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?

And how is that relevant to the point I was responding to?

OP your not going to get the answers you want here. Just try and ignore other people's opinions as long as you're not claiming anything you're not entitled to and are able to manage financially it's nobody's business. As a mother i've worked full-time, part-time been a SAHM and a full time carer for my MIL for a short while I claimed if I needed to. I don't feel any shame in that.

I've agreed with you up and down this thread, however... It's actually around a 66k job that makes you a net contributor. It's 17k a year in taxes which is the threshold to be a contributor, apparently! That's per person in the household, as well... Which I believe includes children.

So a single parent with two kids on 66k is probably not a net contributor, because they aren't paying enough taxes to cover both themselves and their children.

Although indirect taxes such as council tax, VAT etc probably pushes them up to break even, or be contributing a tidge bit extra.

So the OPs cousin actually pays a quarter of the tax that an actual net contributor does.

Bit shocking considering the average full time wage is 37k-ish

Because if you’re a single parent you are in a tough financial situation so ought to work full time to help pay for it. You can’t just expect the taxpayer to pick up the tab for a single parent taking the luxury of part time work. Single parents are undoubtedly in a tough situation but tax payer isn’t your partner and shouldn’t have to fund you to work part time. Every single parent I know recognises this and works full time.

You do realise that an "unemployed single mum" is benefit capped( I've been there so I do know). Their capped UC entitlement includes their housing element which they have to pay their rent with so let's break it down some based on my previous circumstances:
Capped UC for myself and 5 kids I received less than £1300 per month and out of that I had to pay £650 rent aswell as council tax(even unemployed have to pay some council tax).I was left with less than £600 per month to pay bills and feed a family of 6 so I don't know where you think someone on benefits is rolling in a load of disposable income unless you honestly believe that all these parents are starving their kids and leaving them homeless

No subsidised childcare/childcare vouchers?
Never received any Child benefit?
No statutory maternity pay?
No Subsidised preschool funding?
And if you became a single parent or one of you couldn’t work due to ill health or job loss - no help required from the government at all, you can cope on one wage?

The childcare funding that exists now, didn’t exist when I had my dc but I don’t begrudge those that get it now nor funding with my taxes. Honestly, all I read from the OP is someone who would prefer to fund herself and pay taxes if she could and once she can fund herself she will. I have a dd in college who has been trying to get a weekend job for 2 years, applied for hundreds doesn’t hear a thing, desperately trying to start funding herself and can’t This idea that everyone can magically get the job they need at the pay they need when they need it is really naive. Of course you’ll always get people that can and do exploit the system but I don’t believe that’s the majority, most would prefer the dignity of being able to be self sufficient. I’m also not naive enough to think that if the government stopped paying for UC etc my taxes would go down and I’d have more disposable income,

i feel thankful that I’ve been lucky enough to get a well paid job, have two wages coming in and not need to lean on the government and I hope our health stays that way to keep it that way but if it doesn’t, I‘d hope I would get some support if I needed it without somebody bitterly asking me why they should have to fund it with their taxes.

I wish people could walk a mile in someone else’s shoes first before applying these blanket judgements.

Because the Govt don't actually provide childcare settings with the real cost of those hours. For example, it may in fact cost £12 an hour to care for one child, but the Govt only provides that childcare setting £7. This means the setting is running on a massive deficit and must recoup costs via "topups" or massive fees from everyone who is not eligible for "free hours". Remove the subsidy altogether and everyone has to pay, but the costs are spread more evenly and fairly across everybody

It doesn’t sound like they enjoy paying a lot of tax to keep people on UC

I'm not sure what that's got to do with anything I said? I'm going to assume you think I'm some high flying career woman who earns a fortune. Well, I'm an admin assistant in a dead end job.

Well I say thank you to them then for seemingly not planning retirement well.

The fact that so many men can just get away with fathering children and then upping and leaving and not even providing for them financially is a big factor here.

I do get frustrated at people who work part-time and expect UC to top up their earnings, BUT I can also see how this happens with single mothers and why people feel they have no choice but to do this. Stuck between a rock and a hard place I suppose.

