Carers allowance is £53.10 per week. – thats if you “live in”.
For that the government say you have to look after the disabled person for a minimum of 35 hours per week.
This means you are paid £1.52 per hour. This is odds to the governments own national minimum wage which is £5.80 per hour. The government say that the purpose of the care componant of DLA is to cover this deficit. Even so you would still effectively be getting only £3.53 per hour maximum.
[ad#Google 200×200 right]Young carers get nothing at all. Must be over 16 to claim the allowance. Surely they deserve something and not just support (which my own daughter couldn’t get because the Birmingham Branch was too busy).
Carers who live away from the “cared for” person get paid more.
Is this fair? Morally right? Comments please.
I am a carer my self .I feel this is really not right considering we all do the same job and that is caring. but we are given a different wage and some get nothing
Having lived through this situation, we find the government rather cheeky.
In their opinion they could pay us a very small minimum allowance to care for our son.
As we are well aware had our son been put in a position whereby the state looked after him, this would have indeed cost the government much much more money.
It seems the Government are happy to pay a carers allowance instead of a large sum of funding elsewhere.
I could go into the costs of schooling here also, one residential placement cost approximately £150,000 per academic year, and a state school had taken on our son as a Part time learner earning the school £45,000 for one year.
Our time however as mentioned above was not even worth the national minimum wage.
I totally agree with you son ,we to have a daughter in a special school/collage.And what the government choose to pay us, isn’t right
when you think, you do the same work as a carer out side the family home
does and there willing to pay a higher wage so we should be getting the exact same wage …yes and we work round the clock
I am a carer…
I really take exception to the whole carer philosopy by the government… Think about it logically.
Carers allowance is £53.10 per week.
So lets look at that and compare it with the governments minimum wage.
Carers Allowance £53.10 per week
This equates to £53.10 divided by 35 hours = £1.52 per hour
Minimum wage = £5.80 per hour or £203.00 gross per 35 hour working week. If we assume that the average person on the minimum wage is going to pay on average 12% tax and NI, this gives a net income of £178.64…. this is £125.54 LESS per week than the national minimum wage
By the governments OWN rules, The care componant of DLA is for the disabled persons own use, NOT to pay for care (if you DONT have a member of your family caring for you and claiming carers allowance, the care componant of DLA will not be taken off you and offset against the cost of providing outside care, This point is important to note)
So the reality is that the government are actually breaking the law by making us care for “AT LEAST” 35 hours per week!!!
Also Carers Allowance is means tested, WHY??? Its irrelevent that you might work for 16, 30 or even 40 hours per week. You will still be caring for the disabled person for “AT LEAST” 35 hours per week.
There are 168 hours in a week, if you are lucky enough to be able to sleep for 8 hours per day @ 7 days per week this is 56 hours so leaving 112 hours per week. If you then work 40 hours this will leave 72 hours more than double the time that the government specify you MUST be able to look after the disabled person, and the chances are very high you DO look after them for most of the hours you are home (I know I do).
The means test on Carers allowance is just another get out clause for the government to be able to avoid paying up what is rightfully ours!
It is not common knowledge that Tony Blair asked for a Royal Commission study on UK carers which was published in 1999. The conclusion then was that Carers Allowance should be paid at the same rate as the basic state pension. The basic pension is now £87.30 per week. See:
http://www.royal-commission-elderly.gov.uk
Gordon Brown’s ‘New Deal for Carers’ is supposed to be an up-date of the recommendations made to the government in 1999 – but these have never been implemented!!!
Carers allowance in Southern Ireland is now equivalent to £136.10 if caring for someone under the age of 65, and £148.35 if caring for someone over 65 . This was the rate back in 2007
I think that carers allowance needs to be completely revamped and made into a realistic allowance, but who is gonna force the government into doing this??
I would if I could.
(Thanks to Karen for the info on the royal commission study and the southern Ireland rates)
no problems paul
do the goverment really think their being fair
I my self think the government have been getting away with this to long i feel.isn’t it time we all got paid the same wage what are your thought
so then can,And are the goverement aloud to get away with this knowing they are paying different wages for the same job,i wonder how many other business do the same with people doing the same job .
I dont know about legally, but the government ARE getting away with it and have been for years. I would like to see some of the disability charities and groups out there all get together and present a united front and challenge the government together.
Where the Government can ignore 1 or 2 individuals, it will be pretty hard to ignore a large group of disability charities!
If someone can help me compile a list of related charities and groups I will be more than happy to contact them all and see what the reaction to this is going to be 🙂
You can contact me at carersunite@googlemail.com.
so why do we vote for a goverement ,that’s not fair to the public ,if we were not to vote then we would be told your being unfair,well paying different wages for the same jobs unfair don’t you think
i had to give up my job to be full time carer for my partner i gave up 250 pound a week for my carers allowance and twenty three pounds income support the goverment are not being fair as you must care for a minimum of 35 hours