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.

Err, £2k is not 60% of £6k

do you not pay tax or NI as you seem to have no understanding of how it works?

Do you even pay tax? Because if you did, you’d know that take home pay is significantly below your salary if you’re a higher earner.

To take home £72k per year, your salary needs to be £110k or so.

Universal Credit: the government’s landlord subsidy.

What you did 'wrong' was to buy a property. And have savings or investments. The same thing will happen in old age.

Go to 'entitled to' plug in your details -but instead or mortgage, use rent in your area. Also for the question on savings, make sure under 6k. If you play around with the figures you can see max amount you can get.

Also, with the UC, check out what happens if DP works 16 hours per week at min wage. Do you receive more UC?

Exactly. And that's before we remember that a lot of young professional parents now will be paying a decent chunk in student loan repayments too

£2800 take home is a £45k job, with a 5% pension deduction. Thea presumably has a fairly decent job, by the metrics of anywhere but MN. Imagine working hard to become a progressed social worker, an experienced teacher or a Band 7 nurse just to live crammed in a one bedroom flat with three children.

I’m actually a centre left voter and totally disagree with raising the benefit cap - it’s perfectly possible to he social minded but realise some people simply see more kids as ‘easy money’ - an extra zero on their bank credit - I know anyone can hit a bad time and I’ve been there and have empathy , but certain people make a career of it - some not very bright on paper people are actually super sharp at maximising benefits. You see them here on mumsnet fiddling around with ‘entitled to’ to see how little they can getaway with working but maximise a claim. It’s going to come crashing down on many of these people when they no longer have kids at home to use as an ATM - I don’t actually mean the person in that feature by the way who clearly works full time but has high rent and childcare I would presume - and that’s why we need to get a grip with social housing and bringing the nursery sector under some kind of fixed cost system available to all like it us in many other countries - . whilst we are this subject, those that get regular maintanance too of pretty good amounts, I fail to see if on benefits why this is not factored in and it’s just allowed as a nice extra ( Tory’s brought it in and clearly couldn’t be arsed to fund the CMS) ) means the person I know gets full rent paid ( very niceHA newish flat) next to full council tax, a fair old allowance for herself and kids ( 2) - plus around £850 a month child maintenance from her ex. She has as much if not more disposable income than many couples working full time or single mums and never does more than about 10 hours a week work , how she gets away with it I don’t know . It seems to me the system is so tight on many things ( the amount single people get for instance if needing to claim - very often it literally only covers the rent given the lack of social rents out there) and yet in other ways it’s far too generous for many others -

Nobody made her have 3 kids in an expensive one bedroom flat. Most educated people are more sensible than that.

This is BS.

I am a single parent and if I earned that much I would not be entitled to anything.

I think mine stops completely if I earn over £1500 a month.

Obviously if you live in a more expensive area you may get more but there’s still a cap on how much rent it will pay towards.

Does she receive disability payments? As these are obviously much higher than bog standard UC payments.

Also anyone can claim UC.
It goes by their earnings and outgoings.

If she is entitled to UC and you are not, then that means you have more disposable income than she does.

It really isn't BS. Sadly.

Doesn't feel right does it?

The woman, 3 children living in London, is eligible for and receives into her household £6142 UC plus CB plus income.

To have £6142 in your pay packet after tax and NI, you would need a salary of £113k.

Well, like it or not, she clearly is educated as that’s generally required to get a £45k job…

Don’t worry too much, order will be restored in a few years when Thea’s children and the children of the hypothetical single parent earning £100k leave nursery and go to school. Thea’s monthly income will drop by £2600, but the HSP won’t. Nursery fees are tough on everyone.

Thanks for being so obtuse about what I said. I was answering to "you choose crippling childcare costs when you decide to have children" and I disagree. Most people choose to have children because they desire it, not because of childcare costs. And if childcare costs come into play for you decision, it is extremely sad and not the fault of other people having X amount of kids, but because of the badly funded childcare system.

I agree, it comes across as a massive sense of entitlement. I feel sorry for her kids actually, their identity being plastered over the media just so she can bang on endlessly on her pet topic

She doesn't receive £6k a month in benefits - it's more like £3,342, as quoted above. She works full time and takes home about £2,800, which makes up the balance of the £6k figure.

What I mean is you are aware of the costs before you have a child. You make the choice to have a child, and thus choose the childcare costs.

@Pigeonpoodle interesting how none of you had a big issue with this under the Tory’s and for very many years on their watch it was like this- they also brought in child maintanance not being part of UC assessment - I think that’s mad too , - encourages people like the person i know doing next to bugger all but getting the full whack - plus keeping the £800 a month maintenance on top

Do you understand how income tax works?

She doesn’t receive 6k in benefits

You don’t think people earning £30k a year work their butts off??

I think you don’t live in the real world.

Less than 5% of people make over £100k a year and the majority of those people are men (usually single or have wives to do everything for them or come from wealthy backgrounds).

The average salary is £33k.

Just because someone is not in the top 5% of earners doesn’t mean they don’t work their butts off.

This woman works full time and raises 3 kids alone (I don’t believe she receives as much as OP says) but she is not the one you should be looking down your nose at.

The alternative is to build a lot more social housing and stop rightbto buy. The conservatives wouldn't do it and it doesn't look as though Labour is keen either.

Maybe the government should build more social housing and stop using the private rental sector as a whipping boy when it suits them.

But all the research shows that changes in the 2 child cap, child benefits and etc. do NOT have an impact on how many children people have. It just means more or less kids in poverty. And let's not forget, we're all only a few pay slips away from poverty. The day you lose your job, your partner passes away, you come into ill health, etc.etc. and you're screwed.

And she’s on record as being a single mother in a 1 bed flat after she had the first. But somehow went on to have two more, still as a single mother, apparently with the same bloke.
She’s been in the media so much I don’t know how no one has called her out on it.
The CNN interview was ridiculous.

Single mum of 3, in a one bed flat, on purpose. I'd be ashamed of myself, not advertising it. Poor kids.