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Original poster

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

491 replies

Coldtits · 17/12/2008 22:34

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?

OP posts:
fivecandles · 19/12/2008 21:29

So you HAVE found an opportunity which suits you Gold.

AnarchyInAManger · 19/12/2008 21:30

Oh no I think the Govt is quite right to give lone parents the choice, though in practice neither option is exactly perfect.

I just object to people who do not live my life in my family telling me what choice I should make, and that I have no right to make the choice I have.

Ivykaty44 · 19/12/2008 21:34

Yes but if you are on a low wage then the government is paying that someone, and subsidising your wage! to look after your child

Yes but as I said no one would beleive that single parents are better of if they work and the goverment fools people inot thinking they are doing a great job getting single parents out of the home and working.

How do you think single parents feel knowing the goverment do not think that they should stay home and ook after their own children and the goverment is prepared to pay subsideised childcare and subsidised wages to do this.

Think of all the companies that benifit from the subsidised wages aswell... whitebread, tesco, asda all employ a lot of woman on minimum wage - I do beleive tesco support the present goverment.

goldFAQinsenceandmyrrh · 19/12/2008 21:42

fivecandles - our "local" college accctually has 4 (or is it 5?) campusess (campi?) (ok maybe I do need to brush up my English ) in several different towns. The range of courses available at my local one (the only one I can get to) is extremely limitied, and definitely aimed at those needing to brush up basic skills.

And I'm not scoring the opporutnities available, they're NOT available here - yes they probably are elsewhere, but not here. Yes there are LOTS available if you need basic skills in various stuff, but if you want to do something more specific (well ok Health and social care is pretty broad reaching really) virtually nothing.

And I don't recall saying I wouldn't do any job - did you read the job I ended up taking when I had to work - trust me - I'd rather clean the pub toilets at the roughest/crappiest pub in town than do that again. Last year/early this year I applied for various jobs, glass collecting in local bar (12am-4am shift), various kitchen assistant jobs, a couple of night shift jobs (factory work) and one care job.

And as for "urghh" at Unviersity - ermm I'm just about to start a degree - my "urghh" comment was at the choice of course I'd picked (now come on who in their right mind would choose to spend 4yrs of their life doing a Business Studies and Geography degree??? - thankfully I realised on my Gap Year that the course had no interest for me at all and that I'd drop out if I started so after deferring for the initial year I wrote and told them I wouldn't be taking up my place).

As for your comment about training - no I don't want to learn how to programme computers, or run a business (both of which can be quite well paid) - is that a crime???

Or are people on benefits just supposed to take any old "career" route (haha - most of them will end up stuck in low paid jobs for life) to keep everyone else happy?

Yes of course there wil be some people who are quite happy to stay in those jobs (although my best friend has today jacked in her McDonalds cleaning job as it was causing too much stress at thome - she is however keeping her lunchtime supervisor job which she loves). And my aunty has been a barmaid at her local working mans clubs since she left school (she's in her 60's now) - she loves it. But believe it or not some of us on benefits have higher ambitions, and would ideally like to do something other than cleaning toilets/pulling pints or standing in the cold stopping chidlren trying to run riot at lunchtime.

You speak as if you think that people on benefits just don't want to work. Well I do - once it's financially viable (ie when their youngest starts school/nursery but right now I'm not prepared to compromise my cildren's well being by having even less money than I currently get.

I never once said I thought I should get more. It's enough to survive on, and that's what it's intended for - so it does it's job in that respect

goldFAQinsenceandmyrrh · 19/12/2008 21:43

yes I did after MONTHS of searching - one single opportunity, certainly not hudreds of them!!

goldFAQinsenceandmyrrh · 19/12/2008 21:44

but fivecandles - this thread isn't about the giverment giving choice - it's about taking that away by forcing them back into work by threatening to reduce their benefits if they don't! (a very simple analogy I know)

fivecandles · 19/12/2008 21:47

I get that Anarchy but it's not the Govt that's telling you what to do. I really genuinely believe that they are offering real choices and more than we've ever had before.

Ivy, I think single parents as other parents are capable of making sensible choices. I really don't think there are many single parents who think one day, 'Ooh, I must go and get a job that I don't really want and which isn't going to pay very much just so that somebody else will have a proportion of their wage paid'. I think you have to credit single with the intelligence to make sensible choices.

fivecandles · 19/12/2008 21:49

gold if there are courses available in other campuses of your local college why can you not travel to those?

Unless I'm missing something (are you disabled?) the obstacles you are presenting are not greater than those for anyone else.

AnarchyInAManger · 19/12/2008 21:51

Ah but the Govt is trying to limit that choice! And it seems that most of society resents that choice being available.

goldFAQinsenceandmyrrh · 19/12/2008 21:52

because I don't have the time, or money, or childcare for my DS's to enable me to do that.

fivecandles · 19/12/2008 21:53

So gold you are now enrolled on a course that you're happy with. So, once again, what is your argument here?

