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.

You obviously read the letter very thoroughly before realising it was not addressed to you.

Migrants are no different to anyone else, if they are living and working here they contribute and are therefore as entitled as the next person to any extras available while they need them.

They must have been on low salaries to be claiming 'in work' benefits.

Imagine being on £100k and living the same while everyone tells you actually you are wealthy and so must be living beyond your means

Where are you getting these figures from?

My friend is a single parent in London with 3 kids and her maximum allowance is about £2500 and then obviously as she earns this reduces.

I agree. No mention of the father. We should be prosecuting men who don't pay maintenance and coming down hard on them. Automatic salary sacrifice, removal of benefits, imprisonment, whatever.

Exactly. Why are the tiny violin brigade so quick to start playing a tune when it’s benefit claimants. Bizarre.

As many others have said it makes no sense withdrawing childcare at £100k income, whilst topping someone else up to a higher equivalent income to cover childcare. That's utterly insane. The 100k childcare cliff edge is stupid anyway but I've seen so many on here telling parents in this position that they're wealthy, they don't need the taxpayer to fund them, they can pay for their own children, and using pensions to drop under 100k makes them all kind of nasty bastards. Yet you can - evidenced by various calculators - end up with more income if you earn less.

That's a stupid distortion in the system which creates disincentives to earning more - which would ultimately benefit the taxpayer.

Very easily. DH and my post tax income is around 5.5k per month. Our joint salary is about 100k per year.
I don't mind the full time working top up claims so much, as long as it's both parebts working, not an absent Dad passing responsibility for funding his children to others. It's the first family who are unemployed , 4 children and 1 on the way which is really frustrating. We wanted a 3rd but decided we couldn't afford nursery fees for 2 at a time.

I think we should use the US system, you can have your driving license removed, your passport removed, prison etc etc if you don’t cough up for your own kids.

I suspect by the way that Thea in the article probably had a perfectly suitable home and partner at some point and it went wrong and hence the 1 bed flat with 3 kids - we read lots of posts on mumsnet about people need to LTB, get out etc and when they do then this kind of situation does happen, and will happen more and more particularly in south east with people in rented , no equity etc -

They have a gofund me page too! The Mirror is a Labour paper. Surely they must be trolling putting those two feckless idiots down as an example of how great this policy is?

Use the turn2us or entitledto calculator and put in the circumstances described. It'll vary by postcode as the housing element is location specific but I was able to match it - close enough to validate anyway - very easily.

It’s not surprising on here.

And the person on £100k will immediately have £2600 more in disposable income when their children finish nursery and go to school. Thea gets a temporary uplift that allows her to work but she won’t see any long term benefit from this.

It’s in the mirror article linked above. Have you read it?

Well the truth is you're a lot less screwed if you only have one or two kids rather than more. I do agree with lifting the 2 child cap though, for the reasons you state.

Even if she gets maintenance it isn't taken into account.

Wow, those are some interesting examples. I've been in the situation of paying for 3 children, 2 in childcare, and a home whilst my husband was temporarily unemployed so we couldn't give up the nursery place. I think I was earning about 80 or £90k and we had to use our savings to top up over £500 a month so we could pay bills and eat. We would have been a lot better off and less stressed on benefits. Thankfully we got through that period but it was really hard.

I'm glad single parents and their children are being supported because that's the right thing to do. I've think I'm also probably more right wing now for having that experience myself.

She’s been in the media for a number of years. Always a single mother but with an increasing number of DC. Ostensibly always in a 1 bed flat.

Thats not right, you dont get even half of that with 5+ kids and anything over uc cap earned on salary gets deducted.

I think you’re probably right.
To all those basing her on here, what shoukd she do?

I found it hard to believe it too. But chuck in the figures into 'entitled to' and it is absolutely possible.

One of the reasons some roles are paid more than others is level of responsibility. Not always granted. But I imagine it would be easier to find more jobs paying £45k that are 'easy' versus £100k jobs that are 'easy'.

All the parents I know personally earn far too much to receive Child Benefit let alone any other benefits.

This isn't her first foray into the media. Pretty sure there's been no unfortunate change in circumstances. Just Google her name.

How do you get 100k before tax from 6k/month?

You don't get taxed on most benefits. To achieve 6k per month after tax, a working person not receiving UC would likely need to earn over £100k before tax.

Similar figures here.