Do you feel bad for receiving a ‘high amount’ of UC?

[AnotherNameChange1233]

Last week I went to my local Children’s Centre and attended a Citizen’s Advice group that runs once a week.

As long as you’re registered to the Children Centre, you can turn up for any advice needed. Some people want privacy so they go into a side room with the advisor and some parents may help other parents if they’ve been in a similar situation/can offer the correct advice. It’s also like a social group for parents, hopefully you get the jist of it.

On the table I was sitting on, one parent was trying to get her head around UC as she didn’t quite understand LHA rates, how DLA impacts UC and what elements she would be entitled too. Anyway, I started speaking about my experience with DLA, UC and offered to log into my UC account if it was easier for her to look at the breakdown visually (instead of me talking and complicating things). I also got her postcode to explain how the LHA rates work and etc.

Another parent suddenly spoke up and said, ‘don’t you feel bad for claiming that much money?’ She wasn’t argumentative or anything and we had an interesting conversation but it made me think, are people like me supposed to feel bad when receiving a certain amount?

She also said something like (I’m paraphrasing here as I can’t remember it exactly word for word) if people can’t afford their rent then they should move to a more affordable area. I raised the point of Landlords purchasing properties as part of the Right to Buy scheme, charging extortionate rent which taxpayers then pay through UC. Surely, it’s more a problem that there isn’t affordable rental properties in many areas.

For full transparency, I’m going to mention all of my UC amounts and wonder if people that claim similar, feel bad?

• 292 single person allowance
• 1450 private rent
• 539 for 2 children
• 293 for 2 disabled children
• 589 childcare costs
• 189 carer

£216 is deducted from my entitlement due to my wages. That means my UC amount is £3133. My wages is £771. I receive two amounts of MRC through DLA which is £580 all together.

Now that I’ve written it down, it seems like a whole lot of money but the costs that come with raising one of my disabled children (the other still costs a lot, but not as much as the other) is through the roof due to their issues

It certainly does look a bit like making folk think under Labour those extortionate amounts of benefits would increase even further. Taking the disability payments out a poster has pointed out that a salary of £55k a year would be required to equal that level of benefits. Thats well above the average salary.

But most people don’t plan to have a disabled child, obviously they love and care for them once they are here but it’s not something they planned. So the employee waiting until they were earning enough to have children thinking they are being responsible and won’t need benefits, then they have a disabled child and can no longer work or can only work very part time

YANBU as you’re entitled.
however as a public sector worker who works but can’t earn more due to band caping I feel pretty stupid.

Walking the treadmill of get a job, work hard and buy a house. Get promoted to hard job to try to earn more , more pension etc and I take home nearly 1k less than you PLUS have to pay my own childcare. It seems completely wrong.

and this is under the Tories!!

So basically you feel hard done by because your children are not disabled

@101Nutella

Over £1k of what OP gets goes directly to the cost of raising her children (childcare, carers, the disability element of her claim).

If you had 2 disabled children you'd likely get that too, so OP is not better off than you. Nor does she have the option of leaving the public sector or retraining to side-step into a more lucrative band.

£4484 post tax is the equivalent of £53,808 a year. That’s equivalent to a salary of around £83,000.

But the dla is not means tested, the person on £83k a year would still receive the £580 benefit if they had two children equivalent to op and were able to carry on their job

Incidentally, OP, how much are your costs relating to your children's disabilities? I know the average disabled adult has costs of around £900 I think it is that stem from their disability. I don't know if children are any cheaper or not? Either way I think you're a superstar, caring for your kids and managing to work!

What if the problem is precisely that economists pretend that wage work 'creates value' but unpaid caring doesn't?

In my job, I do a ridiculous amount of mindless admin but that counts towards GDP because I get paid for it. When I go home and bake an apple pie fir the kids, that's not 'productive' work. Bollocks.

OP, I'm sorry your children need extra help but glad you're able to give it. Don't feel bad for a second.

To those that disapprove of what OP gets -
Would you prefer to swap your own situation with her, including having 2 disabled children?

I can’t believe some people can’t understand the bigger picture. I’m pretty sure OP would prefer that her children weren’t disabled!

Honestly, people don’t realise how lucky they are having children that aren’t disabled. I can’t believe I’m having to even say that.

Absolutely this. I love my daughter but I would give every penny I have to take her disability away!

This.

Take home pay of over £3.5k is not easily earned.

What do you do for work

What's your plan for when children are older?

Where is their dad?

