Again I didn’t say she was worse off. Maybe try reading what people write. I have said repeatedly that the problem is that people want to hope that £43k or £53k or £63k is a salary where you’ll suddenly have loads of money. But it doesn’t pan out that way because the cost of living is high and benefit cut offs have a tangible impacts.
Someone on £25k will be ‘worse off’ than someone who earns nearly £20k more. Obviously. But they’ll get more UC. The difference between their monthly household income is less than you’d like to imagine it would be.
If the woman on £43k earns a little bit more and falls just beyond the UC threshold, she can actually be much worse off (certainly than she was before the pay increase) because she’s losing the childcare support and possibly some of her child benefit too. Tax free childcare is much less generous than UC childcare allowance.
No one (who is telling the truth) thinks that £25k goes very far as a salary in 2024. But loads of people would really like to believe that £40k goes a lot further than it does. That is my point. Not a sob story. Just a maybe actually think about this stuff rather than assuming anyone earning £X more than you must be really well off.