That a single parent having her salary topped up to over £6k shows how unaffordable family life now is

[Tryingtryingandtrying]

I was reading about a woman, take home pay if £2800 and topped up by UC to over 6k. This must be £100k or thereabouts equivalent before tax. How can this be fair when earning that much actually loses you child benefit and free childcare? As she has 3 kids she will now be even more better off, not sure what the answer is though.

But sees them every weekend according to a post made on an American's living in the UK forum. Which presumes that he is in fact also living in London.

To be clear I have zero issue with taking children out of poverty and paying more tax to do so. The lack of affordable housing is driving up benefit cost to the state and that is not a quick fix.

For labour to really change the way things work in this country is a massive job, not just the principles of how it should work but the implementation of it, the computer systems and the rest.

But I am still flabbergasted at the level of state assistance being given to an American citizen with three children and a full time job because of the absence of state housing, state childcare and an apparent complete unwillingness to ensure that a separated fathers income is properly taken into account, deducted at source and included into the overall assessment pot.

Perhaps I was wrong on that front then. Not that I think it makes much difference. She isn't a lifelong Londoner who has fallen on hard times, or an essential worker and we shouldn't be paying for it.

@TreadSoftlyOnMyDreams totally agree with all your post - that needs looking at -

Well very little has changed since Labour came in - the Tory’s brought in the ‘keeping maintanance’ and only limited the child cap in very last few years , so neither made work pay , actually Labour did under Blair with working tax credits -not sure Reform would either when push comes to shove, plenty who vote for them and still have kids actually are benefit recipients themselves, they just like the fact he isa xenophobe , as are they and ignore the bits of policy they don’t much like

@Crikeyalmightyi despise Reform and Farage. I just assumed that Labour would make good on their manifesto of being a party for the working people (which Reeves banged on about twenty times in her speech yesterday) they are a party for the welfare state and the very wealthy! In this budget they have done nothing to help middle earners or small businesses, which will pay for their pledge of ‘raising the living wage.’ Their policies will mean companies will let more people go and take on less staff! Just like pushing small landlords out of the rental market… they will sell up and then there will be less rental properties and higher rents! They only took the two child benefit cap off to appease back benchers (they’d get nothing through otherwise) I wanted a coherent, organised and professional Labour government…. What we got was the opposite! For all the times they keep harping on about 14 years of Tory rule, they also had 14 years to get their shit together and what a sorry bunch they’ve turned out to be! I guess I’ll go back to voting Lib Dem’s!

What? The people on benefits are telling people who are paying marginal rates of tax over 60% to get a better job so we can afford to pay for their kids on benefits and then if we earn enough we might be able to pay for our own kids?

Thats genius. Apparently we arent working hard enough to pay for the people on benefits to have children. Wonderful.

Who do you think pays for the childcare?

Did a bit of research and came across the following. It's too soon to judge the success of it according to AI but I'd love anecdotal feedback from anyone living in France.

Prior to 2021, the French system for recovering child support payments was relatively unsuccessful, with estimates suggesting that 30% to 40% of payments were unpaid.
In response, the French government launched a new service in January 2021 to automatically recover payments.
Reasons for past issues

• Before the 2021 reform, the primary recourse for unpaid child support was often court action, which could be slow and costly.
• Data from 2023 indicates that France has a lower rate of child support receipt compared to other European countries.
• While criminal penalties for "family abandonment" exist for non-payment, they didn't fully resolve the issue.

Improvements since 2021

• Direct payments: The new service, implemented by the Caisse d'Allocations Familiales (CAF), allows a parent to submit a claim directly to the family allowance fund without needing a judge or bailiff.
• Government intervention: The CAF can now take payments directly from the non-paying parent's bank account.
• Advance payments: The government will advance support payments and then claim the money from the non-paying parent, providing more immediate financial relief to families

What happens if you don't pay child support in France? Criminal penalties. Non-payment of maintenance for more than two months constitutes the offence of family abandonment, punishable under article 227-3 of the French Penal Code. This offence is punishable by 2 years' imprisonment and a €15,000 fine.

While the same measures are in place, prison risk is 6 weeks in the UK and I doubt anyone has ever been sent to prison here for not paying CMS. Labour Government could do us all a favour and give the CMS a speedier way of enforcing liability orders.

It so funny that when £100k earners complain about not being able to access funded hours we are told how disgraceful we are. Even tho the tax paid by an earner at that level will far out way the cost of childcare.
But in this scenario, it’s fine because the childcare funding allows this UC claimant to go to work.
The 100k earning once paying their own childcare and their own housing costs will be far worse off. But that’s somehow okay….🤯

But…. many of the people claiming UC, have been moved across from tax credits/ would have been on tax credits under the old system 🫠… The difference between UC and WTC is semantic.

It’s not necessarily comparable lifestyle wise though for the single parent I. London. She and her 3 kids apparently live in a 1 bed flat.

Well so would lots of us if we tried to live in central London with 3 kids. She's American and is apparently an educated professional. Her lifestyle is a choice she has made.

This makes me believe she is 'that person'. The one who makes terrible choices - jobs, partners, homes etc. And then bizarrely, stubbornly sticks with them long, loooong after most men or women would have upped sticks and found something/someone/anything better.

