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.

So why is it ‘best’ for children of the unemployed or very rich to stay home, but those of middle earners have to go to nursery?

Time is a luxury. Many working parents are 'scraping by' financially, and also seeing their children for snippets of time. I see tons of buggies go past my home around 6pm. Those parents will have raced home from work, do pickup, food, bath and then it will likely be their child's bedtime.

Frankly people are naive if they don't believe that their is a proportion of society who don't use benefits as a lifestyle choice...

I have a mortgage and a career now, so I’m trapped into it. But if I was just leaving school I’d be struggling to see the point of striving for a career. Which, presumably, is why so many thousands of young people are NEET nowadays.

It’s a luxury only afforded to the very rich or very poor. It’s just not fair. I hope changes are coming.

If I was paying £600 pcm into my pension I’d be paying what - 20% of course that wasn’t happening!

What do you mean if I got sick? How does being employed help with childcare when you’re ill?

'Trapped' that is an interesting word to use about your situation 🤔.

Yes. I went part time too after DD1 30 plus years ago and earned what you are! So you aren’t that well paid! My take home was £1600 with £800 for childcare back then. However you make the decision to keep working because you will keep your foot in the door! I didn’t work at all after DD2 because of hours required and DH was running a decent sized company. I did miss it but life is a series of choices and opportunities.

Dsis went on UC and has next to nothing. She gave up a great job with nhs but didn’t want go back at all and preferred having little money! Many women prefer to keep going and keep the career going.

The thing I don’t understand is the free holiday clubs for people on UC. A colleague works 3 days a week but gets free clubs all week for her 3 kids. Meanwhile I’m paying £70 a day for my two like a fool! I understand getting some help for the days you need (but not free) but free childcare on your days off is a joke.I’m

Oh who has time to care? Mind your own business! Benefits for parents (effectively almost always mothers) have always been used as a political football. The age of your child where you need to go back to work used to be high when it suited, to make unemployment figures look better. Now we're in the age of social security as punitive and moralising, it's low so that governments can look like they're being tough on those who have been rebranded as scroungers.

Look at the employment market right now and tell us it's a good idea for parents of babies and toddlers to enter the fray. It would make things even worse.

It’s not rest bite, it’s respite.

Again the state picks up the bill for a useless man.

If you were the only parent earning £1500 and paying £800 for childcare then you were also eligible for UC.

If you weren’t the only parent then your point is moot really because if you had 2 unemployed parents then one of them would have to work/meet the work requirements in order to claim UC, so they’re just in the same position you are except with a partner who brings in less money meaning as a household they are entitled to UC.

I’m not a high earner - I think my salary was £35k - but it’s not “low” it’s around the average FT salary and I was PT. The fact it’s an average salary and yet the net gain of me returning to work was so low only further illustrates my point. This is the choice the average person is faced with.

"Trapped" with a career and a mortgage so you can't have a life on benefits.

Thoughts and prayers for you.

Sadly those attribute aren’t present in everyone.

Because it doesn’t make economic sense to pay for someone’s childcare while they are working if all they are earning is a very low wage. Essentially it may work out more expensive for the taxpayer to support someone working than someone at home with their child.

It’s incredibly difficult for some single parents to find a job round preschool hours once they’ve been out of work for 3 years, and yet many of them will be expected to intensively job search, so don’t get too jealous.

Do you really think that people on UC live a life of luxury?

I assume most parents choose to work to have more money coming in anyway so it is hardly like everyone is rushing to sign up to UC as soon as they have kids.

Also you need to remember to look at the bigger picture: if we had more flexible workplaces and more affordable childcare then it would make it possible for more women to combine work and childcare.

But I guess as usual a black and white benefit bashing thread is so much easier to start...

Same with the disability benefits bashing threads: where are all these flexible jobs that disabled people are supposed to take? where are the flexible jobs that single mums on UC are supposed to take on? because frankly they don't really exist...

The employment market is bad right now for everyone and UK employers still resist home working, part time working and job-sharing which excludes many groups from the workplace.

Btw, it always works out better for the claimant if they are working. So if they go out to work and earn £800 a month, they don’t get as much as £800 reduced off their benefits. You’re always better off working. This is a fairly well known fact. So yes it’s always in the claimant’s interests to work, but it may not be in the taxpayer’s interests, if they have high childcare costs.

@Summerartwitch please point me to the part where I’ve said it’s luxurious for UC claimants.

Please also let me know how luxurious you think my earnings were…

No, someone on UC is getting nowhere near £1500 a month. And if they're a single parent it's fucking hard. You seem to think that they've got a cushty con going but they really dont

Thanks, I didn't think it looked right but that is what spell check suggested 😂

But what actually is your point then?

If you were a single parent with your earnings & childcare then you would have been entitled to UC too, so they haven’t “got one over on you”.

The only reason you weren’t entitled is because you had a partner who was earning above the threshold, so you still had more money than they did. What exactly is it that you’re bothered about here?

After childcare, student loans and mortgage, we have very little left over. We also barely saw our kids, so have both gone part-time for very little financial loss. My husband is a GP and I’m a dentist - do you think it’s great for society that so many NHS dentists are going part-time? Nobody in my practice works full-time.

So thanks for the thoughts and prayers. Maybe spent some of those thoughts on how economically ineffective our benefits and tax structures are instead.

Please also direct me to where I’ve said it’s “cushty” my point is and was, that they’re not expected to work with young children, whereas women with a job, in employment can’t make that same choice.

People on UC often work weekends and nights where there’s no childcare available but now that childcare funding starts at 9 months, I wonder if they will lower it ?

I'm a boomer who everyone thinks is so lucky,my paid maternity leave on the 197Os early 80s was 6 weeks after the birth.