Martin Lewis grills Chancellor Jeremy Hunt on carer's allowance cliff-edge

MSE_Molly_G

MoneySavingExpert.com founder Martin Lewis has grilled the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt on whether he'll fix the "cliff-edge" with carer's allowance that causes people to lose their entitlement when they earn just a penny over the threshold.

Read the full story:

Martin Lewis: 'Chancellor – will you end the awful cliff-edge on carer's allowance that means you earn 1p over £151 and you can lose £80 a week?'

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born_again

A limit is a limit. 
Raise the limit, OK, but you still have the problem.

Once people think they can get away with 1p over it will then be 10p rinse & repeat.

Nice simple system, unlike if they have sliding scale of reduction.

Just thinking about this. It's about policy not entitlement. Sticky at top of section?

HillStreetBlues

A debate about policy, very interesting now there's an up coming election.

gbhxu

For a start CA needs to be at least 35 hours at minimum wage

kaMelo

Might as well seeing as MSE instigated it.

Why just carers allowance when the benefit system is full of cliff edges, especially when, to some extent at least, it has been fixed in that the carers element of UC has no cliff edge on earnings.

gbhxu said:

For a start CA needs to be at least 35 hours at minimum wage

Why would they do that? You may as well employ someone.

Spoonie_Turtle

kaMelo said:

Might as well seeing as MSE instigated it.

…

gbhxu said:

For a start CA needs to be at least 35 hours at minimum wage

Why would they do that? You may as well employ someone.

Employing someone has additional costs - NI, pension contributions, payroll costs, probably liability insurance of some kind (I don't personally know how employing carers works).  A benefit set at 35xNMW would be cheaper.

Note: I'm not commenting any thoughts on the idea of 35xNMW.  Seems like MSE needs a 'news' section on the forum for stuff like this, since it goes against the rules of the board to discuss it.

peteuk

Spoonie_Turtle said:

kaMelo said:

Might as well seeing as MSE instigated it.

…

gbhxu said:

For a start CA needs to be at least 35 hours at minimum wage

Why would they do that? You may as well employ someone.

Employing someone has additional costs - NI, pension contributions, payroll costs, probably liability insurance of some kind (I don't personally know how employing carers works).  A benefit set at 35xNMW would be cheaper.

Note: I'm not commenting any thoughts on the idea of 35xNMW.  Seems like MSE needs a 'news' section on the forum for stuff like this, since it goes against the rules of the board to discuss it.

Equally you dont just employ one person, you have to cover leave, sickness etc… somits minimal of two to look after one person.

Grumpy_chap

MSE_Molly_G said:

fix the "cliff-edge" with carer's allowance

That seems a very narrow question to have asked, given how there are many other "cliff-edges" in the tax and benefits systems, all of which need to be appropriately addressed.
Probably moot for now as there will be a newly elected Government to take this forward one way or another and specific detail matters such as this rarely make it to Manifesto documents and even less likely to make it to the flyers and other communications noticed by the majority of the Electorate.

HillStreetBlues

Grumpy_chap said:

MSE_Molly_G said:

fix the "cliff-edge" with carer's allowance

That seems a very narrow question to have asked, given how there are many other "cliff-edges" in the tax and benefits systems, all of which need to be appropriately addressed.
Probably moot for now as there will be a newly elected Government to take this forward one way or another and specific detail matters such as this rarely make it to Manifesto documents and even less likely to make it to the flyers and other communications noticed by the majority of the Electorate.

I do agree there other "cliff-edges", PIP has them. 7 points no award 8 points gets an award.

Savvy_Sue

The CA cliff edge does seem different to other benefits. If you have fluctuating wages, your UC goes up and down too: if you earn £1 extra, you lose £1 UC.

Whereas CA, you lose THE WHOLE MEAGRE WEEK if you earn an extra £1 in one week. Given that you'll only be working p/t if claiming CA, that's a huge hole in what's probably an already tight budget.

Spoonie_Turtle

Savvy_Sue said:

The CA cliff edge does seem different to other benefits. If you have fluctuating wages, your UC goes up and down too: if you earn £1 extra, you lose £1 UC.

Whereas CA, you lose THE WHOLE MEAGRE WEEK if you earn an extra £1 in one week. Given that you'll only be working p/t if claiming CA, that's a huge hole in what's probably an already tight budget.

The same cliff-edge exists with most other legacy benefits, which is what UC was designed to prevent as far as possible with the taper.

CA is a weird benefit, not fully means-tested and dependant only upon that individual's income.  I guess that's one reason the cliff-edge was acceptable to those who implemented it, because theoretically someone could claim it with a high earning spouse and very high savings. 
But for those who do rely on it (i.e. most people claiming it) - especially as entitlement to it affects other legacy benefits if I understand correctly - that cliff-edge can be dangerous.