Fed up of my cousins comments about benefits and UC

[glassor2]

I’m a single mum of two kids, ages 13 and 5. My older son has a relationship with his dad, but my younger son’s dad moved away a couple of years ago and doesn’t see him often-usually once or twice a year. He doesn’t provide any financial support, and since he moves around for work (he used to live in Canada and now lives in Australia), it has been challenging to get child maintenance to chase him.

I work 3-4 days a week (sometimes more if there’s overtime available) and receive a top up from UC. My mum occasionally helps with child care, but she also has a full time job. It can be difficult handling everything on my own, but I manage.

Anyway, I have a family member I'm quite close to, and she often makes comments, not aimed at me, but towards people who claim UC. For example, she mentioned that it's unfair for her to pay almost £300 a month in tax while others can work part time and avoid paying anything (I don’t earn enough to pay tax) and that she has to pay more to subsidise the people that don't. She even told the entire family that she pays almost £400 a month, including national insurance, which made things awkward and nobody knew what to say.

From what I know, she doesn't earn a huge wage, so I can see why it would be frustrating for her to have to pay that much. It's a lot of money. However, it's not our fault, and if she's upset, her anger should be directed at the government, not at those who are rightfully claiming.

Everyone’s situation is different, and some people need help. I never chose to be a single parent, and I can't control the fact that my ex chose to leave and decided not to support his child financially. I'm doing my best, just like many others on UC are.

I don't think she's intentionally trying to upset me, but she is.

AIBU? How do I tackle this?

Crikey, some right gits on this thread! 😂

DP and I are each net contributors yet not as riled up about the welfare system as your cousin, OP. Is she also pissed off about, say, massive corporate tax avoidance, private equity loading up the care home sector with debt, and high net worth families dodging inheritance tax? She sounds a right laugh!!

Theres Nothing like benefits and taxes to divide people. Of course there are those that exploit the system at both ends. Often people on benefits feel that high earners should pay even more and high earners think that those on benefits should do more to get themselves out of the situation.
My experience is often those that need the benefits the most aren’t actually getting them because the system is too complicated for them. Then there are the ones who know the system inside out to get the most out of it.
we are in a fortunate position where my husband and I have had good jobs and my husband especially has taken financial risks to invest in businesses he’s worked in and put a huge amount of hours in and now reaps the rewards. It is galling to see the amount of tax he pays and hear people shouting for high earners to pay more. This literally popped up on my husbands phone as I was typing this post and it’s food for thought that we pay the highest tax out of all these countries.

It's so true everyone wants a top job but let me be frank they wouldn't want the hours. I've worked from 5 am to 9/10 pm every day for 34:years. I'm a CEO.
I had family child care and a husband who worked very early but could do pick up. You never know when bad news strikes. I was diagnosed with a life limiting illness in January and I've not been in paid employment for over a year. I
had no idea what I could claim although
I had paid six figures in tax each year. I was actually lied to and it has ment we now have to move home. Benefits are there as a safety net. I will be paying a huge amount of tax when my shares are sold shortly but in the mean time I need a little bit of help and I never judge anyone else who needs that.
Fwiw my trainee medic DD has been doing a cleaning job as it was the only thing offered.
OP is no doubt trying her best.

I'd just shrug and say 'well, I'm glad that we live in a country where there's a safety net for people when they need it.' and change the subject.

Possibly to how unfair it is the way the mega rich dodge their taxes on a regular basis on a grand scale.

You are working hard, you work 3 to 4 days a week, and when you are not in paid work you are parenting. Tons of people get benefits of some type, no need for you to share any information with anyone.

Lots of people get extremely high salaries so pay more tax, but many are working no harder than people on lower paid jobs, life's not fair. I don't have a problem paying tax. I do have an issue with fathers not fulfilling their responsibilities, and tax dodgers, especially rich people and big businesses finding tax loopholes to avoid contributing to society.

Ignore the haters.

"Choosing" to work part-time is subjective though as, for many, it's not a choice and is instead down to various barriers.

Also, Universal Credit has a minimum income floor. Unless you have good reason, you must earn this minimum or you'll be expected to take steps to increase your hours/wage (and will face sanctions if you don't).

It's so interesting that you bemoan incentives to avoid paying at one end of the scale (inheritance tax dodging) but not the other – in this case, chilling out at home on UC half the week while your child is at school and everyone else is out at work

Did you not have insurance?

editing as that sounded callous. It’s just I pay a lot for income insurance in case of illness and I’m always worried I’m just wasting my money,

Fucking hell, the OP isn't "choosing" to work part time tho is she?! She's already explained her situation, unbelievable amount of judgement on here and nobody actually giving her advice!

