To wonder why UC claimants don’t have to work until their babies are three, when virtually everyone else has to?

[SeeYouLaterCrocodile]

I don’t know anyone who’s stayed off work until their kid was three. The vast majority go back after a year because that’s what they can afford. Why should they be working to pay tax for the jobless to stay at home for thrice as long?

Financial support with childcare is available before the age of three. Up to 80% is contributed. However, as I said earlier there is a lack of affordable childcare and childcare options. Finding jobs that fit in with childcare can be an issue as well.

Universal credit for a single parent with a baby is £393.45 for the adult if they're over 25, £287 ish for the child.

Compare and contrast to the cost of full time childcare for around 60 hours (40 hours working, 15 being the 90 minutes travelling requirement each way). Even with the percentage of earnings that are deducted for each pound earned, that's a) completely uneconomical for the state and b) physically impossible for the parent to pay when it's limited to £1015 a month and they'd be looking at at least £500 on top of that.

Why do I know people who can CHOOSE to work 2 - 4 days (healthcare support assistant and TA), both of whom could work many more hours (hours available and kids are at secondary) who are paid to stay home RATHER than work more days.

I work 4 days in a stressful job. That's my choice. It wouldn't cross my mind to claim for the day I CHOOSE not to work.

The worst was someone who worked 10 hours in a bar and hit the roof when they were told they had to do more hours - said it was up to them how many hours they worked and they would pick up more hours if/when they WANTED to.

Why do I know people who can CHOOSE to work 2 - 4 days (healthcare support assistant and TA), both of whom could work many more hours (hours available and kids are at secondary) who are paid to stay home RATHER than work more days.

I work 4 days in a stressful job. That's my choice. It wouldn't cross my mind to claim for the day I CHOOSE not to work.

The worst was someone who worked 10 hours in a bar and hit the roof when they were told they had to do more hours - said it was up to them how many hours they worked and they would pick up more hours if/when they WANTED to.

Yes, a lot of this is about practicalities. We quite clearly do not live in a society where parents of DC under 3 can always access the childcare they'd need in order to work.

There are a lot of questions about benefits at present as the bill is huge and plenty are angry that they work hard with nothing to show for it. Whilst doing that they have little free time, don't see their kids much , have the same chores etc as non working parents and also have to jump to the tune of their employers. Non working parents of under threes only attend appointments at most once a month which is hardly a big deal by comparison. There are couples where one party works the minimum to avoid appointments and as soon as the woman is in danger of having to work, another baby is produced.

And a low income? Which is what benefits are for.

Utter bs. Had a couple claim for UC and he was working as a teacher (retrained and before the starting salary was 30k but still). If we were still together, it would be unlikely we’d have a claim by now due to yearly salary increase but have children who get DLA so don’t know what the threshold would be.

@hairymotherplucker I'm calling bullshit.
UC has an AET, you have to earn above £850 ish to be left alone. You have to be shown to search for a job which is the minimum of 30 hours. What do you want UC to do? Force people to sign full time contracts?

Yes but you are presumably funding that via your partner working or independent means. You're not asking the taxpayer to do so.

Let’s start blaming the men that do this instead of bashing women for claiming benefits shall we.

Whatever age the children (including newborns) claimants who’re:

• not in paid work or
• earning less than £793 a month (after tax and NI)

are subject to the household benefit cap, which means most private rents (and now lots of council and housing association rents) are unaffordable.

If you’re benefit capped and live outside London, families are limited to £423 a week or £1,833 a month for everything: rent, bills, food, transport, clothes. The average private rent on a two bedroom place is now £1,341. So that leaves £500 for everything else.

Do you think that’s fair?

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/benefits/help-if-on-a-low-income/housing-benefit/help-with-your-housing-benefit-claim/check-if-the-benefit-cap-will-affect-your-housing-benefit/

More fool them. Uc is an in work benefit - the more you work the better off you are. You have to be earning £892 (more than likely going up in April) per assessment period to have appointments switched off and not be made to search for additional hours of work.

Home educating isn't deemed sufficient excuse not to get a job (for the purposes of UC).

My goodness the benefits bashing has really been quite rampant this last week or so on here, it's really quite boring.

You honestly have little clue about having to live on UC. Do you know what’s happening at the moment? The DWP are contacting everyone on UC and asking for several months worth of bank statements. Then calling them to explain their transactions, I don’t mean ‘why are you getting odd amounts paid in every month’, asking ‘why have you paid x £50, why are you paying for y?’. Could you imagine your employer demanding your bank statements and asking what exactly you’ve been spending your wages on? And I get there may be a minority working on the side and not declaring it, but for those of us who don’t have a choice about the situation we’re currently in, it’s just another humiliating experience.

Not sure what ‘another baby is produced’ means. It’s not like UC pay for another child.

It was 16 under Supplementary Benefit rules when I started at the then DHSS in 1976.
Then they had to sign on - unless they were aged 50 and hadn’t worked for 10 years!

Kind of fair as working removed the benefit cap. If you can't find work then probably you should be looking to move out of London if possible. The benefit of capis meant to stop people getting obscene amounts of benefits way above what an average working couple not on benefits can earn. Two people working min wage would bring home way more than 1800.

You don’t get free childcare if you are not working.

All children get 15hrs free education term time only from 3 years old so I’d imagine the cost effectiveness argument stacks up fine.

You can only get benefits for the first two children if born after 2017. The woman is producing evermore children so she does not have to work? That sounds harder than going to work and unlikely.

Isn’t that because of the cost of childcare?

100%. We’ve seen today’s news that Reeves and Kendall planning more cuts to welfare spending. It’s probably gov advisers and journos sounding out how nasty to the poor (on the George Osborne scale of fetishistic nastiness) the Great British Public still are.

BS ? That must have been years ago, anyone on this thread can check the Gov benefit calculator.
No one is getting UC on those earnings.
Out of work benefits were cut to the bone under the last government & this government want to cut them further.

So many myths and anecdotal stories on here. You really would not want to trade places. I can’t read anymore.

Tax credits were paid until the child was 19. And then for working tax credits we only had to work 16 hours a week. Imagine that!!

I feel sorry for the benefits bashers who are too dense to understand that their family might need a security net at some point and it is quickly disappearing. It should be there to make us all feel more secure and I'm so glad I had tax credits and was only sent the UC letter about one month before they were due to end anyway. I feel very sorry for people having to claim UC.