Carers allowance breaches modern slavery laws surely

[Vatsallfolks]

This country has a minimum wage . It’s a fact . If you are over 21 years old it is £12.21 ph.

Therefore can somebody please explain why Carers Allowance is £83. 30 per week whilst stipulating that carers should be looking after their caree a minimum of 35 hours a week and then some .. which equates to £2.38 per hour .. and then .. we are ‘allowed’ to work another 18 hours.. (if we only could but we can’t as our cared for person actually doesn’t have a 36 hour cut off !!) just to equate to a minimum wage for 54 hour week ??
(when in fact many of us do a 189 hour week ? (24/7) which in reality is £2207 per week ..

so in essence e what I am saying is this . I could say NO .. I’m not doing it anymore.. and it will cost the govt a minimum of the minimum wage for him to be looked after .. but if don’t .. because I love him.. I had to give up my job to care for him .. which I have again because I love him .. but my God .. aren’t the Government taking the piss ?

Your whole argument is based on the idea that 'care is care'. For your argument to hold you would have say that choosing to have a baby, and then caring for that newborn, is the same as caring for someone with life changing injuries after an RTA. No. These are two different types of care. The first one can be anticipated and the caring relationship is entered into voluntarily. The second one isn't anticipated and the caring relationship is compulsory (due to lack of statutory services). These just aren't the same
Nope, I don't need to prove that caring for a newborn baby is the same as caring for a victim of a RTA. No two people have exactly the same needs and therefore need exactly the same care. Looking across the disabled people I know, they have completely different needs but still undoubtedly all need care. They can't look after themselves completely independently and need someone to support them undertaking basic tasks. The fact that care needs can be anticipated or not doesn't take away from the fact that the fundamental act of providing care exists across different groups of people (the old, the disabled and children). Similar issues exist in terms of people having to sacrifice earning potential or shell out a hell of a lot of money to meet these needs. Also it isn't always true that those caring for the old or children have made this choice. Not all children are planned and many adults children feel forced into caring for their elderly relatives.

Adults with learning disabilities don't 'often need similar levels of care and support that would ordinarily be provided to children'. For example, lifting a kid who's 2 stone isn't the same as lifting an adult who's 12 stone. Similarly, feeding a toddler who can push your hand away isn't the same as feeding an adult who can punch you in the face. Same with bathing. Same with continence issues. It's completely different
I have direct first hand experience of the fact that often adults with learning disabilities do need similar levels of care and support. Not all learning disabled people need lifting, spoon feeding or bathing.

GDP per capita wise (the relevant metric here) we are absolutely not one of the richest countries in the world. We are in fact 17th richest in Europe and poorer than all the other countries you have listed. You should also research what countries with comparative GDP per capita do (hint: none pay family members the equivalent of minimum wage to care for the disabled). I will not discuss economics with someone that believe the Tories mishandling PPE means that we have enough money to pay for a enormous care bill. We simply don't. They aren't hoodwinking you or pretending. Scarcity is real. Look at the state of our exploited planet and the environmental catastrophe we find ourselves in to understand that scarcity is built into nature, our existence and ultimately all economies. We don't have infinite resources to trade, we will never have infinite money.

No, it doesn't. The assumption is that if informal care went away then the state would have to foot the bill for everyone's care. They don't have to do this. They can change laws and rules to reflect this. If it becomes unaffordable then the rights to care will be restricted or removed. Ultimately the people who lose out will be those who need the care.

While more would, I feel be appropriate, I think at the very least the earnings threshold should be adjusted or lifted. If PIP is awarded without means testing then so should CA. It wouldn't lead to more claims I don't think because if you're a higher earner CA doesn't give any advantages (as far as I recall) except a piddling 83 a week, so the hassle wouldn't necessarily be worth it. Just my thoughts.

I think it might lead to more claims. I was a mother with 4 children, one was ten days old when we found out this was permanent. DH lost his job but his benefits plus my wages were a struggle and yes I'd have claimed and £83 a week would have made a difference.

More people now now are net beneficiaries from the state than are contributors.

Yes. Amazon. Google. Microsoft. Apple.

If you were entitled, why didn’t you claim?

The message is more that if you have an ill or disabled relative, at any point in your life, then unless you are independently wealthy you cannot both care for them and have a decent standard of living
Sums it up well I think. The difficulty is that ultimately it is a choice we make, to become a carer, which is why the allowance is not supposed to replace an income.

