poverty. See it as an investment into the future (the children). The opportunity cost far outweighs the actual cost.
The largest beneficiaries of state subsidies are pensioners.

£3500 oh lord. Why the heck am I busting a gut by working.
Right, cutting my hours and putting in a claim

Right?
Absolutely appalling!

I agree , it's gut wrenching to work full time and try to provide for your family but people are handed it on a plate. The child maintenance should definitely be included as it part of the household income.

But you wouldn't get that by going onto UC would you? op's sister gets it because she gets a large amount of UC and CM on top ! The state pay for her kids then her ex also pays for his kids so she gets double. The £3500 is the total income she gets.

Of course men should pay for their children that goes without saying. Some women have an inherent belief though that once babies come along they have a right to not work/not work full time. Many people play the system and work less hours in order to earn less and thus claim more UC. There are also many people who work full time and earn just above the UC threshold and therefore get no help at all; those people tend to be worse off than those who claim benefits. That’s not a problem with the people doing it, it’s a problem with a broken system.

Maintenance is also meant to cover 50% of children’s needs, something that is often forgotten. My DH pays maintenance that he doesn’t legally have to pay, as well as us paying for all extra curricular activities, and having 50/50 care, so that DSDs lifestyle isn’t different across both houses. We pay for far more than 50% of her daily needs, which is also wrong. There are a lot of shit men who don’t pay but there are also a lot of women who abuse the system.

“Benefit bashing” is an easy tag to ply people with, as is “everyone is doing their best.” I think anyone who has had a good realistic look at this country can say quite clearly that everyone is in fact not doing their best! As a previous poster said, if you look the finances and at what people are taking out and what people are putting in, it’s going to collapse eventually.

Maintenance is also meant to cover 50% of children’s needs, something that is often forgotten.

It’s not forgotten. It’s an absolute myth that it’s meant to cover 50% of their needs.

Never has maintenance ever been a 50\50 split. Or meant to be one. It’s simply a percentage contribution based on the NRP’s income.

Some NRP’s will pay 10% of the child’s needs and some will pay 80%.

“Some” women play the system, but not that many because it’s almost impossible to not work once your child is 3 and from the age of 1 you would be pulled in to have work focussed interviews. Like I said, if you work more with UC you actually get more which you seem to be ignoring. I get more money doing my job than I do not doing it.
Lots of people play the system in other ways, but not everyone.

Realistically, apart from a few cases, no one actually recieves 50% of their child’s expenses. If by some miracle you get maintenance it is often in the region of £30 per month (my ex was assessed at £1 per week for two children, so £4 per month) with the best will in the world, that’s not 50% is it? So the shortfall comes from me, which seems to be forgotten on this thread.

Your DH is obviously a good father, but he is in the minority. Women (and it is mostly women) pick up a far higher tab and that is one of the reasons maintenance isn’t included.

It’s not like raising children with their dad where it’s all in one pot, and extras are covered.

Also, I might add, it isn’t the fault of single mums, who need the help, that the country is collapsing.

Austerity has shown us that’s not the way, and that hitting the poorest doesn’t work, it just makes some people feel better.

But you only get more money up to the earnings cut off, which is my point. As soon as you exceed that you get zero help and you are also cut off from all the other help available to recipients of UC which leaves you with less overall. Which encourages people to stay just below the earning threshold.

£30 is obviously ridiculous and these men should have their earnings arrested. I’m assuming a man paying £30 is on benefits himself though? As even 30 hours at min wage produces a higher sum due on the maintenance calculator? The system for men unwilling to pay is ridiculously broken too. Again, assuming that a woman is willing to give 50/50 though and it’s the man who doesn’t want it? As I’ve known several women who won’t give more custodial time so as not to lose maintenance.

Not attempting to turn this into a benefit bashing thread, as the point was to highlight the flaws within the high maintenance / high UC entitlement flaw.

but there are lots of people here saying you are better off working full time than part time as a single mum, this just isn’t the case. I’ve been a single mum on benefits whilst self-employed and also have many single mum, part time friends.

the reality is, whilst on paper and pound for pound it might seem you are better off working full time, when you subtract off commute /childcare costs / discounts you are no longer eligible for / not being as involved with your children and the lifestyle changes that brings, it’s not worth it to work full time. It shouldn’t be the case but it’s true, for many they are better off part time and claiming UC.