You are caring for 2 disabled children, 24 hours a day for about £50k a year. You are literally saving the tax payer money by doing that yourself.

I think people need to be angrier at how parents (often fathers) seem able to just walk away from children they made, consequence free.

The legislation that was brought in

• Decent Homes Standard. How awful that you can’t rent out poorly insulated, poorly heated home.
• Removal of S21 evictions. How awful that rent paying, rule abiding tenants don’t have to factor in moving every tenancy.
• Limits on increasing rent more than once a year.
• Changes to the favourable tax treatment that landlords enjoyed. I don’t get them as a home owner, why should you enjoy them as a landlord?

Social housing generally is a better economic outcome for taxpayers than the equivalent private housing. It generates jobs, there’s housing benefit savings, it can be planned and financed centrally using long term low cost debt, and there’s a wider benefit of people having better health and ability to work or study to their full potential due to having adequate accommodation.

This is what bothers me. That landlord is making vast amounts of money for doing nothing. Probably has it set up that income is minimised, runs it as a LTD company and pays self in dividends so less tax to pay. May even have several companies, may be registered abroad to avoid tax. Will use the wealth created to buy more property and a cycle of making money hand over fist for very little effort whilst paying little tax back ensues. Pushes house prices up making it harder for ordinary working people to buy so stuck renting and have to suck up paying such high rents forever with no hope of saving money and tax payers have to then help out.

We need to push the government to start taxing WEALTH better, as well as income.

I know that, but it is still a benefit paid by tax payers. It’s important to understand how much it takes to earn the full amount. It’s the equivalent of a highly paid professional job with many years of experience under your belt.

No criticism of her. She should take what she is eligible for. Nevertheless, it is an unsustainable position for the tax paying population to provide thus level of support. To put it in context: the average wage is £35,000. Someone on £35,000 with no pension contributions or student loan repayment pays £4486 of tax a year. It takes twelve average taxpayers to support one family like the OP’s, without any contribution towards the running of other services she and everyone else need (NHS, road, schools…). It is not a sustainable model.

It's like a game of Spot the Tory Government Advisor ---> @User2460177

It's not the landlords doing well, aye, such such silly thinking. Has really helped the country to date hasn't it!

Quit spreading your hysteria @User2460177 to keep lining what sounds extremely more like it's your own pockets.

I just did a crude benefit calculation for myself online. Looks like I’d be given the same amount as I get paid now if I didn’t work.
I’m a professional working in a specialist role for the NHS. That’s bloody depressing.
I’m not upset with you OP. You’re not going to say no to money to support your kids. But you must be able to understand why it makes people feel like shit that they have worked their whole lives to earn less than you get on benefits. I’d stay quiet about it if I was you.

I think whether you agree or disagree with this, it’s clear that the rising costs of social care are unsustainable. The amount people are paying in tax won’t cover these costs in the future. Then what?

No….. and I don’t envy her.

but I think many people on here WOULD happily swap to have her position minus the disabilities….which is a situation some people in the uk ARE in…
which as I pointed it up thread equate to a minimum salary of 55k per year
And this is a generous underestimate as it includes NO pension contained NO student loan payments.
most people earning that have degrees so in reality would likely need to be earning 60-75k to have an equivalent lifestyle to a single mum of 2 working part time. this ignores child maintenance payments.

TLDR: i can see both sides of why this is an inflammatory topic.

Please don't feel bad, you need the money to help raise your family. I also get UC even though DH works. We would struggle without it.

This is worth reposting.

Whether anyone likes it or not…the current situation is economically problematic and unsustainable

If you include all the benefits she gets as take home pay, for someone with student loan repayments ( plan A) and a compulsory pension contribution of 10% (fairly standard) then you would have to earn £98,000.

You're not wrong at all to feel this way and absolutely, things need to change in so many respects for the greater food for us all, but thank you for being better than those commenters who have been positively evil in mis-directing their ire at the OP. It's the government we should all be angry at for diverting attention away from their failings time and time again and doing absolutely nothing to help anyone but themselves.

Well OP that’s equivalent to a pre tax salary of around 70k I think which is roughly double the national average wage and a lot more than most average two wage families are on, its basically the starting wage for qualified surgeon lol! a so yes it does seem high and Id honestly be lying if I didn’t feel a bit depressed that my 30 years in the NHS and my husband’s 30 years running a business put us barely any better off than you. Having said that I appreciate rents are extortionate and Im very sorry that you have disabled children- but as pp said do their father not support them at all?