Universal Credit implications for long-term SAHMs??? Help please!

[CSLewis]

Hi, I've just read the Mumsnet summary about Universal Credit, and read that parents of children aged 5-13 will be required to seek work during school hours, though I think those with a baby under one may be exempt.

Does anyone have any further details about this? It feels to me that a parent of young (primary-aged) children is being forced to return to the job market, regardless of whether they judge it to be in the best interests of their family

I moved for work nearly a year ago. We are still suffering the fallout now. It has cost us thousands and we're not out of the woods yet.

I agree moondog. Be a stay at home parent. But bear in mind that there is a cost to this and it might not necessarily be you paying it. If its not you fully funding it then your choice might be taken away.

I agree on another post someone was complaining that their partner has left them, they dont want to give up their council house, they dont want to work because they are 'depressed' and they cannot get around to chasing the CSA for child support. So the errant father gets away with not paying anything.... But no worries- the 'state' will pick up the bill

Childless friends of mine get really pissed off with all the allowances and leeway given to parents especially in the workplace.

Damned if you do go to work, damned if you don't! I'm not sure what that's got to do with people who decide they would rather raise their children themselves?

Well my role is not a barrell of laughs tbh. Many many times I have thought about giving it up. Client facing roles are not great especially when blue chips companies are down sizing their workforce and you end up doing two peoples roles!

And there is always a reason not to move. I saw something a few months ago on a post saying they didnt want to leave their best friend!

My parents and PIL live many miles away and my MIL is not in the best of health. But they choose to live down in the SW and we live here. Something many many families do.

Ten or so years as a SAHP though, out of a working life of 40-50 years.

Over the lifetime surely the cost is covered?

I think this thread very nicely demonstrates why we were landed with a Tory, sorry a Condem, government and why this country is the utter hole it has become. You reap what you sow, and most people here are sowing greed and misery.

I'm not sure I like the idea that you take out what you put in, because there are some people who need to take out far more than they could ever put in, so balancing equations doesn't sit easily with me.

Me neither.

But some people on here seem to be obsessed with the fact that their taxes are paying for other people to be lazy.

Yet apparently taxes dont work like that.

How about we all do whats best for our families in our lives and stop judging people?

Are those the people who make crap choice after crap choice. Who play the system , who have children young to get what they can from the state? And people who say this country is a hole. Well, there are other options, I recently visited Romania. To say it is troubled is an understatement. Everyone thinks the grass is greener. Many years ago we had an opportunity to go to Australia. I am hooked on Wanted Down Under where people decide whether they want to emirgrate.

It is amazing what they expect. Half price house, cost of living 50% of what it is here. Loads of outdoor life, double the salaries they get here.... And its not. We didnt go because my DH didnt want to leave his parents and we have done Ok but Australia very much looks at what you can give to them in return. If you dont have enough points you wont get your visa. Certain jobs only and often the lower paid ones. They are the ones in demand.

I never voted for these clowns (tories)
It's about time the bloody Lib Dems opened their gobs and had a say of their own before Cameron ruins us all!

It's a ridiculous idea TheFallenMadonna. The biggest spend is on welfare and pensions, for individuals who by its very definition are not able to contribute much themselves. Now clearly some people on this thread would prefer the welfare state to be swept away. But the idea that the poorest people in the country should contribute 25% of the tax revenue to pay for their own welfare is quite clearly total farce.

Just to go back to my point earlier. If any of you has a combined family income of around £30,000, I would just like to point out that I am subsidising your second personal allowance to the tune of around £2000, compared with what you would pay if one of you manned up and stayed at home.

Thank you.

As a matter of fact maisiejoe, I was thinking more of people with a chronic illness...

I don't know where I am on this really. I was a SAHP for 5years, now work FT. But as I said earlier, my experience of growing up in a much lower income family was that both parents worked, and expected to work. The idea that they did so because they were obsessed with money, or viewed our family merely as an economic unit, is laughable.

I have no faith that this government will act with any compassion or indeed logic though...

Are those the people who make crap choice after crap choice.

Ultimately, there are people in every society who do that. Some of them make crap choices because they don't have the intelligence or skill to do anything different. Some have a very poor start in life.

What do you suggest we do, maisiejoe? Sterilise them all?

Who play the system

Benefit fraud is piddling in comparison to tax fraud!

Let's not forget that 47% of UK benefit spending goes on state pensions of £74.22bn a year, more than the £48.2bn the UK spends on servicing its debt.

It's followed by housing benefit of £16.94bn (+5.2%). Of new claims between 2010 and 2011, 93 per cent were made by households containing at least one employed adult.

