To think that it's extremely unfair for Carers?

[TessTimoney]

Currently those in receipt of PIP continue to receive this benefit when they qualify for their State Pension. Unpaid Carers, however, lose their meagre Carers Allowance when they qualify for their State Pension. Considering that Unpaid Carers save the tax payers many millions of pounds because of all the work they do helping those in need, would you agree that they should also keep this benefit (currently £83.30 per week for 35 hours hard labour) when they receive their State Pension?

I think the whole set up with carer's allowance is an absolute scandal. It is exploitation on a massive scale. Not only is it a pittance that takes no account of the sheer hard labour involved in caring, it penalises carers who try to earn a small amount of money outside the home, even if those people are caring day and night for most of the week. This impacts not only income, but pension contributions too. Family carers save the state an absolute fortune.

Couple of things, you can't make a new claim for PIP after state pension age, instead you have to apply for Attendance Allowance which is less than 20% of PIP (roughly).

Secondly, the issue with Carers Allowance isn't that it doesn't continue once retired, more that it's £83.30 for 35 hours pw - which you have to prove. It's just insane. It works out at £2.38ph - what I earned 40 years ago behind a bar. This is the real travesty, especially for those of us who've cared for someone since birth 24/7 (my son is severely disabled) until he finally moved out at the age of 24. I now actually earn reasonably well and this highlights that I probably missed out on something like £700k while working as an unpaid carer.

I worked part time for many years because I looked after my parents and my PIL. That was the decision we made as a family, for very good reasons, however, it meant that my career was pretty much static until they passed away, and my work pension is tiny. I never claimed carer's allowance because my employment opportunities would have been further restricted. I think a lot of people are in a similar position.

I provide care for 142 hours a week, that equates to 58p an hour. We've been quoted £45 an hour for a learning disability nurse to provide the same level of care I do (child has profound learning and medical needs) I've just reached 50k in debt since I had to give up work in Jan 2020.

The Guardian have been doing a fantastic campaign highlighting this over the last few years, and particularly focusing on those prsecuted under the last government for earning a couple of quid over the threshold - meaning they have to pay back thousands. It's abhorrent to have a hard cut off.

It's because carers allowance is an earnings replacement benefit. State Pension is also that. You can't have two earnings replacement benefits at the same time.

You can still get the carers element of pension credit for being a carer, but that won't help you if you have a lot in savings or private pensions alongside state pensions.

It's stupid that carers allowance is considered an earnings replacement benefit in the first place. It pays so ridiculously little for what you're expected to do.

I'm a year older than my partner, he gets CA for me to help me deal with my late diagnosed ADHD and Autism. I get it to help him deal with being pretty much housebound for a variety of complex medical needs, despite having my own mobility issues, including arthritis in just about every joint including my spine.
So when I get my pension, I'll loose my CA, but still be expected to care for him!

Ive been my husband's carer for 35 years. I changed jobs as I couldn't manage his care, children, one was a baby and one preschool and a demanding job. Never got CA but earned less. Now retired my private pension is about a quarter of what it would have been in my original job, mixture of taking a step down, going part-time and company pension scheme being much worse. Can't get CA now due to pension. I'm burnt out and oh so tired.

The whole idea that family carers are saving the tax payer millions in works if you start from the very privileged first world position of believing the state through its taxpayers, owes you free care.

I never really understand why people compare carers allowance to what it equates to "per hour of care".

It is not a wage for working as a carer.

Its an allowance which acknowledges that caring for that many hours a week limits your ability to work. People receiving it are often also getting substantial amounts of UC which replace income from earning, so its not there to provide a wage, its topping up the UC.

If it was higher they would end up where they counted it as income & reduced what UC you got accordingly, because as a state we can't afford to pay people state benefits twice over.

I’ve never understood why there isn’t a proper campaign for this.

and by ‘proper campaign’ I mean hundreds of carers abandoning their (cognitively fine, so totally in on it) partners outside social services.

that would be a MASSIVE news story and it would shed light on all of it. Too many people have no idea it’s happening and how much money is saved.

