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?

You have shown your privilege there... "well paying job".

OP has not said what her job is, but she may not be able to do full time due to also taking care of her children.

Tell her to look at all the big companies not paying tax that her target is people like you who are doing the best they can..you at least pay tax such as VAT etc.. that they do not.

She wants advice on how to deal with her cousin's comments.

This! Who do all these right-wing haters think is subsidising their child benefit? Or the taxes they avoid by having enough spare cash to put in an ISA?

It is subjective, which is why designing a fair benefits system will never be met with universal approval. My litmus test is: If UC wasn't available for part timers, would you go to work ft or not? Some people definitely couldn't, many, many others would if the alternative was poverty. There is an element of personal responsibility and ethic that we all need to adhere to if we want our society to work properly. I'd rather people in genuine need received more financial support, rather than dilute it across so many.

Most Reform voters won't be net contributors anyway.

It benefits everyone that children are not brought up in poverty. OP's children will be paying tax to fund her obnoxious relations pension when they are older and a good life at home will help them study and achieve good qualifications and well paid work in years to come. None of us can tell when we will need some help from the state. Those who are being critical could well face redundancy, separation or divorce or ill health at some time and have to claim themselves. I have never claimed benefits myself but am pleased that the funding is there for those who need it.

Oh definitely!

I meant it that as she is making obnoxious ill-informed comments, OP could make one back!

You're subsidising multiple people? How much do you subsidise them each month? Have you ever done the maths to see how much your contribution actually goes to one person on benefits? It might be a penny for all you know?

Neither of you are wrong here

You have 2 children; and need support. It's right that you get it

Your cousin is on a low income job and is probably feeling the squeeze of inflation. They may have important things that they are going without or be building up debt. Talking about the tax they pay may be the way they are expressing this. The deductions on their pay slip may utterly demoralising particularly if their work is stressful or includes long hours. They may spend too much time on social media seeing carefully curated snapshots of other people's lives that just makes them feel worse about themselves

You suggest that she should be cross at the government rather than people on benefits
The problem is that we are in a serious financial state as a country; and there are limited resources. This means that lower paid adults without children don't receive much support; yet cost of living and inflation remains high.

Your cousin may be feeling quite vulnerable; but is struggling to express it?

Have you ever heard of the term 'barriers to employment'?

Not everyone is able to access full time employment for various reasons. Full time positions might not be available or might not fit around caring commitments for young children (e.g., nights).

I know where I live that two big barriers are lack of public transport and lack of childcare options. For example, buses here finish at 10pm which is pretty shit if your shift doesn't end until after that, after 5pm it's one bus an hour, on Sundays the buses don't start until 10am and they finish at 9pm, and they don't run at all on Bank Holidays. Childcare options consist of a private nursery for under 5s but it only has 50 spaces, the first school (ages 3 to 9) has wrap-around care from 7.30am to 5.30pm for a maximum of 30 children and can only be booked two weeks in advance so if you try to book and the spaces are gone - tough. There are childminders but not many and they only serve the first schools. Children here move to middle school at age 9. Neither of the middle schools has wrap-around care or after school clubs and none of the childminders will take middle school children as they're "too old". There are no holiday clubs and no holiday provision at any of the schools.

These things used to be available and a lot of them were managed or coordinated by the local children's centre, they would even get funding periodically to train people as childminders to help increase local provision (priority was given to unemployed people, especially single parents). Conservatives got rid of it all.

Point is not everyone has access to these clubs or can afford it. Being a single parent is really tough and maybe 5 days work would be far too much for her to give her son adequate care as she’s mentally drained, as you know we’re all different and have different bodiesz, minds and issues

I think what will rankle people is that if your youngest is 5 and at school, there’s no reason you can only work 3 days. You are in effect getting 2 child free days off at the expense of the tax payer and when some people are really struggling to make ends meet that’s a bit of a hard pill to swallow.

If she's paying £400 a month then she is unlikely to be contributing very much to benefits bill.
Next time she moans ask her if she has set up a HMRC app account and actually checked what her taxes are spent on.
NI also contributes to her state pension entitlement. Also suggest that she puts more into a workplace pension it will reduce her tax bill as it comes off before tax so doesn't cost as much.

I pay quite a bit in tax (Scotland we have higher rates and lower thresholds).
I don't resent majority on UC at all it's stuck in a loop. I do get annoyed on mums Facebook group pages where women are asking how to exploit loopholes/maximise so they don't have to work because they don't want other people "raising their children".

The UK's benefits system is totally unfair. She was just pointing this out and I agree with her. Don't take it personally though. When you're able get back into work and start contributing yourself. Surely you don't want to live on hand-outs forever....

OP IS WORKING

It's not really 'choosing' to work part time if her partner has fucked off and left - who is going to look after her children while she works full time?

Childcare often works out as more than what you earn if you aren't well paid.

Choose to? Some people don’t have a choice, you know that, right?

Yep.

OP works PT and looks after her kids, and gets UC. Or she works full time, and UC pays for her kid's childcare.
Both end up costing anyway.
I think it better kids are looked after by their parents.

According to these figures, if your cousin is paying 400 in tax and NI, then her contribution towards people on UC, including disability benefits, will be a staggering £2.20 per month. You could maybe offer to reimburse her your share of that which would be a fraction of a penny.

If anyone else is feeling disgruntled about UC claimants and would like me to work out their tax contribution towards 'subsidising their living costs' to make them feel a bit better about the situation, I would be happy to do so :)

This x 100000

People moan about tax but there are relatively few net contributors. Each child you have, for example, costs the taxpayer £8000 in schooling.

I say this as one of the net contributors too.

I pay £1600 a month in tax and I couldn’t give a fuck about people claiming UC if they’re entitled to it.
Personally, I think the main issue is ridiculously expensive housing. That’s what makes life so unaffordable for people.

ETA: and also the prohibitive cost of childcare!

Not everyone is interested in a career though?

mumsnet is just a horrible place when it comes to benefits. OP you can't

The welfare state is there to support women like the OP who needs a top up in order to pay her rent and her bills and in ORDER TO FEED HER CHILD. (so for the 72 year old poster up the thread - you live in this country and pay towards the welfare state for this reason - and its something to be proud of that we (in theory anyway) do look after our most vulnerable citizens in this way).

She can't just work full time because for most people the costs of childcare more than wipe out any increase in salary and then some. Plus as a single mum she's juggling all of the family stuff, parenting and everything else. And of course she'd need to find this magical job that enables her to stop claiming benefits, a place to rent that is affordable and childcare that doesn't cost the earth and exists for 52 weeks a year.

And yes, it is abhorrent that fathers don't pay, but that's not relevant here - he doesn't pay and the OP and her child need to afford to live.

Yeah we could all come up with excuses of being mentally drained. I'm fucking knackered but it counts for nothing