In thinking that the benefit system encourages lone parenthood?

[retiredgoth2]

And no.

I am not starting a fight for its own sake, even though I am aware that one may ensue.

I am a lone parent (of four. Two with SEN)

So is my Special Friend ('SF') She has two children, one with a disability.

We are going to move in together. Neither of our earning capacities will increase. We are both already working as much as is possible. In SF's case, perhaps more than is advisable...

We have done the sums.

Between us we will be (wait for it) 20 k a year worse off.

Yes. I said Twenty Thousand Pounds.

And this does not include the housing benefit SF currently receives.

I will lose all of my widowed parents allowance, and the late Mrs Goth's NHS pension, about 8k. The balance is tax credits, which will reduce to almost zilch.

The only net gain is council tax. Whilst we both lose the 25% reduction, we will only have to pay on one property. This is a gain of about £500.

Now. I don't think I am owed a living. But these sums nearly put us off. There are many others who would be deterred.

I do not know an answer, but feel that this is a flaw in the benefits system, discouraging people from either (a) being honest or (b) living stable lives...

What could be done?

I think I'd make far more money if I went back to teaching.
Even with rent, childcare and council tax deducted I would still be considerably richer on £20 k. Sighs nostalgically.

My tv was a gift from my parents. I think it is widescreen but it's a tescos cheapie brand.

Have just found out I will be better off not in work. I do have a partner, but he is a full time student and away during the week.

Next year when he is working even though our total income will be a bit better there is even less financial benefit from me working too.

If I lied and said we weren't together I would be massively better off. But there is no way I'm doing that. I have sadly, just jacked in my job though. When you have very little £40 pw extra matters a lot.

This has only been the case under this government. I couldn't believe the figures paid out to mothers when tax credits were first brought in. Before them, women would get a bit extra each month from their divorce as "wife maintenance". Now they just get child maintenance and tax credits, so the state picks up the tab. And they are better off.

It's hard not to see that as promoting lone parent families.

Disclaimer - I know some men are in the above situation too, before you all jump on me. But it's not very bloody many.

sorry guys theres so many threads to read through

i will get the exact figures as i dont have them to hand at the moment

i was including

tax credit
child benefit
incapacity benefit
disability benefit both care and mobility
housing benfit
council tax benefit

and thats ot including free school meals £9.50 per week clothing grants, free presciptions and dental care, she can claim back a lot of things like travel fares to a hospital appointment if she ever has one etc etc

hope this clarifys better what i was meaning

and she does not have any kind of a disability she simply says she cant walk far without her legs hurting her and claims she sometimes falls and needs assistance everyone who knows her including ehrself admit this isnt true and yes i hate it but she is managing to get away with it as far as i know

she admits that she would need to earn in excess of 26k to be better off and plans on never working again if possible

does make me cross

If she gets it then she's a good actress (as indeed someare) as it is ahrd to geta way with, and she#s gettinga way with it because you dont report her

peachy i have reported her which was extremley hard to do but necessary imo

and yes she got a solicitor involved (legal aid) and everything it took her many appeals to get it awarded on the last time and she complained of additional things such as the extra stress they were putting her under which was affecting her mental health. She got awarded it by the skin of her teeth.

I informed then and told them they ought to watch her go out and party hard the way she does and see her go on her long haul holidays by herself etc

to no avail

Riven, the point is my 25 year old sister as a graduate doesn't have £114 per week to live on after her rent and council tax is paid.
So we can either raise the wages of the masses and be uncompetitve compared with the likes of China or else the benefits must be cut or scrapped so people see the point of getting off your arse and getting a job.

Or of course, rents and house prices could plummet, but nobody seems very keen on that idea, shame.

The children suffer anyway, no matter how much money is thrown at them because money isn't the problem, the benefits trap is.
At the moment there are no jobs for the single mums or anyone else for that matter so it's irrelevant but when things were going well the cost of housing and housing benefit I would guess was the main attraction not the £114 a week.
Unfortunately a whole generation will suffer now from top to bottom, but the next will realise that getting pregnant will not lead to a 20 year holiday that some have enjoyed.

what makes me feel very sad is that there are (and nobody can deny this) teenage girls out there who would rather get up the duuf and sign on than get a job -any job- and enjoy their freedom. Even if financially they'll have to struggle, they'll only have themselves to worry about.

It's so heartbreaking that we're bringing up a generation who at 16 cannot see any further than "how can I survive without working"? (only if they knew how much work babies are).

I mean, come on, you're young, healthy and wiht no dependants.. surely the sky should be the limit

that was "duff" btw

Will they?

You take away the basic priveledges that those few pounds a week pays for and the next generation will suffer and give upp

Look at some of the areas where jobs have long gone- generational poverty in south wales, for example. I have worked as a mentor in schools there- do the kids resolve to do better? Nope,they take paperrounds at 13 that make them too tired to study; they stay drinking cider in the park instead of school because it's better than ebing botom of the clas at school... they're bottom of the class becuase they don't get the trips ( I know kids ren't supposed to be denied them but theya re, poorer schools just don't arrange them and at opur school pay or stay home), they haven't got the equipmen,t, they can't manage the homework in the only heated room with all the family in there (that happened to me....)

