Why are the government BOTHERING to push single parents back into paid work?

[Coldtits]

If you have two children, pay for £35 a week childcare and work 16 hours at the minimum wage you get

£70 a week working tax credit
£117 a week child tax credit
£30 a week child benefit
any maintenance your ex partner/s give you
And some of your rent paid if you are renting

That's a total of £217 of government money PLUS whatever they pay towards your rent.

Without working you get
£60 income support - with whatever maintenance your ex gives you being knocked (less £20) off this sum
£90 child tax credit
£30 child benefit.

SO, this is £180.

It costs the government LESS for me to stay at home and not work, they way the current set up is.

Why, when they are screaming from the rooftops about single parents going back to work, would they make it financially advantagious to THE GOVERNMENT for them not to? Why have they done this?

Oh and an added plus is that there are more people indebted to the gov't due to the student loans.

I think you're right to be cynical juuule. In defence of my job, it's always required a degree. In fact now it's not uncommon for it to require a postgrad degree because of qualification deflation.

We are heading next year to a large figure of unemployment - 2-3 million. Thoses with high saleires will be heading out - it is easy to cut the higher paid to make savings. Thoses people with higher pay will have qualifications.

So there will be a lot of people with qualifications looking for work, meanial work and they will be over qualified for thoses jobs.

Employers will not want to take them on - as they know they will want to climb back up the ladder, therefore will possibly not stay in the job long and so would cost them in training and staff turnover (advertising job agian and then training all over again)

So they will employ the person who is less likely to want to climb the ladder and leave.

"dd's friends who is a single mother but actually gets considerably more support from her new partner and her mother"

Then she's not actually a single mother then is she

If/when I find a new partner that has got to the stage of giving support for my children then I will no longer consider myself a lone parent.

This'll cheer you up...

I got my finance letter from the Student Loan Company today.

I'm getting £12,500 help from Sept 08 - Jul 09.

Twelve and a half THOUSAND pounds.

I have to repay £7k of that.

That's so I can become a teacher, so I can finally get myself off the benefits I've been on for 6 years and finally make something of myself and a life for my son.

If I wasn't intelligent enough or brave enough or able to go to university, to struggle through a degree with a baby / toddler and to go on to do a post-grad course, I'd STILL be on benefits.

If you've not got a good infrastructure of support, it's damn hard doing ANY sort of course - do you realise that? To psyche yourself up to go out, learn, come home, tidy up, entertain the kids, feed them healthy meals or else have the food police on at you, spend quality time with them or else have the kids-shouldn't-be-in-nursery brigade piping up..... THEN start your homework to get up the next day and do it all over again.

Without support, that's bloody difficult.

I can THOROUGHLY understand why LPs don't do the courses. A lot of them can't simply due to the fact that they haven't got the support structure around (and don't tell me there are nurseries on site at college; most of the time the staff fill the places and its unavailable when your at campus (learned first hand))

"when you're at campus" OMG...

Re thoughts on low minimum wage

Here are the minimum wages of all European countries.

And here are comparative price levels in these countries. Look at the last column to compare other countries with UK ("100").

For example, France's minimum wage is EUR 7.61/hr, UK's is EUR 7.16/hr. So minimum wage is 6% higher in France. But prices are also 3% higher. So a slight advantage in France over UK for minimum wage earners.

Meanwhile in Spain, minimum wage is EUR 16.36 per day, so EUR 2.05/hr (assuming 8 hr day). So minimum wage in Spain is 87% lower than UK, but prices are 11% lower!

'and once again we are back to what was discussed last night - that getting quals costs money, time and energy which simply may not be there. Did you actually read those posts?'

Yes, and sorry I'm not buying it. If you really want something you have to work for it like the way people put themselves through university by travelling, loans, shitty jobs and hard, hard work.

And there are many thousands of people who do this.

There's a poster here who has found an OU course to suit.

Amongst my friends at university there were some mature parents and at least two people my age who gave birth whilst on their courses and carried on studying.

But actually as I've been saying if you're from a low income family you get paid to go to college so there's every opportunity to get qualified BEFORE becoming parents.

Nobody in this world gets PRESENTED with qualifications and a good job. There are very, very few people whose parents pay entirely for their children's education and pay for their first houses etc. So how exactly do you think people do get good jobs?

I totally accept what you say about the minimum wage.

'I did plan my life out, unfortunately I didn't take some factours into consideration, you never know in life where you may end up. people have accidents, die, have affairs, mental breakdowns - no life is so secure that outside factors may not unbalance thoses plans.'

But you see when I talk about planning that's not about depending on anyone else. You're right that nobody can depend on their partner because bad stuff happens. I planned my life out so that I can be financially independent. If my partner left me I absolutely could and would carry on working and support myself and my children.

In fact, my partner did leave me a while ago. As it turned out it was for 6 months but at the time we both thought it would be permananent. And I did carry on working and was able to be financially independent albeit with cutbacks.

but fivecandles - you can't take the really shitty low paid jobs that university students can take . The really shitty jobs are frequently under 16hrs a week (so leave them horrendously worse off, as they lose their IS, but don't get WTC) and in addition to that they're usually unsociable hours (or at least hours for which childcare is simply non-existent)

And yes I did (eventually) find a course to suit. But you know what, I'm still going to be claiming benenfits and I'm not paying a penny towards my course - I get it fully funded (and don't have to pay any back).

And you know what else? The line of work I'm vaguely hoping to end up in will STILL leave me relying heaviliy on WTC, and almost certainly Housing Benefits and Council Tax Benefit even if I manage to rise up the scale. Because jobs in those sorts of fields aren't well paid - and probably never will be.

