To think if an employee is working 40+ hours a week

[Emerald95]

And still getting Universal Credit the Employer should be made to pay back all or at least some of that money to the government?

I believe if an employee is working full time, 40hrs a week minimum, and still not being paid enough to survive without the goverment stepping in, it is a failure of the employer to pay a livable wage.

This wouldn't include universal credit add ons like the disabled element or the carer element but the main bulk of universal credit.

I am so sick of seeing articles and threads moaning about those on Universal Credit when the fact is most are working families not being paid enough to survive.

Or we need to cap how much profit a company is allowed to make while having employees on goverment support. The rich are getting richer, meanwhile the poor are being told they don't have a good work ethic because they won't work full time for a wage they can't survive on.

Does that include when their employer is the government? Many civil service admin and NHS staff are on NMW.

But what's the alternative? How much would say, a single parent in London need to earn to pay their living costs with no assistance? Rent, childcare, bills, food, clothes, transport, modest amount for leisure? They'd have to earn 2, 3, even 4 times NMW to cover these costs and no employer is going to pay that for a lot of jobs. They'd either employ a person with no dependants a lot less or we'd be back to the times where people who had a family to support got paid more for this reason alone, ie illegal discrimination.

UC isn't perfect but it does try to address the differences in living costs for different family set ups with higher top up entitlements for families with DC compared to those without dependants.

I suppose the problem here is that the UC component is based on personal circumstance…

… and the employer isn’t going to set wages based on personal circumstance.

So a single parent with two kids - why would an employer employ them if they had to pay them a lot more than a single worker?

Exactly. Most of the UC is going to pay extortionately high private rent to buy to let landlords. Maybe there should be better controls on rent ? Personally i find it absolutely disgusting that tax payers money is going to pay landlords mortgages in this way. I'm surprised there isn't more outcry over it. I hope there is lots of social housing building done and it puts these greedy people out of business.

I believe if an employee is working full time, 40hrs a week minimum, and still not being paid enough to survive without the goverment stepping in, it is a failure of the employer to pay a livable wage.

I completely agree.
The amount should at least be the amount a single person needs to live on (not just survive) Yes it gets more complicated when there is a single parent.

But 2 people working 40 hours even with dc should be able to support themselves. I do agree with help for nursery and wrap around care.