What benefits can you claim whilst on mat leave?

[SunnySide1992]

Hey everyone so i work full time but will inly get mat pay from the goverment as i dont qualify for smp! DH works full time aswell. Are there any benefits we can get to help, seeming as mat pay is so awful? UK by the way =)

Yes it's crap - I earn £55k + so impossible to survive on £150 per week

But then at such a high salary, it could be argued that the potential to save funds to see yourself through a period of maternity leave would be possible.

The minimum mat leave you have to take is two weeks, four weeks if you work in a factory. If you can't afford mat leave, you go back to work.
I hope you've looked at childcare costs.....

I kind of agree with a few of the posters who're saying it's up to the individual family to fund the rest of maternity leave above the £600 a month the government provides. Over a year that's a pretty generous amount of free money, whilst having your job kept open. You can also split it with your partner so it's not all on you.

To ask tax payers to fund more is a bit strange to me when there're so many better places I can think for that money to go. We have 9 months of pregnancy to save, and hopefully saving before deciding to have a family also. It's a family expense also, so I'm saving and my partner is saving

The most expensive part of having your first child (assuming you're working) is loss of wages.

Unless you have free childcare lined up and are planning to return to work full-time, it'll be a long time before you've as much disposable income as you have now, so get practicing and save, save, save for the rest of your pregnancy.

It can be worth comparing yours/partner's income and parental benefits and potentially sharing leave if he would get any enhanced pay or is on a lower income.

@user432543424532 I'm sorry did you read any of my last post? Probably not but hey it wouldn't suit your GF agenda.
Especially the part where I said our combined earnings when on maternity leave are probably amongst the lowest in the area. In fact when I was pregnant with DD I looked and our earnings would've qualified us for tax credits back then if that had been our income all year round. So the government didn't think those earnings were enough to live on yet I am not entitled to any help and people like you think I'm being selfish?
Okay let's treat everyone the same. Let's give everyone child benefit. Everyone free childcare, and everyone housing benefit. Regardless of their circumstances/lifestyle? No it wouldn't work would it. The same way that SMP doesn't work for the majority of people.

Statutory maternity pay is £150 a week after the first 6 weeks. That’s what I’m getting 😔

Maternity allowance seems to be about the same.

What is the £300 a week? Is that when people get enhanced maternity pay from their employer?

SMP is crap, you have to do some hardcore saving in the run up to Mat leave.

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz

Yes it's crap - I earn £55k + so impossible to survive on £150 per week

But then at such a high salary, it could be argued that the potential to save funds to see yourself through a period of maternity leave would be possible.

There is an issue with the system, I think, which takes savings into account for benefit eligibility. Nobody should get more help for having failed to save. (For SMP) . May leave is low in this country I feel, but I understand why the amount is the same regardless of earnings. I’ve saved to cover the period of maternity leave but will only be taking 6 months. Of course people on higher wages have mortgages indexed on their salaries/ can’t access social housing or child benefit, live in more expensive are so have higher outgoings so it’s not quite as easy as saying “if x can live off this amount so can you”.

But it is easier to save on higher wages and I do realise I’m lucky to have that freedom. I could technically take 1 year off but I don’t want to completely spend every last penny in the bank.

Well said @A1b2c3d4e5f6g7. There's a high level of entitlement on here.

I think the £300 was just a hypothetical/better figure out out there @Cafeaulait27.

I would be struggling if I were getting MA as you don't get that 90% for six weeks like you do with SMP. As I'm getting it all in a lump I'll split it and 'pay' myself over 12 months, those 6 weeks of nearly normal pay have made it much more feasible that I might not need to dip into my redundancy but just use the SMP and my savings (which are a lot less than the savings I had ready for when I had DD but that's how it goes isn't it 😂).

It's worth doing the calculation on line for universal credit.
If you rent and your partner is on a low income it's likely you will be entitled.
As a single parent renting I earn 29k and still get universal credits with one child

www.entitledto.co.uk

Use this link, but unless you and DP are on the low end of earning you'll getting nothing unfortunately.

@SunnySide1992 how far along are you? Do you work full time? If you have time to get another job then you couldbe eligible to claim 2 lots of SMP! I had 2 jobs when pregnant so I got two lots of SMP £300 a week was much better than just the £150

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz

Yes it's crap - I earn £55k + so impossible to survive on £150 per week

But then at such a high salary, it could be argued that the potential to save funds to see yourself through a period of maternity leave would be possible.

Unfortunately not as simple as that..... I'm the breadwinner we don't live a frivolous lifestyle at all - no fancy car or big house we might be able to save but not enough to cover the equivalent of £3.5k a month I'd lose in salary......

