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?

I think people seem to deliberately choose to misunderstand tax.if you are able to and have provision for childcare.partnet etc .you should pay a proportionate amount. If you don't you need more help.unless it's suddenly become legal to leave kids alone! I would ignore and maybe limit time spent with her

It doesn’t matter whether these fathers pay for the children or not. If you are entitled to benefits it’s disregarded- personally I think that’s nuts in so many ways - it disincentives full time working if you are getting a fair whack of maintenance ( someone I know gets close on £1000) so does as little work as she can get away with and I think it creates resentment with others not in that position who work full time to end up with far less. I also think it incentivises ‘artificial splits’

No you're missing the point. The rent is due. How do you propse the landlord should get paid?

But even if they did pay child maintenance it would not affect the amount of UC that op gets because it isn't deducted from Uc at all.

Oh and this came in under the Tory’s because they couldn’t be arsed with the CMS system and costs - not labour. An example to me of their piss poor financial ‘thinking it through’

At 72 pretty sure the reason he’s still working is not to ‘keep people like the OP’ working part time. Sounds more like someone didn’t plan their pension very well. So on your way down from your condescending high horse, have a word with yourself. We know absolutely nothing about the OP’s situation and the judgement and dickheads on this post is outstanding. Before UC it was working tax credits and child tax credits. Did you have an issue with that as well?

It seems to escape so many people that lots of people who work full time are entitled to UC. Most people on UC are in work.

Do these high paying jobs require specific education, skills and experience or can the OP just rock up and claim one?

YANBU.
I see some of the usual benefit bashers are here, despite you asking about how to deal with the passive aggressiveness of your cousin, and not about benefits.

I am on UC, and am mostly surrounded by other people on UC too, or people who never bring it up. If they are judging me, then they are doing right to keep those thoughts in their head. I did used to have a friend who kept trying to bring it up (as a way to drag me down). He is no longer a friend.

As I see it, you have a few choices here. You could just carry on putting up with her comments, which wont do you any good.
You could try and change the subject every time... even if it is "hey! look, a squirrel!" or something daft to put her off her stride. She might get the hint eventually. Or just walk away and make a cuppa.
Or you could confront her and just have it out. Not in an argumentative way. Google DEAR MAN (it is a skill taught in Dialectical Behaviour Therapy). Use it to break it down to her how her passive aggressive comments is making you feel, and how you would like her to stop.

Your money and where it comes from is none of her business. You are making use of a system that is exactly for people in your situation.
Your cousin would do well to realise that she is not a net contributor anyway.

Which is why, as a nation, we should be working towards raising the aspirations of younger generations by tackling poverty, promoting access to quality education, and ensuring children have a range of opportunities open to them as reasonably unhindered as possible by financial or social circumstances. We could fund these things through taxes in order to form some kind of benefits system that would lift children out of poverty....

It used to be the case pre 2010 that maintenance payments were taken into account for benefits. In reality this often meant children went without if a paying parent suddenly stopped paying.

Maintenance isn't included in benefit calculations because it's not considered to be a reliable income. There are many men out there who will dick about with maintenance amounts at will and even the government knows that there's little that can be done to tackle them doing so (and a total lack of will to legislate against it).

I pay a lot of more than your cousin but I don't begrudge people for claiming UC - I am very thankful and grateful not being in that position. I would hate be on any income related benefits as you never what could happen.

So why not devise a system whereby the benefits are still paid to the resident parent and recuperated from the absent parents earnings ? Can't be that hard to administer !

I don't see how I can explain it to you any more clearly. You either have difficulty with reading comprehension or are being deliberately obtuse, I'm not engaging any further on the posts quoted. I said what I said and if you don't get it then that's on you.

Well I agree with her mainly

uc shouldn’t provide a lifestyle choice eg we all know people who work pt then top up. This should not be the case . If propld can afford to work pt great but if you need top ups then you should be working full time, there are also people who live on benefits fir decades, this should nt be allpwed

and of course in your case op your child’s dad should be paying maintenance - and this should be easier to get and collect even when a dad tries to duck the system

I agree it's ludicrous. I read once about somebody getting £4k a month maintenance but it was disregarded and she still claimed benefit. Utter madness.

Please don't take this personally. You are doing your best. Just tell your cousin that everyone has their own personal situation, that we are all doing our best to get buy, and there is no one size fits all. Keep repeating it till she gets the message. Like that you take ownership of your feelings and put boundaries in place.

Oh yeh I hear they’re giving away high paid jobs at the minute

I have worked both full time as a single parent and part time as a single parent. I worked full time at minimum wage, I paid tax but not a lot. During that time, claiming childcare for two children, I received more in ‘tax payers’ money, than I did part time due to the childcare costs.
Working part time, I still pay a little tax but not a lot, and I now don’t have to claim back any child costs.
So, working full time I put a tiny amount into the system but took out a lot more. Working part time, I put in a tiny amount and take out less.

I hope you're doing that because you enjoy your jobs and not because you made no provisions for retirement.

I wouldn't want to be working at 72, except I wanted to continue doing something or for a worthy cause.

OP I hope your circumstances change as your children get older and that you can either develop your job into a better paying one, or have the opportunity to get a better job.
I also hope that at some point some governments agree to a system whereby some bloke who dodges his parental responsibilities by going overseas can still get pursued to pay a legal requirement.

And right next door to the jobs, they're handing out easy access childcare that's open 24/7 and always has spaces. As for sacrifices, no one needs three meals a day or light and heating, walking is free so no need for a car or a travel pass, and water falls out of the sky when it rains so why pay for utilities?

Agree with this. Im lucky and enjoy my quality of life, good luck & prosperity to those who need a helping hand 🤷‍♀️

You haven't explained anything.