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?

"they still persist in promoting this image of LPs as teenage mums"

You too, LittleBella. A bit of intellectual honesty would help.

Nobody here has said all LPs are teenage mums. And nobody has said that women who find themselves as LPs shouldn't be supported. Of course benefits should be a safety net for these women and children.

"I can't remember the percentage of LP's who are teenage mums"

Well, you obviously have internet connection, so why don't you look it up? I'm sitting here with the worst cold in living memory, with a buzzing head and leaking nose, no medicine but paracetamol because of pregnancy, and yet am capable of searching for figures.

This paper, I meant:

NHS - Health development agency
Teenage Pregnancy and Parenthood

Bella - I didn't say "stupid". I said "unwise". Which it is.

LOL I don't know why you're getting so pissed off. I'm merely pointing out that when you conflate the issues of teenage mums and all LPs, you're muddying the waters, because the issues which face teenage mums are different from those which face most LP's.

I'm not arguing that teenage pregnancy isn't a serious problem, of course it is, it's just a different prob. from that of lone parenthood, working etc. It's obviously related as most teenage mothers are not in stable relationships and will be LP's, but it needs to be dealt with separately in terms of their needs, issues etc. TBH they probably need far more support in ensuring that they aren't permanently excluded from the workplace than the average LP nowadays. But that's a slightly different discussion IMO.

I just think that creating/raising/providing for a child is something that is meant to be done by two people.

When one of them washes their hands of their part in it then the entire burden falls on the one who has remained.

Now I do not say that to absolve myself of any responsibility to provide for my child. But its not just my responsibility, and its not just about money! I consider myself a good role model for DD. I provide all the attention, caring, help, nursing, supervising, domestic drudgery goddess stuff, sacrifices and so on that she needs and deserves. I also study, and volunteer. I think the one who is expecting the state to take responsibilty for their actions is my ex, not me.

I don't see it fair that I am expected to take on his responsibilities as mine, when he is left to carry on a a single man with not a care. As she gets older I feel more ready to take on a job outside the home, in fact I have recently applied for a couple that looked perfect in terms of hours and training. No luck as yet but I will carry on looking.

"I think the one who is expecting the state to take responsibilty for their actions is my ex, not me."

Very good point.

Why thank you

I take the responsibility for my DD very seriously, but you know, there's only one of me.

ok so

in 2000 (damn that's old - not being critical just surprised thought they'd have more uptodate figues on it- anyhooo)

38 thousand under 18's became pregnant

17 thousand (roughly) terminated their pregnancy.

So 21,000 went on (we presume) to have a baby.

4,000 of those were under 16 (nearly 20%) of them)

Leaving 17,000 that may have been able to claim benefits

It is estimated there are 600,000 LP's with a child under 7yrs old (back in April - articlein the Guardian). However, according to figures quoted by someone else earlier 2/3 of lone parents already work.

Really, even taking into account that the 600,000 is LP's with a child under 7yrs old and assuming that none of them are currently in work that really does leave teenage benefits as a tiny proportion of the figures, especially as I'm sure they don't all claim.

Blimey.

You're not expecting us all to get our calculators out are you?

Didn't the rate of teenage pregnancies go down last year? Or was that just the usual government figure-fiddling?

LJB - well I did, but then it all got too confusing with only finding figures for all Lone Parents with a child under 7,

I did find any incredibly long research report from the DWP (all 142 pages of it ) but it became apparentthat I could have been trawling through it for a very long time looking for the "LP claminng benefits" figure

Ah look what I found, BBC report saying 3% of all LP's are teenage mums.

bbc

Can that really be right? It sounds extraordinarily low, even to me.

TBH qualifications are so ramed down our throats by the goverment and to see it done here- this is all about qualifications and it has become apparent that fivecandles think if you do not have qualifications you are a nobody and you work shitty jobs and dont deserve to be paid a wage by your employers but thinks it is ok for the goverment to top up your wage, consequently she would rather her taxes went to top up thoses wages than an employer pay a decent wage.

There will be no changing her view on this one, sadly.

I work with a variety of people who do not have qualifications and who work very very hard, they have other qualities as people rather than a list of qualifications.

It does seem there are educated fool s on this post

i agree to its madness to make them work and end up paying out more, its very shortsighted imo

but they love beating single parents with sticks.

LJB - going on the figures I quoted that sounds quite plausible, if there are 600,000 LP's with a child under 7 (who knows how many there are with children over 7). Even taking into the 38,000 pregnancies) of which approx 1/2 were terminated, that makes them a very small mintoriy, even assuming that they are all^ LP's

Here's a thought...why dont we stop bashing lone parents?

I have two kids with two different fathers. Get over it people. My ds's dad slept with someone in my bed when ds was a little prem one day old. My dd's dad fucked off and left us for five years. I made bad choices perhaps...I didn't know at the time how things would turn out.

