'Couples with children 'have to work THREE TIMES as hard as single mothers to stay above the poverty line'

[littlelamb]

Its the Mail, sorry
Reporting like this makes me so mad, even though to an extent it is true. I am a single parent, a 'feckless girl' as one of the comments puts it and I do not sit on my backside, I have a full time job that is bloody hard work. Because I work, I recieve tax credits, without which I could not work. They pay for my childcare. I have a friend who married last year, having been a single parent for 3 years previously, who now cannot afford to work as she would get no help with childcare costs. So in this respect, yes I suppose they are worse off financially as a couple tan they would be as two single people. But to say her husband works 3 times as hard as me to cope financially ??? I hate hate hate the bloody daily mail, and its constant suggestions that single mothers are all undeserving scroungers

only read the first part of the article - how can one person earn more than two???? complete load of rubbish.

quite easily depending on the job

SenoraPostrophe - don't know where you're getting your info from on the working tax credits - our household income is way below £34k and we don't get working tax credit.

We get a small amount of child tax credit, is that what you mean?

think the problem is the DM is confusing working in a job with working as a mother. Single mothers work very hard bringing up their children but that's not counted as work by the stupid DM. Couples get to split the childcare but have to work longer job hours to be in the same boat financially.

Swings and roundabouts, and they're all weighted against you....

Exactly! why not look around for why everyone is struggling and ask where the wealth went?. The government and their friends must roll around laughing as the poor point fingers at each other.

one person can earn more than two.

you are entitled to WFTC and/or CTC if you TOTAL HOUSEHOLD INCOME is less than 50k

it's all the the IR website. very clearly.

well we earn less than 50k WAY less lol but im not entitled to it!

ok they can earn more if they have a job that pays more - but with families that have lower paid jobs one lower paid job doesn't get paid twice two low paid jobs.

youneverknow is right, this country is full of people who struggle, why the f*ck does it always have to turn into slagging match between couples and single parents? FFS life is hard, but complaining and pointing fingers and whining "It's not fair" won't actually change anything.

I work bloody hard as a single parent, over 70hrs a week, and yet we definately don't live above the poverty line. If I had a partner who earned a decent income we would definately be better off.

I hope all those ignorant idiots who left comments on that DM article spend their senior years lonely, bitter and miserable.

tax credits & Calculator

Working Tax Credit (less the childcare element of Working Tax Credit) £0.00

and our earings are under £30k jointly

the key is in the 'and/or' - we qualify for CTC, a small amount, but no WTC despite paying astronomical childcare costs.

WTC is not just based on income, IIRC.

WFTC is ridiculously low... something like have to earn under 16k HOUSEHOLD INCOME.

Come on folks, us single mums are so well off. Sitting in our large houses for free, all our bills paid for, freebies wherever we look. Aren't we?

Oh no, wait, thats right. Thats MPs who get that.

I'd love to know who they are finding out this information from, am not going to grace that article by reading it. As far as I'm concerned it is another kicking vomited over the pages by a rabid mouthed lazy journo.

What really irritates me is how skewed the reporting is.

If two people are together the maximum that they can work is 96 hours (48x2)

As a single parent the maximum they can work is 48 hours.

Inevitably there are many more productive (in a work sense) hours available

It is nonsense to extrapolate from this that all single parents are feckless

NB I still think that the other parent should be coughing up properly

Us married ladies might be financially better off if we were single parents, but really, who is gonna deliberately deprive their kids of the full-time presense of their father just because it pays more . Some things are more important than money.

No-one's a single parent just because you get more money FFS it's articles like that one in the DM that make my blood boil

MascaraOHara your comment "...you are entitled to WFTC and/or CTC if you TOTAL HOUSEHOLD INCOME is less than 50k..." is wrong.
As I said earlier, DH just got a payrise of £520 for the year. This takes his earnings (before tax etc) to £17,003 a year. According to the conversation that I had with the WTC office, the threshhold for WTC is £17,000. This means that we now lose WTC which gave us £1596 a year, so he gets a bloody payrise but it makes us worse off by £1076 a year. The whole system is flawed. If his payrise had been £516, we would have still got the £1596 a year. But because he is £3 over the limit & taking into account the payrise - we are worse off by £1076. IT'S BLOODY RIDICULOUS - just as it's ridiculous to blame any particular group of people.

it is really difficult to meet the agenda for wtc
yes anyone with an income (jointly) of up to 50k gets ctc but over a certain limit its a couple of pound of week

Joash, my comment is not wrong.

and to set the record straight I later went on to say that WFTC is ridiculously low circa 16K maximum household income.

Nor anywhere did I say the system was perfect.. as somone who currently gets no tax relief even though I am a WOHM single parent with no paternal financial (or otherwise) support. I am quite aware of the systems shortcomings.

eeek at some of the readers comments! But, I do think that low/ middle income families have far less disposable income than single parent families.

My DH works f/t and I work p/t and we struggle to make ends meet. Yet in the same village are single parents who don't work and have a greater disposable income. Of course we have a greater income coming in but it's what we have to spend out of that income that screw us every month.

A single parent has less outgoings in relation to income making them better off.

We have a mortgage to pay and we did overstretch ourselves buying a very very modest house - but what were the alternatives?? Rent would have cost exactly the same so we stretched ourselves to purchase. Now we cant really afford the mortgage but have no choice because we're not likely to ever get a council house due to our income. Where the fuck are low-middle income families supposed to live?

We hear alot of bleating about how hard it is to be a single parent - but that is from an emotional viewpoint. From a financial viewpoint its a whole lot easier than living with your spouse.

"A single parent has less outgoings in relation to income making them better off."

How do I/We have less outgoing than you? what do you have to pay for that I don't?

And for the record I get sick of hearing about hard it is to be a single parent as well.

Life is hard for some people in some situations.. regardless of marital status.

If a single parent is working part time and in a low/ middle income job, they will likely have council tax benefit, housing benefit, free school dinners, subsidised childcare.

A married couple working f/t and p/t will get none of those subsidies which means they have to stretch their wage further.

I work fulltime, I have none of those subsidies.

tell a lie I get 20% (opr whatever it is) off my council tax but not because I'm a single parent.. that's because I'm a single person.

the point I'm trying to make (but not succeeding) is that it shouldn't be about whether or not your married or single.. some people have a harder time than others regardless or whether they are single or married