She could move further out of London and get a 2-bedroom place (or even 3-bedroom place) for a similar rent. She apparently lives above a shop for goodness sake. Yet she doesn't.

She might be able to move back to the US, or emigrate to Brazil with her partner, and get her/his family to help with childcare. Yet she doesn't.

Perhaps her Brazilian partner could get a better paid job and contribute more. And if he doesn't, well what use is he as a Dad or a partner? Set the CMS on him. But she hasn't demanded this.

But no. It's all the UK's responsibility to make up the shortfall. And other people must make painful changes to ensure she doesn't have to.

Exactly! It makes no sense!

(I say that as someone whose children are too old to need childcare so it doesn't affect me personally)

Why are we heavily taxing A who has 3 children and earns £105k and telling them they should be grateful to be such a "high earner" while insisting B down the street who also has 3 children apparently needs the exactly the same net income just to "lift them out of poverty".

Its so illogical and unjust and demotivating

Yes I do agree but think it was easier to get WTC, even we did for a bit ( self employed) and not on a terrible income either -I can’t remember full details if I’m honest going back 15 years

I don’t disagree with that and I’m a Lib Dem voter with a small business but I do think labour are caught between a rock and a hard place at a time of falling revenues, half the party are middle ground and realistic, the other half are away with the fairies and think everyone working class is poor and struggling through lack of opportunities and no chancers /lazy gits whatsoever out there and money grows on trees to make life a bit nicer - personally I would have been delighted if she came out and said we are joining the EEA- no ifs and no buts , so that’s roughly 4 to 6% on GDP immediately and did absolutely nothing else.would probably increase my turnover £50k within 6 months but that’s just me !! my son has lots of friends in parliament and the general feeling /problem is the EU wouldn’t go for it without a lot of pay in/conditions due to threat of Farage coming in and tearing it all up at significant cost to member country’s and you can’t blame them -. The other problem is they are worried about a middle income and higher income brain drain and they need that tax take. Im not sure what specific measures you can do to appease the middle if I’m honest because it covers a lot of people from this with no savings to those with lots , also people with kids to those with none , owners/renters- it’s hard to appease everyone on an individual level , although I would increase the 40% tax level up to £60k if finances were in better shape and possibly get rid of corporation tax altogether on profits under£75k -but again the problem is the big fiscal drag we have due to Brexit - I guess if people don’t deal with import/export/mail order they don’t see this aspect but it’s taken 3 extra people at our parent company dealing with red tape and customs stuff and that’s just dealing with overseas distributors but even then it killed a lot of more profitable mail order ( DtoC) because people are being charged admin fees on doorsteps within EU, even for smallish items - I also would allow income of any level to access funded child care hours - I actually think that’s nuts on people paying the highest tax of all - and I would bring back child benefit at all income levels -

I would also bring in shared ownership on the open market - Tony Blair had DIYSO - was a great scheme but they were inundated and it was somewhat short lived- we bought our first flat when son was born in Crouch End using it -late 90s

@purpleflowergirl out of interest what would you like them to do ? bearing in mind they haven’t got limitless coffers.

So what is the solution? Evidently the 2 child cap wasn't working as intended, people still had kids they couldn't afford without help.

So what now? Unless the gov are prepared to go down some dystopian route of insisting....I don't know...any woman clamming UC must be on some kind of long term contraceptives I can't see how anyone is going to stop people from having kids?!

Bur then the argument obv was of it wasn't working and they would have kids anyway don't punish the kids and lift the cap.

Bur now we're in the situation where allegedly everyone woman on UC left right and centre is apparently going to start having more kids 🤔🤷

I feel like in general the amount of people who will actually benefit from this uplift is absolutely no where near the number that the media is helpfully strirring up hatred of. They cherry pick the most extreme examples and present them as "this is what everyone on benefits is like" and like it's the norm.

Also confusingly wasn't there news not just a few months ago that fertility rates were the lowest they've been and that we are no where near the level of reproduction needed to actually keep things as they are. So either we are having too many kids or not enough? It can't be both? Unless deep down what people mean is that in their opinion the "wrong" people are having kids (which drifts far too close to eugenics for my liking)

I just want parity.
If the bare minimum to live in London with 3 kids is 6k net then we need to revisit taxation and benefit thresholds

Idk the first is ‘selfish’ apparently.

@thewintergarden it isn’t though , it depends on so many things- whether you work , rent( HA, council or private) /own/own outright - to be honest in that persons case, could be tempted to say as a non Brit with a non essential job, not here as a pre Brexit situation as non EU , I wouldn’t in her case allow payment for childcare - nor anyone in that situation - is she dual citizen?

To me the issue is that someone on £85k living in London, single, renting a small flat, working full time, three children, must also be living in poverty, as this Mum needs extra money to what she is already getting. And now she will get it as 2 child cap has been lifted. The single mum on £85k will pay more tax to enable this to happen. I don't know what the answer is, but this situation is clearly not fair at all.

Exactly!!!

What we need is more universal provisions. Universal funded, centralized childcare including wrap around. Subsidised, cheap public transport. Free school meals of a good standard for all kids. (And more social housing, but that will take a very long time). Level the playing field, a good foundation for every family to support themselves and less money handed to some individuals.