Carers Allowance WTF

[MagicPharmacist]

Due to an absolutely perfect storm of shit happenings, my dad died, my mum has Parkinson’s and I lost my part time job, we’ve made a decision that rather than look for another job right now I will care for my mum. I’m very happy to do this and we are fortunate enough that I can be on minimal income for now, although obviously not ideal.

I do a little bit of self employed work, no where near the threshold. My mum gets attendance allowance so she told me to apply for carers allowance.

But the numbers make NO SENSE to me. It’s not anything I’ve ever had to look at before but how the fuck do they justify this?

£81 a week for 35hrs caring (and obviously it’s more than this for most people). And then on top of that you are only allowed to earn £150? Why? What’s the justification?

And then the new cap will be £196 earnings which is equivalent to 16hrs at minimum wage. Why? Why are they so invested in keeping carers poor?

I don’t really understand why this is a means tested benefit. Surely it’s in the government interests to have family carers? £81 a week for 35 hours minimum work and then you can ONLY make less than 800 a month on the side? How do they expect people to live?

I’m ENRAGED. Not necessarily for myself; we won’t starve as my husband has a good job. But if he earned less we would be fucked, my mum would either have to have carers in every day or go into a care home.

Oh god and the hoops to jump through as well; the form was a nightmare and they want so much info about me and my previous employment and current income. And it takes at least six weeks for a decision…could be months.

AIBU to be shocked by this?

Yep my husband works and can't claim carers for me despite putting in the required hours (and more when I'm really poorly!) Yet, I know families where neither parent works because they have two kids in full time education who get DLA 🤷🏼‍♀️ I'm not saying that's easy but it's a huge blind spot in the system.

Absolutely..my family gets universal credit and my husband earns ok. We have 2 disabled kids

You need to be caring for 35 hours, so they should say you can only do a certain number of hours paid work on top. Purely because you need rest and sleep and balance. But they shouldn't put a limit on the amount you can earn.
Either way it's a crap benefit that's nowhere near enough money. I think they just don't really want people to use it. It seems almost like it's not worth it for many people.

You’ve said yourself: your DH gets a good salary so you’ll be fine. Why do you expect the taxpayer to give you more? If you’re that “enraged”, send your mum to a home.

That’s quite an impressive misreading of my point, well done.

I've recently been looking into carers as my DM has a life threatening condition and as a family we will do all we can with or without the payment.
Having read all the posts on here the system seems to be a disgrace. If the government, so by my interpretation, the payer/employer are insisting you have to make yourself available for 35 hours per week how, legally, are they getting away with not paying the minimum wage ?
No nasty responses as to "you should do it for free" please as I probably will.
But surely if it is demanded that 35 hours work/care is required to receive any level of payment then you should be paid minimum wage which has just gone up today to £12 plus per hour.
I wouldn't get away with paying a carer less than the minimum wage so why should the government ?

Go and complain to your MP

While you are on CA you will be building up National Insurance years towards a state pension. BUT you obviously will not have anything to pay into your own pension pot, and the way things are going state pension isn't going to be worth much anyway.

I'm facing retirement with a single person's state pension, in rented accommodation, with no savings (benefits obvs don't provide enough to save).

Please be aware of this, I wasn't and I'm now staring it in the face in horror.

You are 100% right !

i was getting carers allowance for our adult son but needed to go back to work full time and there are no day services for him so he’s now living in a residential placement which costs over £5k per week due to his very complex needs. I said to the social worker that they could just offer parents a decent amount to be able to give up work and maybe employ support staff to help out it would save the government thousands. I have two friends with adult children with complex needs who are in the exact same position.

Carers allowance isn't pay for x hours of caring. By default if you are getting it you are earning very little elsewhere so are likely getting most of your income via UC.

Why would you get it on top of the UC? If they paid it you as an hourly wage at NMW, you'd probably then earn too much to receive UC. Would you be happy with that?

Surely its basically just another mechanism for accessing state pension.

Don't really understand OooLarLar.
If you are being asked to be available for 35 hours a week and being paid £2 an hour by the government who insist of a new minimum wage of £12 + an hour then surely that is wrong.
Doesn't matter what you earn in other employment, for all you know I earn £200 K or £20 k but if I am being ordered to commit to those hours why shouldn't I, or anyone, be paid paid the minimum wage ?

If you work and claim carers allowance, the earnings threshold is applied after any private pension contributions.

Carers allowance absolutely is for ‘x’ amount of care hours. The minimum is 35 hours per week. It works out at £2.38 an hour. The earnings threshold in April will be £196 per week after tax, NI, certain other allowable deductions and half of any pension contributions.

It’s yet another stupid government policy where they don’t look at the bigger picture. It would cost a shit load more than £81 per week to get carers in for your dm, that’s if you can find the carers at all, and capping your earnings, which if at a reasonable level would be taxable, is just shooting themselves in the foot.

Just take cash for the yoga part of your business like everyone else does? also hats off to you for taking up this role.

I care for three people who live in my home, including DM who has cerebral palsy and is also now developing dementia. DP collapsed with a neurological disorder three years ago so I suppose technically I'm his carer too, although he's not on PIP yet, just LCWRA. If I include DP, that makes four people with disabilities I'm caring for.

The reason I am still awake at 5am is because this is when I work. I am self-employed and I work around my caring responsibilities.

I don't get anything extra for caring for more than one person, or for running myself into the ground desperately trying to earn an income to keep us afloat while still taking care of everyone. I provide way more than 35 hours of care for each person, every week. Thank the actual fuck that there are some things that overlap and I can do for them at once, like laundry or cooking, because otherwise it would be impossible.

I also don't get the bountiful Carer's Allowance of £81 per week because they deduct every penny of it from my Universal Credit.

Carers are studiously ignored by every government because they know we save them bloody BILLIONS and they treat us abysmally. And no, in answer to a PP, it's not "our job" to be carers for family members. We choose to do it out of love, but also because in many cases there's literally no other option.

I always thought carers allowance was if you looked after a random neighbour or stranger, never drempt you got it for looking after your own child or parent I thought that was just what you did. Also those with no savings also get universal credit, housing etc if applicable.

It's not just a random child though. It's a recognition of their having needs beyond a typical child which affects your ability to work full time

YANBU I have been my husband’s carer for 10 years, I don’t do any other work and I agree carers allowance is absolutely ridiculous, if someone else had had to care for him, they would get a proper wage.

You forgot that the carers allowance is replaced on UC by a carer premium. Worth about £46 a week.

You clearly have no idea what caring for someone with a severe disability is like, or how much it costs. Carers at home take the strain off social services care and save the taxpayer millions as a result. I don’t think a paltry £83 a week is too much to ask when you’re caring for someone for at least 35 hours a week. Or £2.38 an hour.

Lucky you that you never had to give to work to care for a severely disabled relative. Your post is so immensely ignorant, I don't know where to start.

Most people with children have the opportunity to work especially as they get older. How do you expect those of us with children that have high needs, can’t attend childcare settings or after school care, to earn a living/pay towards the household to support them whilst also doing the job of support workers for 1% of the wage?

As for caring for parents, you cannot win on this site - one minute people are complaining that people aren’t looking after their parents like they used to (because they’re usually working full time and social circumstances have changed), then complain that when people do give up everything to care for parents because you can’t rely on said social care to meet needs, they need a source of income to do so. Apparently familial carers should live in gratitude and fresh air…