RE your cousin, I think you need to point out to her you also get UC when she brings it up and gently remind her she doesn't know everyone's background story. The world is not black and white...

I don’t have a university education or any qualifications beyond good GCSEs and bad A-levels. I got my high paid job by working my way up the ladder, applying for opportunities that I saw and learning anything and everything I could from free sources or by asking people at work to let me sit in and watch them. I started as a telemarketing operator calling 300 people a night to ask if they wanted a catalogue. Then I applied for supervisor > Team leader > Team manager > Specialist department manager > call centre manager…… and I’ll just keep going until I can’t go anymore. Currently in a Snr Director role and looking at progression to Exec/c-suite within the next 2 years. It’s not immediate but you can vastly improve your finances within a 3-5 years period without needing to qualify in anything or know anyone influential.

@boldbear apparently not income insurance but I did have some sick pay. Basic stat. I'm not the founder of the company and I'm classed as a contractor l have life insurance through my husband's employment.

So if you're not in a position to do anything about it then I dont know what advice you need.

@PixiePuffBall “ if you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all” ~ Thumper (Bambi)

I’m a single parent and don’t claim any benefits. I have a full time, well paying job. I hate this notion that single parents are always poor. Why can’t you work full time?

@Mushroodont devalue the contribution of someone who pays tax but is not a net contributor. None net contributors pay a massive amount of tax between them. The cousin is paying her fair share. Just because you earn more money doesn’t make your views and more important than hers. OP I’m sure as soon as you are in a position to find an employer who can give you full time hours you will. For now you’re bringing up two kids on your own and trying to strike this balance.

That is amazing. Quite commendable, actually; but we don't know that OP's job offers such opportunities.

If your night job required being in office - that's another avenue not open to the OP, as childcare is not available at night and she's not allowed to leave the children unsupervised.

There are many variables that can render opportunities limited.

I have also worked full time all the way through, with a husband in the military who was away a lot of the time. I am definitely a net contributor.

I admit that I struggle with our benefits system. On one hand, I don't want anyone to be on the bones of their arse. On the other hand, it seems that our entire system is stacked so that it isn't worth it for a lot of people to work full time. It also means that employers can get away with paying shit wages because they are topped up by the state in credits. I can understand those who are just outside of thresholds starting to feel pissed off with this.

Pretty sure even some full time workers still get some kind of a UC top up to boost their income if they have kids and childcare to pay in order for them to continue to work. My job is classed as part time despite working a 6 day week on one week out of every 4(my 4 weekly rota consists of a 5day week a 6day week and two 3day weeks). If I could work more hours I would but I'm a single parent to 3 school aged kids. I don't "choose" to only work part time purposely to get any benefits I work what I can around my family commitments.

I bet according to some people, part time jobs are meant to be for anyone but mums of dependant children. Eg young people who need a job around their studies. Or someone who has retired from their career job and now just fancies a “little part time job.”
Part time jobs are seen as either something you do for leisure and some pocket money or something you fit in around other important commitments. Apart from if those commitments are your children. 🤦🏼‍♀️

🤔

It's absolutely not acceptable that minimum wage jobs should need to be topped up by benefits.

Ideally, minimum wage jobs would pay enough for families to enjoy a reasonable (not even decent) quality of life.
It would also make sense that wages kept up with the ridiculous increases in rent, the cost of living crisis and all the associated costs that are spiralling out of control.

If we could fix those - there would be no need for working people to rely on benefit top ups.

Tell her she’s entitled to her opinions but if she wants to remain a part of your life then for obvious reasons she needs to have this conversation with somebody who isn’t claiming universal credit.
It comes across to me like she’s trying to insult you, I have opinions on benefits and I also have a close friend who claims benefits. I wouldn’t therefore sit in her front room and slag of people for claiming benefits, because it’s rude and hurtful and she probably wouldn’t want to be friends with me afterwards.

You do realise that not everyone can do that though?

In my Band 1 NHS role, I saw a few colleagues go up the ranks, and come back down again as the pressure was not worth the tiny pay rise.

They are very possibly unsustainable, but why do you say they’re out of control? It’s widely documented that the average benefits recipient gets barely enough to pay their living costs (often not even that).

Up to 85% if I'm not mistaken.