I work 30 hours and cant really cope with that. But I look after my children the best I can. I pay tax just like everyone else.. I have been on benefit when I was made redundant twice. Every day of my life I have to listen to this shit and how im such a drain on society...yet neither of my ex's now work. I pay tax to fund them making babies and living off the state...but who is slagging them off on a daily basis? no-one!

Gone a bit quiet now hasn't it? Funny that, I pay for my ex's to have babies and claim from the state because they are to idle to work when I have to. I rest my case!

FGS gold you are sooo negative. Nobody's talking about living in squalor. It is perfectly possible to live in cheap accommodation and eat very cheaply on beans,lentils, frozen veg etc and study without risking your health etc. I've known loads of people do it. Everyone who's ever been a student knows you can do it. In many ways living cheaply - eating cheaply and walking everywhere etc etc - can be a much healthier lifesttly. I was certainly never fitter than when I was a student and would have been healthier if it weren't for the drinking

And no there's no guarantee you'll get a job after studying but there's a BETTER chance. And actually after a year long PGCE for example there's an excellent chance of getting an appropriate job.

What's your advice then? It's hard to study and get a good job so just give up?

You do realize that there are plenty of people LP and not who are now successful or at least comfortable because they've had long periods where they weren't either??

'many lone parents might be unqualified as they can't afford to study/can't find decent childcare/haven't the motivation to study when they might not get a job at the end of studying'

I'm talking about why they are unqualified when they get pregnant?

ANd, sorry, as I've said there is no shortage of opportunity for education for young people. If you are from a family with a low income you get paid to go to college.

'that LP's are women like you and like me. Some will be qualified, some not. But we are talking about the ones who aren't. '

No that is NOT what the OP was saying. It was saying why bother working when you get paid nearly as much not to. And why is the Govt encouraging people to work..

However, it is interesting how many people go on about how it's impossible for LP to get jobs that pay anything above the minimum wage because they're unqualified.

So YOU are talking about the ones that are unqualified but I am saying actually many LPs ARE qualified and many LPs could get qualified.

'It doesn't matter how many times you tell people LP's are women just like them and one day they may be one'

Well, yes and no. I would not have been a LP before being qualified and in employment. I planned my family. And if dp left me (again) tomorrow God forbid I would still be qualified and in employment and able to support myself and my kids financially.

Now, I'm not judging people who do get pregnant before they are qualified etc, etc but I do sort of find it odd that once they have done this they are then surprised to find that they find it hard to make ends meet or get a job and complain about what a rough deal they're getting. You make choices and you live with the consequences.

'education is NOT always an option, some people are practically ineducable past a basic level.'

Again, fair enough, but then if you're not educated and 'ineducable' it's not surprising that you're also going to be fairly unemployable (at least in a job that pays more than the minimum wage).

I'm certainly not bashing lone parents or teenage mothers. But I am addressing the OP and my response remains that an argument about work vs benefits is not just about the amount involved but where it comes from.

Like cote if I've got her right, I think that it's probably unwise to have children before you're in a position to support them financially which probably means qualifications and a decent job.

Excuse me, the OP was saying NOTHING along the lines of "Why bother working when you get paid almost as much not to"

£37 a week may be peanuts to you - it's my Tesco bill for the week. It's not peanuts to me.

I have not implied that you get paid almost as much for staying at home as you do working - if I thought this was the case, why would I have a job? Fairly typical stereotyping going on there, though - the assumption that mere facts are a complaint.

My point is, and always was ... "Why does this government have a policy of 'encouraging' LPs into low paid, very part time work when it does not benefit THE GOVERNMENT for them to do so."

It never was about low pay, although the thread has divulged somewhat from the point as these threads do. But don't twist my original meaning please.

LOL fivecandles are you a government minister or something? You really are so determined to tell lone parents how to live, aren't you, while all the time pretending that you're not judging them...

Coldtits, to answer your OP for the first time I think that possibly, the govt genuinely are doing it for a long term gain for the country and the families of LP's as they see it. You are absolutely right, it makes no short term financial sense whatsoever to pay tax credits rather than benefits, it costs far more, but I think we have to remember that not all politicians are in it for their short term career gain. I really believe that some of the people in this bloody awful government have a genuine commitment to improving the lives and outcomes of poor families and of course those headed by Lone Parents are v. poor. I don't think the idealism of people like Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman can be completely discounted, incredulous though I know some people will be about that assertion! I may not agree with their methods or even their assumptions (eg that the only work of any value is paid work) but I do believe that in a genuine long term commitment to make life better and offer more choices to LP's than have been there previously, that is why they are promoting this seemingly financially unviable policy.

I have to say, it may surprise many people on this thread if I say that I'm delighted they are tbh. I'm really glad to be able to work 18 hours a week and have a proper work life balance - I love my job and I'm glad I have enough time to give the emotional energy and commitment to my DC's, that I judge that they need. My only gripe with the policy, is the assumption that it is the right one for every LP out there in the country.