@ivfgottwins would your partner not take a chunk of the leave then? Genuinely interested, as we plan to split ours 50/50. I earn more, but even if I didn't, I'd want to split it so we're both a primary parent (rather than it being default to me and my career always being expected to take the hit)

Smp is the biggest load of shite Eva, people who earn a decent wage get screwed over. Bills don't just magically disappear when your on mat leave, I've had to save over 10k each time I had my ds. Lucky we had as 1ds my born at 28 weeks and let me tell you 4 months in nicu is expensive. Could be get any help, hell no. So I had a serious ill baby and worrying if our savings would last. Where if I had been unemployed would have got uc / family fund grants.
Still don't get help now, luckily my son is just well enough to go to nursery, if he wasn't I still wouldnt be able to stay at home with him as I would get sweet f a. Benefits is a joke in this country

www.uceplus.co.uk/
This link helps you work out what you might be entitled to.
Working tax credits do not exist anymore but the only requirement was that you were working 30 hours if I’m a couple.
Working tax credit now falls under Universal credit.
Depending on how much your husband earns you may still get some support as your income reduces.
I am aiming for a year off but realistically I think I’ll need to go back after 6 months.

[quote A1b2c3d4e5f6g7]@ivfgottwins would your partner not take a chunk of the leave then? Genuinely interested, as we plan to split ours 50/50. I earn more, but even if I didn't, I'd want to split it so we're both a primary parent (rather than it being default to me and my career always being expected to take the hit) [/quote]

Well yes he could have taken the remainder of the SMP leave but I had twins and a then 4 year old and no to disrespect to him he just wouldn't have coped plus neither would our marriage ...I'd have come home from work and then started more work like cleaning washing and ironing. If he was to be a STAHP I'd expect him to pick up all the housework and cooking too the same way I did as well as all night feeds .....that wasn't going to happen and would have led to resentment so best we both stayed at work.

SMP is so difficult as it’s exactly the same up and down the country too. In the north it probably is enough to cover much more than in the south and london.

I’m in Sussex and £600 a month won’t even cover the 50% of the mortgage I usually pay, let alone the car, food or bills.

SMP really needs to change, or employers should have a benefit once worked at the company for a specified period.

I don’t think people are ‘entitled’ because they believe it should be a percentage based on earnings. Those individuals pay much more into the system than others, so it would seem logical that they should get more. Likewise, those individuals on higher salaries, will likely have higher outgoings.

£600 a month from the government isn’t generous at all, because let’s face it, if you were not working/already on benefits, your rent would be getting paid or subsidised and receive other benefits. It’s ludicrous and doesn’t even cover household bills in a lot of cases.

Best of luck OP and congratulations 😊

I don’t think people are ‘entitled’ because they believe it should be a percentage based on earnings. Those individuals pay much more into the system than others, so it would seem logical that they should get more. Likewise, those individuals on higher salaries, will likely have higher outgoings.

My point is simply that what seems fair to one person doesnt to another's I agree in theory that it makes sense for this to reflect earnings but PP was talking about being on £40k which isn't even that high. What does she think is a fair amount? What about someone on £200K? They would need much more for their SMP to be relatively comparable.

It just seems that the answer is to find an employer who pays enhanced pay or be prepared to save or not take a full year off.

In short, people complain about the system but then what do we do instead and would everyone be happy with that?

@ElderMillennial

I don’t think people are ‘entitled’ because they believe it should be a percentage based on earnings. Those individuals pay much more into the system than others, so it would seem logical that they should get more. Likewise, those individuals on higher salaries, will likely have higher outgoings.

My point is simply that what seems fair to one person doesnt to another's I agree in theory that it makes sense for this to reflect earnings but PP was talking about being on £40k which isn't even that high. What does she think is a fair amount? What about someone on £200K? They would need much more for their SMP to be relatively comparable.

It just seems that the answer is to find an employer who pays enhanced pay or be prepared to save or not take a full year off.

Like I've said, a % based system or some sort of tax rebate once you hit 20 weeks pregnant which is then used to supplement their SMP. A quick google tells me someone earning £200k a year will actually only pick up just over half of that, they will pay £75k a year in tax and almost £8k a year in NI. I don't see how it can be justified for that same person to pick up £151 a week on SMP when they'll have paid out 10 x that in tax alone. Another poster hit the nail on the head, if this was an issue that affected men it would've been solved a long time ago. It's true. Any future changes although will be too late to affect me (I will not be having any more children) needs to happen sooner rather than later. Women, especially working women who are parents are constantly shit on by the government.

@mummyh2016 And what % would you be happy with that wouldn't end up being extortionate for someone on a high salary?

I'm not disagreeing with you, in principle, I just think it's easy to say that SMP should reflect earnings but not come up with a clear alternative that works.

I say this as someone who earns more than £50k and I'm on mat leave now so SMP wouldn't cover my half of our household expenses but I do get enhanced pay for the first six months and I know I'm lucky for that. Then again I knew I planned to have kids and the maternity pay was a factor in whether I looked for alternative work before now.

@ElderMillennial maybe something like the furlough scheme but on a sliding scale so you start off at say 90% for the first 6 weeks (like SMP) but it then goes down to 80%, then 70% etc. And then instead of getting 9 months paid the pay stops at 6. You'd probably find the majority would then return to work at 6 months so therefore whilst m it obviously would cost more people would likely start paying back into it sooner.