Working expectations for parents on UC

[BlackCatGreyWhiskers]

AIBU to find this really frustrating? Basically there is no expectation for parents to work until their child is age 3. So if a family has more than one child that could be several years.

Whereas maternity leave is only 9-12months.

Especially as universal credit claimants can actually get help towards childcare expenses.

I don’t understand why there is a mismatch between the employed and unemployed?

When I went back after maternity, my pay was around £1500 and my childcare £800, then after I went back with my second my childcare went up to £1200. So I earnt next to nothing for 5 years before the eldest started school.

It's not about liking people.
It's about pointing out how weak your arguments are and calling you out on false assumptions.

Yup, we've established you can't.
😂

Completely agree.
I personally know of people who aren't working and choosing to have children on uc.
I'm sure I will get knocked down for saying that they appear to live very comfortable lives.
In contrast, I know families who are both working and have none of the safety network of the benefits system.
These are the facts of my experience.
I also know people who work ft and need uc top up to meet their commitments and I know people who are on uc who will never work more than 16 hours due to the impact on their benefits
I'm totally supportive of the benefits system to support interim circumstances. However, ime, there are several people who see it as an entitlement for the long term

@Morgenrot25 no, I really didn’t.

What an awful OP! It's one thing to have these opinions based on factual information but posting 60 odd times when you don't seem to have a clue about what you're talking about about is mental!

I was on tax credits and didn't have to look for work for nineteen years. I think the new system is awful and you are being completely unreasonable.

I'm so glad that I had children 20/22 years ago and that my UC letter arrived about one month before my tax credits ended.

Spot on!

@Praying4Peace I’ve witnessed the same, no jobs but new BM outside .. interesting

Spot on, thanks for summing this up so eloquently

Well, let's agree to disagree.
I didn't need the info.
OP probably does.

Eh?
Calling out your weak arguments is exactly what intelligent discussion is about.

But I’m genuinely shocked at how many users here seem to think it's fine to have no job and no economic contribution.

Do people think its fine? Or do we recognise that anyone can find themselves in that situation and so blaming them is not productive?

What can working women do to help other women - including mothers and disabled women - back into the workplace? Creating part time fixed rate contracts and entry level jobs would be a good start.

What?! That's mental.

If people think benefits are generous nowadays they might be quite shocked at how much less generous they've actually become recently.

It's shocking isn't it?

For every person not working, that is money that could be spent on nurses, doctors, teachers, SEN children, the environment, people's personal pensions, infrastructure... It's money we will need in the future

I'm not in the UK, and we have a pretty generous system where I am, but this is genuinely shocking to me.

But you did have the option. I don't understand! You say you went back to work to make sure you kept a job, you could have chosen not to keep the job. That is the choice people make when they choose not to return to work. You had exactly the same choice, you just chose differently

But it's frequently by people who choose not to work and/or people who choose to have children on uc whilst not working. I know of several people who fit into this category.
Fwiw, I raised my child as a single parent and worked for everything we needed ( initially in low paid work).
If people choose to have children, there is an associated financial responsibility

It's actually not quite that simple, but if it makes you feel better.
How about if we stopped subsidising MPs so much........😁

Not frequently, occasionally.

74,000 women are sacked every year when their employer finds out they are pregnant (a 37% increase from 54,000 in 2016), so lets stop it with the 'benefits are a lifestyle choice' baloney.

https://pregnantthenscrewed.com/74000-women-a-year-lose-their-jobs-for-getting-pregnant-or-for-taking-maternity-leave/

Why? It was a political decision made by a right wing government under which unemployment was out of control. It wasn't kindness or generosity or altruism. It was hard nosed politics. They also encouraged people to remain on what was then incapacity benefit for the same reason. 3 million unemployed was already a bad look, they didn't need to add hundreds of thousands more to it.

Governments now just have different ways of fiddling the unemployment figures and demonising claimants. The only thing that remains the same is the willingness of the average person to go along with it.

I got made redundant on mat leave and you know what I did? Went and got another job ..

If they’re eligible for UC they can get 85% of fees back, this does also mean they have to be earning little enough to be eligible. I believe the 20% is through HMRC they have to earn above a certain amount each has criteria nobody can claim both x