We didn't apply until this year because we were worried about this - DH is basically self employed, works when he can around DS, but is paid in lump sums when a job is complete, so he could get nothing for months then £1500 in one go, say. Went and got specialist advice in the end, and they had to check with someone else.

It's sad it's such a low rate. The last three times I have taken my dd out with her severely disabled brother he has wondered off. He is 13 and the stress is so high. I was just thinking today I might have to stop going out with both of them. Poor ds. I'd much rather be working than dealing with him on days like today bless him

@Agix
Carer’s Allowance is categorically not an earnings replacement benefit- it is supposedly a token benefit made in recognition of the caring work done.
It is precisely because it is not an earnings replacement benefit, nor a top-up benefit (like UC) that so many carer’s end up with virtually nothing for their previous work and paying taxes and income ability (ask me how I know).
It’s also not true that (you didn’t make this point) that many carer’s will also receive UC.

general points (not to any particular pp)
My husband and I do not receive UC.
He is unwilling to lower his hours (self-employed) and income (not brilliant) to enable qualification so I work 10 hrs week in term time (severely disabled DC).
Because he is who he is, I have no money or time to do anything for myself.
The situation for many people, like me, is like that of women in the 1950’s who put up and shut up etc.
I appreciate the government doesn’t have money blah blah BUT - the fact is our county council pays for DC to travel by taxi to and from school (some 10 miles away). The cost of that taxi, the driver, the PA etc far exceeds what they’d pay me in reimbursement for petrol - they won’t do it though because they’d potentially fail in their statutory obligations 😩. I’d do it if I wasn’t going to run myself absolutely ragged and they’d even consent to it.
And.. there’s no respite care (no real respite), so they’ll pay an agency worker company £60 an hour to look after DC for 6 hours a week (except said company weren’t qualified to do the only fucking thing they had to do to keep her safe and do were removed).
The care system is absolutely ridiculous and I can think of at least 20 ways it could be improved - and probably save the government its precious funds. I actually think I should write out this proposal and give it to the government

CA was introduced to cover the wages lost when a carer found themselves having to give up work to care for a family member. Unfortunately the amount hasn't kept up to date with minimum wages, let alone average wage. Leaving many of us only just having squeaked into getting full Government pension, with no ability to take out a private pension to cover our own retirement.

In an ideal world people would receive a proper wage for caring but sadly we don’t live in an ideal world and the number of carers is going up and up. Google says we have 1.5 million people claiming carers, there seem to be a lot more parent carers of young kids than there used to be too.

DH was in hospital for three months and his attendance allowance and my carers allowance were stopped. Fair enough, but some weeks after he returned home I got a letter saying I hadn't received NI credit for state pension either, for four weeks. What was I expected to do, during a temporary absence of uncertain length? Get a job? It's disgraceful.

I appreciate the government doesn’t have money blah blah BUT - the fact is our county council pays for DC to travel by taxi to and from school (some 10 miles away). The cost of that taxi, the driver, the PA etc far exceeds what they’d pay me in reimbursement for petrol - they won’t do it though because they’d potentially fail in their statutory obligations 😩. I’d do it if I wasn’t going to run myself absolutely ragged and they’d even consent to it.

In situations where a child is receiving the mobility part of PIP/DLA however it’s done nowadays, they are paying petrol for children to get to school. What is ludicrous is that on top of that, they pay for transport to school, with an escort, which like you say is a very high cost.

There would be much more money available for proper respite without the costs of transport.

While I agree that many carers are forced into a situation that is unfairly unaffordable, before there’s a campaign about anything, there needs to be a definition of what a carer actually is. It covers too many grey areas from a parent who might just have to work a bit harder than average to parent their child to adults who genuinely have to give up work in order to keep another person safe due to lack of services.