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.

What are you waffling on about? I said nothing about the benefits caps. I said that when you have a child, you’re aware of the cost of childcare.

Me either but I’d like to have that sort of income. I could give my kids so much more than I do now 🥺

You are kind of missing the point - a dad could be paying £1000 a month for say3 kids - but if the mum is entitled to UC , that maintanance is disregarded for the claim amount - they can get full allowance plus the £1000 - this was a Tory initiative /vote bribe - Ithink it’s absolutely nuts - maybe it was intended to be a ‘get out to work and yep you can keep the maintenance kind of thing ‘ but I think reality is that most women with kids and not really a career will just work out the minimum they can get away with working to maximise benefits -

In fact, @Stillpoor, I am one them. Partially disabled and work part time, but still above the cut off. But I’m London so the amount left to live on after mortgage and bills is pretty negligible, and we don’t have much in the way of ‘extras’. I figure it’s an investment in my child’s future though. Though given how dreadful her school is on some things I am beginning to wonder.

Er, yes. Absolutely not a penny here. And also wouldn't have child after child that we weren't able to comfortably afford. It's a thorny issue, this one. Nobody wants to see children living in poverty and you certainly can't apply a blanket judgement on all families, because everybody's circumstances are different. Children shouldn't be punished for their parents' feckless decisions and certainly not for their innocent misfortune. However, I do think there must be better ways to support families and alleviate child poverty than this. I also think that any lifting of the cap should apply to existing children only, not future children, to disincentivise some parents, the minority who make not working and having children a lifestyle choice, from having more children.

The answer is for rentals in London & other places where private landlords are absolutely gouging the market, to be subject to rent control, and for the government to subsidize childcare properly.

The money isn’t going into that lady’s pocket- it’s going to private landlords and childcare settings.

High UC payments are not because the state is generous, but because the fundamental systems we’re building society on are broken.

The article in the Mirror is naive or deliberately being provocative.
Unemployed with 4 kids, another on the way. I don’t agree with lifting the 2 child cap. Out more money into sure start centres and other direct support.

I earn £115k before tax and receive £5,700 p/m - that does include some pension contributions but it’s probably not far off.

I am a single mum with 4 children and claim UC. I do also work part time
when I had my children I was in a stable marriage with both of us working and had never claimed a penny. But my 3rd pregnancy resulted in twins then my marriage broke down due to my ex husband’s addiction and I was left trying to pick up the pieces. I’m having to sell my children’s home as I can’t afford to pay the mortgage as i get no help from their dad as he lost his job. I was left with all the family debts to try and pay. We will be moving into rented. I do already get help for 3 children due to the multiple pregnancy exemption. I hate having to rely on UC to live. Sometime I feel judged and stigmatised for that.
all that being said I do actually agree with a benefit cap. I feel a taper system would’ve fairer.

I would doubt that and if it's true, she hasn't been straight with them. Very few single moms are rich. The statistics consistently say so

It's not fair to criticise the parent who is there looking after her kids and working full-time. The other parent may be paying to support as well as I understand maintenance payments don't impact on UC. And the other parent should be supporting those kids. It sounds as though she has chosen to have another child since one of her previous interviews. That isn't something I would have done in her position of living in a 1 bed flat with 3 existing children and relying on state benefits. But given that is where she is, I don't begrudge the state stepping in to make sure her kids are fed and housed.
If there was sufficient social housing then £2k a month wouldn't be going straight into the pockets of a landlord while a family lives in an overcrowded flat. I wish that is where the focus could shift to.

Why do people not ask why the taxpayer has to subsidise the wages companies pay their staff when those same companies are reporting £m’s/£b’s in profit?
Or that those same companies continue to increase prices for basic necessities like energy, water, food, fuel, etc. which also make living on what was once a decent income difficult.
Poverty is spreading while the ultra rich get even richer. That’s not the fault of this working mum. Direct the anger where it belongs.

Successive governments have allowed employers to rake in massive profits while paying a wage that doesn’t cover the basic costs of living.
No one should have to claim benefits if working full time

Once again the blame falls on the people at the bottom with no power.

CMS also needs to be overhauled to force non resident parents to properly support their children. If properly implemented, how much of the benefits bill could be saved? Not to mention how much the tax take could be increased from those deadbeats who declare less than they earn from self employment.

I'm a single mum who worked herself out of the benefits system and became high rate tax payer. I can categorically say I have more money now than I did have and have no idea what you are talking about given I have been there on both sides of the coin.
Additionally these benefits don't last forever, one day they will just stop and if your on a lower income job that will hit you hard.

@Christmascarrotjumper will do - I never understand people plastering themselves over media- surely she would realise a backlash and yep it may be that £2000 is council tax/rent allowance and£1800 is childcare allowance so isn’t actually ‘ disposable income’ as such. But it’s not going to sit well with couples/single mums getting say 3.2 k and having to pay mortgage, maybe childcare etc or they have maybe £25k in bank so can claim pretty much zilch etc apart from the funded hours. Peopke laugh when I vang on about how much fairer the system was when we lived in Denmark but it was - far far more social housing of good quality, cheapish fixed fee childcare available to all regardless of income - ( around a third of Uk price) no council tax - high personal tax but you got lots for it

Have you read anything that anyone has said anywhere on this thread?

Or just farted out of your mouth?

RTFT

This is so unfair.

Exactly this!! It's tge elephant in the room that no one's addressing, men need to be forced to pay for their own children, it's too easy for them to walk away and leave the mother of their kids to struggle. Why are single mums always blamed, and the father just abandons them, often going on to have more kids, that they then also leave? This is the issue that needs addressing.

She may well technically get £6k a month total income but if rent and childcare are an insane £4k then she’s getting under £500 a week to feed and clothe her family and pay the bills, she’s hardly living the high life and I doubt she has much disposable cash.

The real obscenity is that the whole of her salary is probably equal to her rent.

If those figures are right she's probably got at least one severely disabled child and/or pays a massive amount in rent.

Based on the quoted salary, 2 kids in good health and the max allowable for childcare she'd get around 670. If all four are old enough to beat the 2 child limit, and from the picture they're clearly not, it's just over £1k.

"Housing not included as it goes to landlords"

People who earn £100k through work also have to give away their money to landlords

I find it so bewildering on thread after thread like this "oh but rent doesn't count because it doesn't end up in their pocket", seen similar for childcare

Yeah let's just ignore one of the biggest expenses that wage earners have to pay...

@onitlikeacarbonnet the income levels are no different in most of Europe to this - even in expensive places, minimum wage in Sweden and Denmark although they don’t have a formal one was when we lived there very similar to here -

it is not wages, it is costs , be that house prices too high in many areas of Uk and hence huge mortgages or rents, privatised utilities with little controls -

Gone. That ship has sailed. Even the idea of thinking people should work seems to be foreign concept to many. I really dislike what our country has become.

The thing is, it is correct. I know people find it hard to grasp. To get that much she wouldn't have savings and wouldnt own a property

The government would have you believe those on over £100k should bear the brunt of supporting others- yet 'tops up' a single earner with 3 children to more than £100k.

Absolutely this. Where is the vitriol against the dad that fathered these kids and then has probably buggered off and fathered some more with other women! He should be paying for all children he produced and we should crack down on that pronto.