MATERNITY ALLOWANCE/ SMP

krazycats3

Why is maternity pay still unfair and poor? My daughters main job is a self employed tattoo artist,and works 10 hours a week as a carer to bring in extra income.so now that she is pregnant she is not allowed to use her self employed status to claim maternity allowance and has to go by the 10 hours she works for,basically meaning her maternity money is going to be based on her 10 hours a week giving her less money than being on maternity allowance! I though maternity was better these days and women could afford to have that important bonding time with their babies before having to return to work,if she had 2 full time jobs she could get smp from both !! Yet again another very unfair system , all new mums deserve to have a bit of time with their new baby without money worries !

DullGreyGuy

krazycats3 said:
Yet again another very unfair system , all new mums deserve to have a bit of time with their new baby without money worries !

Yet the employer has to pay 8% of the SMP and tax payers pay the remaining 92%. The employer also has to pay for the person to cover the person's job whilst they are on maternity leave and as they cannot let the person go for being on maternity that often means having to use more expensive temporary resources. 

I think we can agree it's very unfair but have a very different idea on who is the aggrieved party. 

Marcon

krazycats3 said:

Why is maternity pay still unfair and poor? My daughters main job is a self employed tattoo artist,and works 10 hours a week as a carer to bring in extra income.so now that she is pregnant she is not allowed to use her self employed status to claim maternity allowance and has to go by the 10 hours she works for,basically meaning her maternity money is going to be based on her 10 hours a week giving her less money than being on maternity allowance! I though maternity was better these days and women could afford to have that important bonding time with their babies before having to return to work,if she had 2 full time jobs she could get smp from both !! Yet again another very unfair system , all new mums deserve to have a bit of time with their new baby without money worries !

I entirely agree with you. Maternity pay is certainly better these days, but as you've highlighted, doesn't work to best advantage for everyone. Maybe the time to investigate and plan is before getting pregnant?

chrisbur

Marcon said:

krazycats3 said:

Why is maternity pay still unfair and poor? My daughters main job is a self employed tattoo artist,and works 10 hours a week as a carer to bring in extra income.so now that she is pregnant she is not allowed to use her self employed status to claim maternity allowance and has to go by the 10 hours she works for,basically meaning her maternity money is going to be based on her 10 hours a week giving her less money than being on maternity allowance! I though maternity was better these days and women could afford to have that important bonding time with their babies before having to return to work,if she had 2 full time jobs she could get smp from both !! Yet again another very unfair system , all new mums deserve to have a bit of time with their new baby without money worries !

I entirely agree with you. Maternity pay is certainly better these days, but as you've highlighted, doesn't work to best advantage for everyone. Maybe the time to investigate and plan is before getting pregnant?

Or before the eight weeks used to calculate entitlement/rate of SMP.  Do extra overtime if available to increase average or in the above case see if you can take some unpaid leave so you do not qualify for SMP.

TELLIT01

Self employed people are broadly expected to provide for their own 'support' in the event of illness or inability to work.  Fair or not, that is the system.