The idea that you take away and inspire to do better smacks of Victorians paradinga round workhouses handing out meagre food in tgeir finery, and rather than doesn't work, provokes class anger and a greater sense of subculture.

The future risk isn't the children of benefit claimants full stop- it's ridiculous to assume that they are all a homogenous lump. Many are the chioldren of hard working parents affected by illness, caring responsibilities, redundancy. That's an entirely different thing to swathes of generational poverty, where the kids geenuinely don't know they can change things (if they can, there has to be a job in the first place). Expenditure on schemes to change that- mentoring schemes,my suual soapbox but one I know works, links with local universities, anything like that- willpay tenfold. But the services pull the very funds that sacve long term (both mentoring schemes I have worked on, homestart and a Uni one, closed from funds being pulled) for short term gain.

You have to give poeople an out before you slate them for not taking it; at the moment its the equivalent tosealing someone in a box with no exit then penalising them for not leaving. That's not about extra cash at the coal face for claimants, but about making it possible for people to change things- which is why WTC at 16 hours is a positive (if the level is pulled is the army of LEEA staff working on the most common 16 hour ocntract going to be offerd extra bours no) or forced into not taking up the next extenion of thei fixed term contract becuase the rent won't get paid so they need HB. And all the time they are working and covering teh bills, theya re paying taxes,giving their kids a work ethic and generally contributing.

Let us not delude ourselves that people not on WTC after it is removed will simply no longer claim- far more people will drop into claim territory for HB etc (TC'sare rightly taken into acocunt), be unable to pay rent on homes and require LA housing, default on their mortgages,with all the cost to society that will entail- after all when John defaults on his rent /finance or cancels his insurance,reduces his expenditure- at the end of that is an army of small businesses and landlords in trouble, and VAT that doesn't get paid.

The most important thing IMO is to get the expectation of work back up;that is through tackling poverty positively, enabling access to training (I was astounded that Dh coudn't get a bursary from University post-redundacy as someone coming off carer's benefits, but could have had he been good at basketball)

,not pushing peoiple into a marginalised hell where there ae no jobs, nop options and not enough to pay the bills either.

Mummygirl, that is the issue not the benefits if you aren't pretty or off to university then what are you meant to do at 16 ? The schools career service can go on and on about apprenticeships but small business' can't afford the time and staff to train people right now.
The money needs to be poured into them instead of housing benefit because if you cut HB then the rents would be forced down and that would be helpful to both working single people/married and single parents and benefits claiments.

They take paper rounds that make them too tired to study, oh pleaseeeee what a crock, everybody at my school had either a paper round or a saturday job, many had both, we were never to tired to study, too lazy yes.

Benefits encourage people to live a shell existence, imo. It may give more than you'd get for a full time job and certainly more to couples who live apart.....makes no sense.

Benefits should encourage those that can work to work with appropriate reward and those that cannot a decent enough living that they don't feel on the outside of their community. So better cars and respite for carers and people with disabilities, a higher minimum wage....

Mummygirl yes that happens. But my experience (at homestart so real, on the ground experience) was that it wasn't as a route out of working, it was as a way of finding some- any- kind of role in a society that effectively offered zilch to people like them. If you feel that people like you don't go into college or find jobs aboce minimum wage- where's the motivation? Show the kids what they can do- give them something to aim for other than motherhood. Because actually, many really like being a mum and make a decent fist of it, it probably is going to be the best thing they ever experience- which is sad. Thre's lots more out there.

Milly you didnt go to my school then, i'm thinking of a girl who was 6th daughter of a single mum (wiodow) who got up at 5, helped her Mum clean ofices then did her paper round- she was never in before 70 but she really contributed to her family income. And now is a single mum with no prospects.

Before 10. opps. Lost my glasses.

star- thank you for the respite, yes please

BTW why do these threads always end up a list of fraudulent people? I ahd a similar thread in AIBU yesterday and it went the same way- why should those of us on carers, genuinely redundant etc be lumped in with fraudster criminals at every opportunity? It pisses me off immensely! Completely different scenario.

Then it's getting up to clean the office that is the issue, not the paper round would you agree ??

Riven the rents will come down if people can't/won't pay them, they only ever went up because housing benefit pushed up the price.
The landlords will either look long term and supplement the mortgage themselves and see it as capital gain or they will go bust and the houses will be sold at a discount which will benefit pretty much every first time buyer/young family up and down the country.

Milly,nope but maybe we can agree it was the two combined? or more accurately the pressure to contrinute at 13?

HB hasn't pushed rentalprices up universalyy; a great many landlords won't touch HB anyway, if you lose your job and have to claim then you re out, and in very manya reas like ours HB is set £200 below where the rental level has fallen. Housing prices depend on regional factors as much as national- you only have to look at places such as Devon and compare the prices in the retirement belts such as west somerset to see that. Here, prices are high becuase of school, Uni and commuter access but a tghe rest of the area is less well rpovided for, the LA sets rents low.