People always argue with the figures, because otherwise the narrative of this graphic is inhumane in a civlised society.

A society which chases benefit fraud before tax evasion, and does nothing to address the poverty that unclaimed benefits will inevitably cause needs along hard look at itself and the politicians it elects.

I gave birth to two children with disabilities and was subsequently forced out of the workplace for the best part of 20 years. That’s 20 years I didn’t make contributions to my pension (apart from my NI being paid). I’m now mid/late 50s in a far lower position in my career than I could have been with naff all in my pension. Because we lived on one income for so long, my husband also hasn’t been able to put much into his pension either!

carers allowance didn’t even touch the sides!

This graphic is very misleading. Tax evasion is hugely different to tax avoidance. Tax Justice are hardly an independent, objective body. Also if you include tax avoidance then you should also include benefit maximisation but interestingly they haven't bothered to quantify that.

"Many adults with learning disabilities often need similar levels of care and support that would ordinarily be provided to children. "

Caring for adults with learning disabilities is always more complex than caring for a non disabled child. My adult son is incontinent and can't dress himself etc but that isn't the difficult thing about caring for him. He is an adult with adult feelings and with far more lived experience than a child. If you think adults with learning disabilities are the same as 'big' children then you have no understanding.

They didn't have to though, they chose to.

Foster Carers look after DC 24/7 and get paid about £2-£2.50 ph.

People always argue with the figures, because otherwise the narrative of this graphic is inhumane in a civlised society.

"Mr Shaw ! What do you take me for ?"

"I thought we had established that. Now we are just arguing over the price."

I care for an adult with learning disabilities. I never said that it was exactly the same as caring for a child but there are often similar levels of care and support needed. Not always and maybe not most the time but often. I know because I also interact with other people that care for my relative's friends and peers. We do things that ordinarily parents would do for children. Yes, it can be more complex in some ways sometimes but fundamentally it is very similar.

I never said that adults with learning disabilities were just big children. That is so ridiculous! Just the caring for disabled people isn't always a medical form of care or something that is completely dissimilar to the care we provide to other groups on society.

No, people will dispute crap data posted with a clear agenda. If I made up a load of figures and suggested that anyone that disagreed was a terrible person then it doesn't mean I've won the debate. Use reliable data from accredited sources and people will take you more seriously.

Out of curiosity, would you take issue with this precis of the chart ? It is specifically the 3rd and the 5th place entries I am interested in.

Ranked largest to smallest ....

1. Tax avoided, evaded and uncollected (Tax Justice Network and PCS estimate)

1. Tax avoided, evaded and uncollected (HMRC estimate)

3. Benefits unclaimed (CAB estimate)

1. Benefit overpayments due to error (DWP estimate)

1. Benefit fraud (DWP estimate)

What would their option be? Do you really think parents would choose to give up their well paid job in exchange for £83.30 a week with no pension, no breaks, no holiday, etc?

And those are the upsides.

Being accused of being a burden and scrounger in the mainstream press can take the edge off now and then.

Apologies - text got reformatted by the MN magic filter.

1 Tax avoided, evaded and uncollected (Tax Justice Network and PCS estimate)
2 Tax avoided, evaded and uncollected (HMRC estimate)
3 Benefits unclaimed (CAB estimate)
4 Benefit overpayments due to error (DWP estimate)
5 Benefit fraud (DWP estimate)

The only piece of data from your list that would have any kind of accuracy would be the Benefits overpayment due to error figure.

Benefits unclaimed is very tricky to calculate accurately and benefit fraud is impossible in some cases unless we undertake quite extreme levels of surveillance. The gap between the HMRC and Tax Justice figures prove quite frankly that nobody has a clue about the level of tax avoidance and evasion. Tax avoidance isn't necessarily a concept that is absolutely nailed down in law in terms of what does and doesn't come under this definition. No doubt people do things to legally reduce their tax bill but I also would love to see an additional circle that represented the amount of benefit maximisation going on. It is the flip side of the same coin and undoubtedly absolutely massive. All legal but not in the spirit of the legislation and policy.

So yes then.

Do you genuinely think the data in that chart is accurate?

Do you genuinely think the order is wrong ? I don't need to know the weight of an elephant to suspect it may be heavier than a mouse.

I am guessing you don't know many carers or disabled people.