Absolutely! Well said! The amount of people calling people on here for being on benefits who are plucking figures out of thin air and are showing they clearly don't understand how the benefit system works is astounding!

@ThatBoldBear sorry I seem to have answered the wrong person. You asked me if I had income insurance. I don't. I usually work on fixed term contracts and it's not possible to get cover. I did have it in the 2000s and it didn't pay out.

She also chose to have 2 kids by two men without a job that covers the cost of her children!

Benefits should only be for people that are si disabled that no form of work is possible and as a short term safety net of you lose your job.

There should be no option to choose to work part time and make up the money from other tax payers.

Yes of course, the government spends about 1 trillion pounds a year, on all of us. Some of us benefit more from that spending than others (and it changes throughout our lives)

I was pointing out the economic ‘case’ for funded childcare is quite different to a lot of other benefits because without it lots of people would leave the workforce. I’m not, FWIW making a judgement about the extent to which we should and shouldn’t support people who are out of work.

Maybe they didn’t plan well or maybe they enjoy working… who knows (only them)

Well we all ‘get something back’ for the tax that we pay (in the sense that it all gets spent on stuff we use) but it doesn’t go into a little savings pot with her name on it for when she retires. The amount of pension she gets will depend on government policy when she retires, not how much NI she pays now. Although the amount of state pension you get now (obviously the government can change this any time) is linked to years in work, if your income is sufficiently low (because you didn’t work enough) you just get pension credits anyway to top it up.

Excellent comment!

...sometimes to the detriment of their children, who spend from 7:30am until 6pm out of their home in the care of strangers 5 days a week. Starting as early as 9 months old.

It's the children who suffer when support is removed for parents. But I suppose the truth is that a lot of people don't mind that other people's children suffer, and think they shouldn't exist in the first place. Children are only for the wealthy.

Absolutely true. People need to understand it’s never free money, someone is paying …and those people paying are giving up and leaving the country in numbers never seen before.

Nope. There are no plans to include PIP in UC. PIP is a universal and non means tested benefit available to all disabled people regardless of income. The planned changes to PIP apply to how claimants are paid disability premiums on UC, not PIP itself.

Benefits should only be for people that are si disabled that no form of work is possible and as a short term safety net of you lose your job.

Tell me you know nothing about being disabled without telling me………………

The biggest change in COL is caused by unaffordable housing. If we didn't sell off our council houses and remove our rent caps we would have a fairer society with the chance to be socially mobile.
Council housing was developed to allow a home whist people had a enough spare money to save for private purchases. It was a badge of honour to hand back your keys because you had bought a house. That is virtually impossible today. Ex local authority houses are sold to BTL landlords and now they are being turned into HMO. TV programmes encourage it. When I did my masters the one thing that stuck with me is Maslows pyramid of needs and housing is the foundation of everything. Kids that are moved on every year as rentals are sold have no chance of living with any certainty in the same area (estate agents insist the tenants are given notice to make it easier to sell. You get two months to relocate your family) . In private rentals they can't even put a poster up. There is no certainty.
Every goverment says they will build new social housing, they never do. They've allowed this mess. Shelter and food is the keystone yet we allow multiple properties to lay empty.
If people had secure housing we would see a change in ambition and a marked difference in people's mental health. If your housing costs are under thirty percentage of your household income you have chance but that would be rare and impossible near to London.
Anyone keeping a roof over their head is doing OK.

OP says she works 3-4 days a week, sometimes more. I think she is ths type of person who will step up her hours when her kids get older.
I think reform of the benefit system is certainly needed. But I don't see the OP as undeserving, and I wouldn't want her children to suffer. Ideally the dad should be made to pay. But sadly men get away with everything.

When l worked in benefits l saw many cases where the absent parent would ‘lose’ their job where maintenance payments were taken from their wages. Many more were self employed and not declaring enough income to pay as they should. The benefits system isn’t designed to iron out these problems - admin costs would be sky high and children would lose out.