Next is Disability living allowance is £12.57bn (+3.3%) - I'm sure no-one would begrudge that. Jobseekers' allowance is actually one of the smaller benefits - £4.91bn in 2011-12, an increase of 7.6% on the previous year.

HM Revenue & Customs is responsible for tax credits (you have to be earning very little to claim tax credits, remember) and child benefit, which has just been cut. That was worth £12.22bn in 2011-12.

The vast majority of benefits are actually subsidising private landlords and employers who pay poverty wages.

That's where your hard earned taxes are going, maisie.

That is very true as well TheFallenMadonna.

Just for the (now rather stuck) record, I am not anti working (which would be odd being the main earner myself) or particularly pro-SAHP. I am simply pro choice, especially where the the relative costs and benefits of SAHP versus second WOHP are most certainly not clear cut or universal. The wrong decisions are being made for entirely the wrong reasons,and no I have no faith that logic and reason will prevail when it comes to individual circumstances. And as for the costs of implementing this new UC, well I simply dread to think.

Sorry that should have read "The vast majority of benefits other than pensions and DLA are actually subsidising private landlords and employers who pay poverty wages".

I just want to know how many cuts are being made and what will they do if families with children are made homeless?!
Will these families have their dc carted off by ss whilst they cry on the streets??
I hope none of the above becomes a reality, because with cut backs, bedroom tax and mw being lower than childcare costs, i do wonder what the end result will be.

Some sit in their ivory tower with their silver cutlery in hand, wanting an end to welfare, when the reality is they may someday need it themselves.

I'm seriously wondering how long before the first "workhouse" springs up.

gaelicsheep.

Ha Ha, people thought i'd gone mad last year when I said we'd have window tax soon, but the extra bedroom is the same thing.
Oh well we should all feel a bond with our ancestors then, as that's where they all ended up, or is this just mine .
Ho hum never mind eh? We might not have much but we see life.

I am not an economist at all so can't comment on who/what is being subsidised by the state, or to what precise extent. However,it seems fairly clear that the State will always see the necessity of subsidising certain groups in society: the long-term disabled, for instance.

It seems equally clear that this government - and possibly any other that might be elected - sees NO value in parents raising their own children, and would rather subsidise those parents to put their children into childcare than subsidise one parent - if needed, to a certain degree - staying out of work temporarily in order to raise them themselves.

I think this attitude is going to cost this country MASSIVELY over the next few generations, both in economic terms and humanistic/personalistic terms. Way more than the explicitly financial cost of SAHparenting, if such a cost is really there.

Pumkinsweetie

I do hope not in the case of dc being taken away from homeless. It is still less than 50 years ago this was happening and the thought of history repeating itself is frightening.
Society is heading in the direction of allowing this though as is evident in the lack of empathy and support shown to people set to lose so much.

To anybody who thinks this couldn't happen, look at the parallel to conditions of the 1960's. Look at the attitude of those that have against those that don't.
Then Watch "Cathy Come Home".

I am properly scared by the attitudes on this thread, I really am. It just goes to show that people have not changed in this age of prosperity and universal education. Workhouses did their evil work while the well off stuck their fingers in their ears and congralated themselves on their superior life choices, and now it seems we are Hheading that way again. The lack of humanity on display in today's society is breathtaking and terrifying.

CS the reality is that there is no national appetite for subsidising SAHPs of school age DC.

Since most families have two working parents and consider themselves to still be raising their DC (am wondering who you think does it if they don't), they really don't see subsiding SAHPs of school aged DC as a priority, not in comparison to schools, hospitals, social services, disabled facilities et al.

The idea that the country will go to hell in a hand cart if all the women work doesn't seem to be supported either by history (SAHMs are a relatively recent invention) or by the experience of other countries.

It's hardly lack of empathy gaelicsheep. I agree with wordfactory on Since most families have two working parents and consider themselves to still be raising their DC (am wondering who you think does it if they don't), they really don't see subsiding SAHPs of school aged DC as a priority, not in comparison to schools, hospitals, social services, disabled facilities et al.

Basically that's it. I'm actually left wing, and believe we have free education, free NHS, proper care for the elderly and disabled. I just don't believe welfare should be given to SAHP of school aged children.

wordfactory and OneLittle

I think you have just proved gaelics point. Sahp's are not subsidised. I receive no money to sah. My dh receives TC as a low income self employed person, the same as any low income person irrespective of their situation. It doesn't pay me to be a sahm, but its the choice I made.
The difference now is that unless I find work my dh will lose his TC not me.
There are people in varying circumstances going to be hit very hard, but never mind you can make yourselves feel better by condemning sahp's as unworthy of support.