Benefit cap? Benefit fraud?

[coco99]

Have I unknowingly been committing some sort of benefit fraud? 😭

I’m currently in receipt of
£1778 universal credit per month
£748 DLA for my son every 4 weeks
£83 carer’s allowance weekly
£26 child benefit weekly

I was discussing finances with a close family member today and they’ve told me that I’m getting too much and there’s a benefit cap? (There was no judgments, she’s just worried I’m being going to get accused of committing benefit fraud). She said that my total benefits are way over the cap, but I never knew there was a cut off point? Universal credit know about the DLA/carers that I claim because I informed them? I’m panicking a little bit now that I might have been overpaid and will have to pay some back!

AIBU? Have I been claiming too much that goes past the cap?

Why? It’s DLA- for a child. It’s not PIP- where amputees are more than likely able to work than a child or mother in receipt of dla

Bloody hell, sometimes posts take my breath away. I cannot imagine how difficult it must be to be a carer 24 hours nor can I imagine being jealous of the amount of benefit someone gets for doing this.

The huge costs associated with physical therapy not provided to children free by the NHS, for a start. They can only offer limited sessions in both type and frequency. Regular sessions paid for privately that could hugely assist their development and quality of life both long and short term without waiting lists of years and years. Thats just one example.

£1778x12=£21,336.00
£748x13=£9,724.00
£83x52=£4,316.00
£26x52=£1,352.00

Thats £36k not £46.

that’s a big difference per month of income.

And for someone caring for a Severely disabled child it’s not a huge amount. Around here a 2 bed privately rented property is £1200-1400 a month.

Food is now about £400 a month.

That’s the UC gone before you've got to pay bills and get all the things required for a disabled child.

Caring for a disabled child 24/7 is a relentless task and you may live your child but your role becomes carer for life. There’s no working your way up the career ladder to increase your finances.

The disabled child then becomes a disabled adult.

You lose carers and get the carer element of UC which is £193 a month.

You lose child benefit at £100 a month.

The disability award goes to the adult and not to you (although you can be appointee).

Suddenly you find yourself without a career and losing income - yet the responsibility remains the same. Oh hang on - no it doesn’t. The child is now an adult so instead of daily access to education they are with you all the time.

Adult services are shutting faster than other services around here. Anything that’s not a legal requirement to provide is going.

OP - don’t worry there is no cap. And anyone with an ounce of compassion wouldn’t begrudge you what you receive or the whole lifetime of caring.

Your maths is incorrect.

Ignore the DLA. The DLA is for the child, and it's not an out-of-work benefit. She could earn £5k a week as a TV presenter and her little boy would still be entitled to it.

When you look at the Universal Credit the OP is getting, it works out less than a full-time (37.5 hours) minimum wage job.

Then think about how much it would cost for that little child to be placed in residential care with 1-1 staffing ratio to meet his needs. There are 24 hours in a day and he needs care for all of them. So that is a minimum of 24 × £12.21. £293.04 a day. June has 30 days, so that's £8,791.20 in direct staffing costs per month, without accounting for employer's NI contributions, never mind the cost of staff in HR, payroll and management salaries.

Then account for the cost of heating, lighting, building maintenance costs. And at the end of the day, residential homes are profit-making business, so how much do they charge the tax payer on top of those costs?

Benefits to OP are a sodding bargain for the country. She's being paid a pittance compared to what residential care costs.

I work in care. I'm not paid as much as I should be, but I'm on more than minimum wage and more than OP, and I'm doing fewer hours than she is.

You would need to earn £46k to take home that amount. There is no tax on benefits so you have to gross it up to achieve the same take home figure.

@coco99 just looking at what you get .. you left off the disability child element just making sure you also get it

You're struggling to understand something that was laid out very very easily. You're giving me answers to things that I haven't even said. I assuming that you have comprehension issues at play because you are a bit garbled, I'll be honest.

You also bring up the fact that rent will be taken out of the OPs 'salary'. You do realise that the professionals I mentioned don't live rent/mortgage free yes? Their rent/mortgage will also be coming out of their salary. So what is your point with that?

Except the only calculations that count as OPs income are UC and Carers.

which equates to less than minimum wage.

DLA isn’t means tested and CB is paid to people if they are earning £46k

Its really not the income people think it is.

Ok. I didn’t realise this. Thank you

Article to introduce you to the world of the ‘disability tax’

https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2024/nov/18/anti-ableist-manifesto-book

Where will this magic money tree come from then to pay more? The country cannot afford it.

Wouldn’t it be refreshing if a government focused on closing tax loopholes for billionaires and corporations then?

@pinkstripeycat having disabled children meant for mean no access to wrap around childcare, no holiday club, 2-3 appointments per week. One child well over a year our of school. I lost my full time job paying 40k and now work very part time (but above the carers allowance threshold). DLA has been critical for us to keep paying basic bills and afford a living. I couldn't love on the 18k I earn now annually in my part time role and pay the mortgage and utilities. We also had to find Speech and language therapy privately costing £80 per hour (weekly sessions). Without DLA, we would be homeless or I would have to hand over the DC to social care for a foster family which would have cost multiple times as much.

It cannot be really that hard to imagine that having to care endless hours and not being able to earn a full time wage has an actual cost.

@Straightjacketsandroses no need for that how utterly vile.

Where will this magic money tree come from then to pay more? The country cannot afford it.

Where will the money come from to not pay it?

I get carers allowance for my DD and she gets DLA.

She is currently assessed as needing carers to do bedtime and mornings as it needs 2 people (no staffing available atm), respite 2 nights a month (doesn't happen as no carers available), she has district nurse visits 4 times a week (mostly happen), school transport daily as the only suitable school is 45 minutes away (I live in the same street as a primary school but it doesn't have accessible facilities even if they could have coped with her - her transport is extremely unreliable), she has weekly physio (we pay), weekly speech therapy (we pay) and fortnightly hydrotherapy (we pay).

We've been asked to consider sending her to a residential school because of the difficulties in providing the carers and other therapy she needs. We've refused it so far because as a family we can cope physically and financially atm so can muddle through.

Where is the magic money tree to fund the care children like her will need if the pressure on families like ours continues?

Missing the point

Quite

There are plenty of 9-5 nursing jobs

Crazy talk. Blue sky thinking. Let's focus on arguing over the crumbs under the table.

Really? I'd imagine most people would just be grateful their children aren't disabled and they don't have to sacrifice their career to care for them 24/7.

And she won’t be the only one.

It’s nuts.