Friend would rather stay on Benefits

[Mavan1984]

Hi everyone

I have a friend who is in her early 40s. She has 5 kids, eldest being 17 and youngest being 4. No disabilities in the family.

Friends husband is on minimum wage and Works about 35 hours a week. Friend is SAHM and has never worked, they have always been topped up by CTC and WTC.

Friend has recently been transferred over to UC and said she is slightly worse off and she's been told that she needs to start looking for a job.

Friend told me she has no intention to get a job because she thinks she will be worse off- would this be the case? She also said she is very unlikely to get a job which will match her benefit payments.

I'm really annoyed with her attitude. She basically has no intention to work and would rather just claim. In her case what would the jobcentre do?

I love friend to bits but her laziness is really starting to get to me. Me and DH both work average salary jobs, we don't get any benefits apart from Child Benefit and there are times where I've really envied her life of leisure.

I'm not against anyone who works hard/has disabilities and claims but I really think it's unfair that people like her can choose to be a SAHM and expect to get money handed to her on a plate.

I'm not really sure why I am even posting this but I just needed to rant.

@Blondeshavemorefun it depends. Most people will only get the chijd element for two children on UC. Thee are exemptions.
Whilst on tax credit they would receive an amount per child .
Someone with 4 children who are 15, 13, 4 and 3 who have no disabilities will only get the UC chijd element for two of them. A huge decrease in benefits when they move over to UC.
Lots of people moved over to UC years ago as a change triggered the transfer. The have been receiving less than those in the same position on legacy benefits for a long time.
A lot of people on benefits don’t have savings so they will possibly experience financial hardship due to this drop in income.

Out of interest, would you say the same about other cultures, Gaza families for instance? Or just the UK.

My child also needs their mother at home but I have to work to put food on the table & a roof over their head. You shouldn’t be able to choose to be a SAHM with the government giving you money to do that. If that was the case, then every mother in the country would be a SAHM.

Surely, but we are not living in the past days.

Having a 5 children is a choice- surely if you can't afford to have a 5 children then you don't have them-why should taxpayers sustain her choices?

There seems to be a lot of benefit bashing threads on here at he moment I wonder if it's anything to do with the fact that we maybe facing an election soon, it's easy for the government to pit the poor against each other whilst they tear the country apart.

Life in benefits for a lot of people is not easy, it can be demeaning, there's no routine, no pride and very little money, a lot that are on benefits are up to their eyes in debt.

Exactly there are so many cases where people have worked hard all their lives and then they get an illness like MS and realise there is really no safety net for them.

It is so unfair.

This happened to my husband and it was only because his employer had taken out income protection that he was able to carry on paying his share of the mortgage and bills.

Exactly, that's a true reflection of life on benefit,it's the not being able to buy what you want to eat,after school clubs, clothes,haircuts, transport etc all out of reach.its far from the life of Riley.
I've used pension money to try and avoid the benefits system after being made redundant and I'm of an age where it's hard to gain employment and god knows I've tried.finances are dwindling and we are going to have to claim and we are dreading it.

With 'friends' like you...

Frankly this is none of your business and you should focus on your own life.

I would say that raising 5 children is hardly being idle.

With such a big family she would likely only be able to work part-time and financially might be worse of than in her current situation.

I suggest instead of envying her you try to grasp that with 5 kids, she is unlikely to have much freedom, money or leisure time in her life.

It is sad to see that so many women on this thread who seem to think women should not be stay at home mums unless they are wealthy enough not to require support.

I never understand where all these SAHM where when I grew up - lived on a council estate and majority of Mums worked - often lower paid roles with cleaners, working in school. My own Mum worked nights as a carer.

The difference now is a lot more females in more senior roles and a requirement for childcare is needed.

But it’s none of your business how she decides to live her life, I’d be more worried for her once she gets closer to retirement- I’ve worked but due to childcare didn’t put as much away as I should have! Now I’m the wrong side of 40 - back to FT work and putting money in pension to try and top up!

Is sad that in today's society 2 parents have to be out working to support a family, my mother was a stay at home who raised us and I'm so thankful she did instead of us been in childcare all day long! Stay at home parent while another works is what's best for children, you shouldn't blame your friend for how difficult the government has made to survive on basic wages, the government knows this and is why they also give benefits

This is partly wrong. People’s lifestyle expectations have changed. Years and years ago, this kind of family would have lived with some degree of poverty, but now coping financially means having electronic devices, holidays, Sky tv, etc.

Yes to some extent....but wages are far too low in this country. The government effectively enables low wages by providing top up benefits.

It doesn't have to be all or nothing though does it. She could work part time or some hours around her partners work if she doesn't want to put the kids in childcare which I appreciate could be expensive. When my kids were young this was what pretty much all parents would do, there were very few full time sahp's. My friend that was the only sasp amongst us was hit hard when she divorced, could not find work easily as had been out o the workforce for many years and really struggled.

She’s probably not rolling in it to be fair and at least you don’t have 5 kids to look after. She’s hardly going to be able to scale the career ladder if she’s been out of work until her 40s. Whereas if you have been working you can take courses and improve your prospects through promotions whereas she will be stuck in a dead end job or on benefits for the rest of her life.

The all sorts of things Includes benefits

It’s a pretty tiny amount. Complain about paying out state pensions to people who might not even need it instead, some of whom will spend as long retired as they did in work.

There are people who can’t afford to buy food and have to use food banks. It’s not about holidays and iPhones.

but now coping financially means having electronic devices, holidays, Sky tv, etc

The thing is that nowadays the luxuries are affordable and the essentials are expensive. Food, rent, childcare and utility bills are eyewateringly expensive. Electronic goods and TV subscriptions are not really the problem. I worked out that a year's worth of netflix would pay for 1.5 days in a private nursery.

You get benefits for all children, except those born after 2017. This was implemented to stop people having so many children on benefits.

So if she had another baby she wouldn’t get any more benefits then. Which is what the original allegation was.

@gettingbackonit23 aye. They’re entitled to child benefit, but wouldn’t receive the child tax element or any other benefit.

She probably won’t be getting money for the 4 year old as they’ll have been born after 2017.

Beenfotsnis included in welfare.

Welfare.makes up 34% of government spending, roughly speaking.

Of that 34%
170Billion is paid to pensions.
1-2Billion is paid to the unemployed.
Unemployment is around 0.01pc of government expenditure. The average tax payer pays around £2000 a year towards welfare, £9 of that goes to the unemployed. pensions and managing of welfare costs many.multitudes more.

If this family have four of the kids born before April 2017 they will be getting four lots of child element when they switch to UC which amounts to over 1k a month of the Uc claim. As the kids start to drop off the claim when they leave education that will go down but when number three drops off the claim, the younger one can then stay on the claim until they leave education. It;s all about when they were born. For anyone now having kids on UC it is a maximum of two kids on the claim unless special circumstances apply like child conceived in a coercive relationship or multiple births.
Not sure how I feel about the two child cap, it does seem to be punishing kids for their parents choices and we have a falling birth rate.

People I know on UC and working actually get quite a lot in UC. From their experience it does actually seem to reward work.

Times change. It was only ever a brief moment in history that it was usual for women not to work.