What is your problem with Govt policy?

Oh, ok it's your perception that the Govt is 'forcing' parents back into work. But actually this isn't the case.

Offering incentives for parents who return or remain at work is hardly the same as 'forcing'. As I've said and as you are well aware those people who can't work or won't are given benefits. TBH apart from the amount I can't see anything to complain about.

goldFAQinsenceandmyrrh · 19/12/2008 21:54

no I'm not 100% happy with it, but it'll do, it's the cloest I was going to get.

They're not proposing giving incentives they're proposing cutting benefits - big difference IMO.

LittleJingleBellas · 19/12/2008 21:56

It's naieve to say there's nothing to complain about.

ATM I think the govt policy is OK. I'm one of the LP's who benefits from wages being subsidised so that I can work part time. But the big objection many of us have is the threat of LP's being forced out to the cash workplace when that is not the right thing for them and their families. It is absolutely right to be vigilant about what govt and opposition politicians say about this issue because if we just meekly accept that this is the solution for every family, we open the door to govt. forcing this solution on those for whom it is wrong.

fivecandles · 19/12/2008 21:56

As I understand it Anarchy there is a move to provide interviews for parents of school-aged children to discuss their options for returning to work. Where is is not possible for them to do so they continue to get benefits. Where it is possible and parents want to get work then they are to be given support for this. I don't see this as 'force'. In fact, I think it's responsible Govt.

fivecandles · 19/12/2008 21:59

OK, here it says that benefits may stop if your youngest child is 12

www.dwp.gov.uk/advisers/lone-parent-changes.asp

Sorry, still don't see the problem.

LittleJingleBellas · 19/12/2008 22:01

The policy is predicated on the idea that most lone parents are unqualified, clueless bints who need guidance about how to return to work when they're ready to.

They're not. They're just women like you and me. Some of them are better educated and have higher qualifications than us. They don't need preparing for work interviews, they know how to get jobs as and when that's the right solution for their family.

LittleJingleBellas · 19/12/2008 22:03

The problem is that it's currently 12.

Plans to reduce it to 7. Then 5. Then 3. Then 1. All these options are being discussed in one way or another by politicians of one ilk or another.

LittleJingleBellas · 19/12/2008 22:04

Oh and may I remind all of you that 2/3 of lone parents already have waged jobs.

That's a higher percentage than married/ partnered mothers.

fivecandles · 19/12/2008 22:04

I think that's ridiculous.

If I were an unqualified, clueless bint than I would benefit from a return to work interview.

If I were me but unemployed then I might also benefit and if I didn't I don't see how I could get arsey about going to the odd interview in return for getting benefits until my children were 12 TBH.

goldFAQinsenceandmyrrh · 19/12/2008 22:04

Yes that's the actual changes - the proposed changes are somewhat different. (can't find the link at the moment and just been arguing with the manager at the pizza shop over whether I should get my 20% discount for ordering online when it didn't go through and I've had to ring and place it over the phone)

goldFAQinsenceandmyrrh · 19/12/2008 22:07

lol fivecandles - you seem like an intellegient lady - trust me I don't think you'd benefit much from a "return to work" interview - complete and utter waste of time IMO.

All I came away with from mine (only had one so far as not been on them that long) was a stamp on my OU financial assistance form and an irate toddler..........oh and a print out that showed me that I would indeed be worse off if I returned to work now .

fivecandles · 19/12/2008 22:08

There are plans to reduce the age to 7. It is not Govt policy to reduce the age to 1. But anyway we are just talking about attending interview in return for recieving thousands of pounds of money FGS.

Plus the reasoning is in part because, 'Children of unemployed lone parents were five times more likely to be in poverty than children of lone parents in full-time jobs.'

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6904520.stm

goldFAQinsenceandmyrrh · 19/12/2008 22:11

no it's not currently Government policy but it's been proposed - and that's what this thread is all about!!!

LittleJingleBellas · 19/12/2008 22:11

Sigh.

My argument is that the measures proposed will not stop at the current proposals. The reason these measures are being introduced bit by bit, is to bed them in so that people get used to them, then increase the pressure and the penalties until eventually we have a system where children of lone parents will have money taken away from them if their mothers don't take inappropriate jobs. If they introduced it straight away, there would be an outrcry becuase it's so obviously not in the interests of children, but if over the course of years you can gradually embed different practices and attitudes, you can then hit people with the policy you wanted to introduce in the first place but didn't have the political power to.

fivecandles · 19/12/2008 22:12

Possibly not gold but then I've got a job!! In fact, I did sign on once in my life for a few months after university I think and before starting a PGCE maybe (long time ago. Had sort of erased it from my memory) and if nothing else for me it was a kick up the arse to start earning some money so I didn't have to go back there. But then as I say I've got a job. Apart from about 3 months when I was 21 I've never not earned from the age of 18. Some people would and do hugely benefit from job club schemes etc. Some people get money for interview clothes, help with writing CVs etc and really need ti.