'You think your job is better than my job, I dont want to have a "better" job, I want to actually do my job which is of great value to society and be paid a reasnable wage to do that job - I do not though want to be paid as much money as you get.

Oh and by the way I do work hard, obviously I dont work as hard as you do though candles. '

No, when I talk about 'better' I mean better paid because that is what we are talking about here. I agree with you that all jobs have value. I agree that the minimum wage should be higher (and I think something IS wrong when the minimum wage is barely higher if at all than benefits).

I suppose what I'm saying is that if you're not qualified or experienced enough or whatever to get a better PAID job then you have choices to make. You either do the extra qualifications or take on more work.

And again, this is a position I find myself in. When I can't afford to pay for something I take on extra work. I do freelance work and/or examining in addition to my normal hours and I am aware that I will need to work full-time in the future.

I PERSONALLY wouldn't just give up and complain that life is hard because that's not going to help anybody.

fivecandles - so if you'd met your current partner while at Univeristy, or before you'd become financially independent are you saying you wouldn't have got together with him??

but you can't just take on extra work willy nilly when you're on your own!

The McDonald's job my BF took because things wre tight financially for them (and has since quit ass it was wrecking her relationship with husband and children) was evenings - she couldn't have taken that job if she'd been on her own and things were tight.

'There never used to be a minimum wage, and there never used to be tax credits - how did people survive? Did the trend towards double incomes happen because of rising living costs or did it cause rising living costs?'

Ah, well you see I'm from the grim north where women have worked for generations and in fact this idea of women staying at home is a fairly new idea and reserved for posh people. When salaries were small and there were no benefits both partners went t' mill leaving the children with grandma. What people did and do when salaries are small is work more hours - overtime or Avon sales or whatever. And that's what a huge amount of people continue to do.

well that's funny as I also grew up in the grim north - my dad was on a low wage. My mum coouldn't work, there was nowhere to put my DB and I if she went out to work, not to mention the distinct lack of jobs in the area we lived.

How did we survive, gawd knows really, think it was mainly down to my dad working hellishly long hours, maybe it was because she was thrify, but one thing i know for certain was that she, along with most of my friends mother's didn't work.

'dd's friends who is a single mother but actually gets considerably more support from her new partner and her mother"

Then she's not actually a single mother then is she

If/when I find a new partner that has got to the stage of giving support for my children then I will no longer consider myself a lone parent. '

Technically and in other ways you remain a single parent in that your new partner has no financial responsibility for your child.

yes but come on - lets be realistic here, how many couples where a man becomes seriously involved with a woman who has children from a previous relationship (to the extent of helping out with childcare) does the man not contribute. Even if he's not to the stage where they're living together and he is contributing financially just looking after the child(ren) is finaical assistance in itself as childcare costs money!

Does everyone here know that people on minimum wage represent only 1.4% of total workforce in the UK?

'it's damn hard doing ANY sort of course - do you realise that? To psyche yourself up to go out, learn, come home, tidy up, entertain the kids, feed them healthy meals or else have the food police on at you, spend quality time with them or else have the kids-shouldn't-be-in-nursery brigade piping up..... THEN start your homework to get up the next day and do it all over again.'

Mm, but it can be damn hard doing any sort of course without children. Did you read my earlier posts about medics for example? Seven years plus study after A Levels (which have to be A grades) without earning a penny and costing thousands.

And actually it's damn hard working when you have kids. My partner and I had the sort of life you describe while working and still do though it's becoming easier in some ways as they get older. I was paying £700 a month in childcare and earning just over £1000. Dropping kids off at nursery at 8 then getting bus to work and coming home after 5, giving kids tea then starting marking whilst they were in bed.

In fact, one of hte very hardest times in my life was when I returned to work after dc2 who wouldn't feed from a bottle so she ate very little during the day at nursery and then I continued breastfeeding her all night every night for months after I'd gone back to work. I did all that just to keep my job but it was very, very hard.

I think my point is the way people have the attitude that it's hard to be a LP and work and my feeling is no shit, Sherlock. But life IS hard.

well yes indeed those on the minimum wage is relatively small. But as you can work full time on a salary above the minimum wage and still qualify for HB and CTB and WTC I'm not how that really helps.

Have you ever noticed how many jobs in the papers say salary: above minimum wage.........well in my experience of yes it's often above the minimum wage, by about 10-20p an hour

gold, I had several boyfriends at university and after who I thought might be the ones. I lived with one other man before dp. But I didn't have children with any of them. I wouldn't have had children until I was financially independent (or at least had the potential to be).

'And yes I did (eventually) find a course to suit. But you know what, I'm still going to be claiming benenfits and I'm not paying a penny towards my course - I get it fully funded (and don't have to pay any back).'

Then I do find it odd that you are complaining about the lack of opportunities for training etc!!!

"like the way people put themselves through university by travelling, loans, shitty jobs and hard, hard work."

When I went to university, I didn't have children to consider.

Technically schmechnically. If you've got someone in your life who is making a financial contribution and who is an on call babysitter, you are in a totally different situation to someone who genuinely doesn't have that back up. So please don't tell us about the technicalities, it's the realities we're talking about here, not the fantasies.

Cote that's an interesting link. I'd like to see what housing costs are in each country relative to minimum wage, because along with childcare costs, that tends to be the biggest outgoing for most families in this country, lone parent or not.

fivecandles of course if you did it, then that must mean that everyone can and should do it. Naturally.

But gold, it was one of the posters here that came up with the stat that a LP is a LP for an average of no more than 5 years. That has been one of my points - that the number of LP who remain completely without the support (financial and otherwise) of a partner for ever is actually pretty small.

Many LPs have the support of the father from the off.