Maintenance is also meant to cover 50% of children’s needs, something that is often forgotten.

Hilarious. It most certainly is not. It's based on a percentage of salary and number of children being supported. Nothing to do with the actual cost of a child's needs.

For example, all those 'men' who pay £10 a week if you're lucky while underemployed or on benefits, you think that's half of what a child's needs cost?

Some people are only capable of part time hours, be that due to disability or caring responsibilities (and small children come under that).

Not all single parents are low earners, though. Many of us have no entitlement to any benefit support.

But it’s a choice to have children and many if not most people have them with no expectation of support from the taxpayer? How is it reasonable that those of us with higher paying jobs have to plan how many children, age gaps, etc around what is affordable, but others can procreate with less thought because the state will pick up all or part of the tab? Working part time with young kids is fine, so is staying at home, if you can afford to subsidise this yourself. It can’t be a state responsibility, the country can’t afford it!

I had it all planned out too. No money worries, never claimed any benefits.

Then it turned out, a decade into our marriage, that ex h had been shagging his way around the world on work trips.

My life changed. I had to work a min wage job, claim housing benefit and work out childcare and pay through the nose for it around my 12 hour shifts, which fell on different days each week. All while my ex continued to travel the world, shagging away so was useless.

Anyones life can change at any time.

I agree totally and this is why it’s so so important to drum into young women that they cannot hand all the financial power to a man. So many women take time out of the workplace, halt their career and pension etc and rely on a husband who then turns out to have a wandering cock. The relationship boards show a shocking amount of women who don’t even have basic info about their mortgage, have moved into houses solely owned by men, etc. Huge risks. I love my DH more than life but him shagging about or walking out on me tomorrow wouldn’t change my ability to financially support myself or my family or require me to rely on the taxpayer. More financial education for young women and discussion about the real consequences of stepping away from the workplace is badly needed. As of course is affordable childcare which is a huge problem in this country too.

I’ve just searched in my local area, the nearest was 120 miles away, and I live in a city!

Good on your sister. I'm pleased she gets her CMS payments and I hope it stays that way and her DCs continue to have everything they need.
I do not think CMS should ever be means tested. NRPs should always pay for their children and those children should always benefit from that money.
Too many feckless, absent "parents" get away with not paying, leaving resident parents struggling.

As a country we always seem to accept the bare minimum, it's not a race to the bottom.

The amount of times I see things like "Well my DH pays more than he's supposed to...." fucking good, they're his kids. Arrrgh don't get me started.

I agree more education would be good. But lots of women want to take that time out with their kids, it’s not just all about money it’s about life. Also in low earning families often there’s no choice but for one parent to stay home due to the cost of childcare. It’s just not that simple

That’s true and why childcare badly needs looked at. No issue at all with any man or woman who wants to stay home with their kids, but if the other parent can’t or won’t subside that then why should the state? That’s the key question here.

Often they do at the time, but then the marriage can end and finances change. 2 houses cost more to run than one. NRP should always pay their fair share but that won’t ever reliably happen and often if they are a low earner it’s not enough anyway.

I don’t truly believe this but I am going to use your warped logic…….Perhaps I think your UC claim was “lifestyle” related too? @Strawberrrrry I wonder why you didn’t go and get a PAYE so the tax payer didn’t have to prop up your lifestyle? Do you have children? Are you a net contributor now?

I agree with importance of warning re dependency on a man. However, with many families needing 2 incomes now just to survive, few people can afford to be independent and continue the lifestyle if they ended up single. Many working people are just as dependent.

I don't believe this. Unless you have a lot of kids then benefits are very low. Also people are mithered to do more hours on UC.
Studies have shown that many parents who work PT do so because they have health issues etc. It is not a simple choice.
Who is to say 37 hrs is the magic/right number anyway? Wages are shocking now so few people can keep up even FT.