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.

Yes. We've paid for our own children. I found the question surprising - loads of people don't receive anything.

Yeah - I think you have missed something.

I worked as a staff nurse for £32k a year - no coasting involved, thanks.

We have 3 kids. At no point have we been entitled to benefits to make up household income to £100k - what a load of codswallop.

If you want to spout off and FROTH properly - at least put some facts into your posts.

100% agreed. For all of those saying “where is the dad” and “oh she’s on a salary that needs topping up” there are other single mums who work and have every support taken away and are meant to suck it up as they are “rich”

It’s not defensible

You completely misread that and now spreading misinformation! This is what the article says: "In a good month when UC gives full entitlement, Thea has a total of £6,142.00, from £2,800 in take-home pay and £3,342 in universal credit plus child benefit. Her monthly expenses such as childcare, rent, council tax, energy and food etc are usually around £6000. She says: "So it’s living very much on the edge."

Why can’t she reduce her living costs

Universal Credit includes a housing element (ie payment for rent) it probably included rent. However the spend on benefits is completely unsustainable and it's just not possible to continue it.

How is OP spreading misinformation?

"It breaks my heart that my six- and three-year-olds have only ever been on one holiday—a trip their nan generously paid for—because we just can't afford it. "

FFS. Is that their priority?? Grrrr.

Am I right in thinking that even if the Dad DOES pay maintenance, that this doesn't get taken into account?

I understand why it is disregarded, because so many dads are unreliable, but it does mean that some people can receive a fair whack and still plead poverty to the state. And I guess if I were in that position I might do the same.

This is how I feel too.
I want to see the money to public services and directly to the children through free school meals and holiday clubs

Not to give someone a net income higher than that of someone deemed so wealthy they get rounded on on Mumsnet if they say they are struggling

Higher rate 40% tax starts at 50K (that's about a £3000/month next income)! Child benefits starts getting withdrawn at 60k. Fully withdrawn at 80k. 30 free hours childcare goes at 100k.

This is a grotesque distortion.

And I am very much (or rather, was) a solid Labour voter.

Before deductions it’s currently about £300 per child per month. Earnings will lower this amount. It’s unlikely someone earning that much will get full if any help except perhaps on a high rent.

Ive found UC generally tops out at around £24k per year (combined wage and UC) so its unlikely people will get much more than this between work and UC even for more children (housing not included as this goes to landlords). It certainly isn’t going go to be as much as many posts are stating.

See one of the examples (3 DC in 1 bed flat) has been getting herself in the papers for a number of years.

Always as a “single mum” but with an increasing number of children each time.
First articles are back in 2021 when she was a “single mum to one”.

She’s also had her benefits docked for being out of the country for an extended period (with work although her family are there) which she wrote another article about.

Fair that she works, however the disparity caused between the benefits she receives and the cliff edge others face is deeply unfair.

Maybe the dad’s on a similar salary and pays her £800 a month, giving her an equivalent salary of 150k?

She can hardly ask her landlord / housing association to lower her rent and her childcare to cut their fees.

Lower paid people do need to live in a London, we do need the shops staffed, streets cleaned and bins empited, admininstrators, health care assistants etc. Force them out of London because they're getting "too many" benefits and it will collapse.

Agree with the points you’ve raised but I also thought there was an overall cap which prevented benefits going too high? Presumably it’s higher than what this woman receives.

Or, you know, not have a 5th child when she can’t afford the ones she already has?

She's had 3 kids with a Brazilian man who lives in Brazil. No way should the rest of us be spending so much topping that up! Not an ounce of personal responsibility and she's got more money coming in that we have, and we're a high income household!

Because 1 child on full time childcare in London costs over 2k per month, it seems like she has 3 kids (given the picture, at least 2 look like nursery age, 1 maybe primary school age). So around 4k if we only consider 2 kids at nursery.

Noone is disputing that.
The net income from 100k cannot in the same city on the same day be treated as both unimaginable wealth for hammering hard with taxes and the bare minimum needed to lift you out of poverty

It's one or the other. It cannot be both at once

And she chose to have those children, no?

👏

Have you looked at the ‘low income scheme’ for help with dental costs? It isn’t well advertised, but IF you’re one of the lucky few to have an NHS dentist, this can help.

Absolutely.

Where are the men, the father(s) of children?

CMS needs an overhaul and always has. Men get to walk away with very little, if any financial responsibility for their children.

My ExDH decided ‘family life is not for me’ and moved on. His CMS, as a professional, full time working male, wasn't even enough to pay DC’s school dinners per month. He was allowed to offset money for his new partners child, who lived with them 50/50, a child with two working parents of his own. The offset money for this one child was more than CMS for his own two.

Payments were never made, debts agreed to be paid off at £1 per week.

At one point CMS staff couldn't contact him to arrange a conversation about increasing the £1 a week. She called me and apologised for the time taken and the fact that he really couldn't afford more than £1.
I said, ‘you wouldn't have been able to contact him, he is away in St. Moritz, skiing for three weeks!’. ( all while the tax payer is paying for his children).

Good job I worked full time, good job I didn't opt out of family life. Even at the time, I was enraged that the tax payer paid for childcare and he didn't have to.
We were so much better off financially, apart than together.

Huge financial implications on men might just slow down their procreation.

So as a ‘single’ mum, she’s chosen to go on and have more kids, expecting taxpayers (many of whom can’t afford the luxury of 3 kids) to bankroll it? She seems to enjoy thrusting herself and kids into the media too. I have a feeling this could backfire pretty badly for her

Yeah, and nobody chose crippling nursery fees while the majority of western countries have subsidies childcare that cost almost nothing and that everyone can afford.