Would you work an extra 3 hours a week for £132 a month increase?

[DogHasAStick]

I really hope this doesn't sound goady, not my intention at all. Just interested in other people's opinions.

For context...I have a Masters degree in my career subject, which I have worked in for 5 years. I have been offered further development experience in another team, which I really do need to secure a senior post. I WFH 3 days and have flexibility at work, i have been offered more hours. We also want to move, so would like to sell my house this year.

On the flip side, I am a single mother to two boys, youngest has AuADHD. Youngest had an absolutely awful time for years, but is currently doing the best he's ever been. I don't have time to look after myself and have let myself go somewhat, but a lot of this is because I am throwing my resources at work and my sons. I get no practical support, have a 30-40 minutes round trip school run twice a day, boys have clubs five times a week.

Because I get a universal credit top up, and a student loan, I would earn approximately £132 extra a month, for an extra 3 hours work a week. Would look better for mortgage and would allow me to spend more time at work of course, but unsure if it's worth the additional strain on my time?

but based purely on 3 hours more work for £10 p/h, when you are already rushed off your feet, no.

But it's not just "working for £10 an hour" - it's also the additional money going into your pension etc. It would also help OP towards getting off benefits and getting a mortgage.

It's pretty depressing that so many people think OP should work less and claim more.

Ah I see, thanks. I made another post and reported it myself and asked them to explain and they have now reinstated it, I see. I wonder what they could possibly have thought (even on an automated basis) was offensive about it. Bizarre. I suppose it demonstrates the limits of current AI!

3 hours a week is about 12 hours a month, so for £132 that’s a bit over £10 an hour which seems okay if you’ve already taken out tax/ NI/ pension etc. Realistically how much more would you be expecting to make, per month and after tax etc, for only 12 hours work?

If I needed the money, yes

I think that is the wrong framing of it. The fact is, work must be sufficiently financially rewarding at every level of earnings. Our tax and benefits system contains multiple disincentives to work at various thresholds. It’s not an issue specific to welfare. Robust economic analysis has shown very clearly that this is one of the main drivers of low UK productivity and skills shortages (hence declining living standards) and that resolving it would actually raise more tax revenue for the treasury.

a sensible Government would significantly lower the universal credit taper rate because, with tax/ student loan on top, it can amount to a marginal tax rate of 80% of more. Likewise with the withdrawal of child benefit. Even more absurd is the personal allowance and childcare funding withdrawal at £100k which creates marginal tax rates of 20,000% (not a typo), so if people work more they are actually significantly worse off in net income, and have to earn a further £50k before they get back to the same level of earnings.

No sane government designs a tax and welfare system in this manner, which is why other countries do not do so. Taxing two households with the same income wildly different amounts is again very bad for the economy and tax revenues and creates huge disincentives and distortions, which is why the UK is an anomaly in this respect and other countries do not do this.

I don’t want to derail the OP’s thread but trying to reduce these structural government-created problems to a facile argument attacking welfare recipients is silly when the same problems exist at all levels of earnings and are strangling UK growth yet both this and the previous government have refused to address despite the overwhelming evidence that they need to do so.

It happened to me once and I only said something about scented candles - very odd!

😆

They must have some very odd filters!

its a lot of money (to me at least) so would absolutely do it if I could.

Less than minimum wage? No

no because I’d only get £34.70 for that. I’d only do it if I had to to make the UC threshold

Yes this, its misleading to say its £132pm, you need to say what the figure is gross.

Taking UC into account distorts the thinking

if you take the extra hours you are on the road to further promotions and pay rises. If not you are likely to signal to your employer that you don’t really care about that and may find you end up stagnating

Yes, you should take the extra hours. Why should other taxpayers subsidise you when you only work 3 days a week?

I don't think that's completely fair when OP is a single parent with a child with additional needs.

I'm not a single parent, we don't currently claim UC (though we are entitled now as our savings have reduced significantly) and an extra 130 a month would be very, very welcome. Three extra hours a week ongoing would cause issues with our routine with DS who's autistic so it would be a really difficult decision between financial need and DS support needs.

Thank you everyone for your replies, I really do appreciate it. I didn't get a notification that anyone else had responded, sorry I am late in replying.

I understand why universal credit and lifestyle funding was brought up, I don't believe it is a black and white issue. The majority of my income is from my salary, but I am apprehensive about increasing my hours because of 2 factors; my youngest is now thriving, it has taken 9 years to get him there and I am worried about disrupting the balance and two, because I am already running about and my own health has suffered. The school commute takes up 2 hours out of day (including drop off and pick up for both boys) so it is also quite hard to figuere out bow to add in the extra time. Regardless, I want to do well in my career.

Don’t take on anymore. Far better to have a calm, manageable life with happy children. The focus needs to be on well being not more hours.

Sorry, I saw a few people had mentioned gross amount.

The extra salary in gross is £5134 extra per year. This brings me into the student loan threshold. I know this is a lot of 3 hours. This is why I am feeling some turmoil, it's not an amount to be pooed pooed.

I bought a house using LIFT 18 months ago, and at the time couldn't afford anything in the village we'd lived in for 9 years. So we moved further away. We were homeless at the time so I couldn't wait. The boys school times are slightly different which is why I'm out of the house for so long for school run! But am I desperate to get us home again. And this time I will be buying without LIFT, so I need all the income I can get.

I think you should go for it, as an extra £5134 in your headline salary will make a significant difference both when arranging your next mortgage and when negotiating the pay for your next job.

But is there something you could spend some of the extra money on that will make your life easier? Depending on what you already have in place this might include having a cleaner or laundry service to reduce the housework load, using a meal delivery service or paying a childminder to do either the morning or afternoon school runs?

It is worth trying to make this work, because this is like stepping stones across a river. The stone you are debating whether to step onto does seem a little tricky to stand on, but the next steps after that starts to get easier (bigger, smoother and more stable stones in the river) because as you get increased responsibility (and higher pay) the amount by which you are trusted to balance things yourself will increase.

I'm not dismissing your dilemma but the choice to stick with lower status and lower pay would be the classic example of why there is still a massive gender pay gap. It's wrong that the world is still set up to make this an attractive option.

Yes -if you are claiming UC when you could be earning instead you absolutely should take paid work instead of taking benefits!

I'm so sorry everyone, my calculations are wrong. I'm really sorry I wasted your time.

I work at the local council. We are changing our T&Cs next month, lowering our full time hours, so the pro-rata hours for people working PT will change but salaries are not reducing (in effect, an increase in hourly rate). I have done the increase amount based on my current working hours and not the now working hours. My hours will reduce to 25 keeping current salary. The extra 5k will be an increase of 5 hours, for the extra £132 i mentioned. I did one calculation on current hours and one on the T&Cs changes.

So the increase will be based on 5 hours extra. Sorry everyone 😔

So it’s actually £427/m. And you can start paying off your student loan. That will be useful if there’s any chance of you paying off the whole thing.

Ridiculous that tax and benefits force people into these situations. In a similar vein I earn just over the 40% threshold and have refused a promotion as the extra pay for the hassle isn’t worth it when it’s all taxed at the higher rate.

With the update. 5 hours for that small amount. It is tricky! But I’d still say yes. Gives you more job security if nothing else.

Yes it’s about getting the next job at a higher position.

Yes. I’m a bit unclear about whether you would be working 25 or 30 hours a week, but I’d have thought either ought to be manageable.

The extra income will be useful for your next house move and for your pension, especially as I believe the Local Government Pension Scheme is very generous.

Yes. And I actually choose to do three extra hours overtime every week on a day I don’t usually work for around an extra £150 a month