If we can judge a society by how it treats its weakest members, then a special kind of judgment should be reserved for a society that deliberately weakens some of its members. For more than a decade of austerity, successive Conservative governments have fanned the flames of shame surrounding single parents and used the benefit system to increase financial pressure on their already vulnerable families.
Take Iain Duncan Smith’s 2015 party conference speech. Introducing the two-child limit on benefits, the then Minister of Labor and Pensions said it was about “bringing home to parents the reality that children cost money”.
When we say “single mother” we probably mean single mother. There are 1.8 million single parents in the UK, a quarter of all households, and nine out of 10 are women. Let us not neglect the enormous and unrecognized role that sexism plays in a system designed to impoverish and subdue, and in the stigma that arises later.
Single parents are supposed to share the same (often negative) characteristics — young, unemployed, irresponsible, uneducated, hyperfertile — but the data show the opposite. The average age of a single parent is 39 years and less than 1% of them are teenagers. More than half (55%) have only one child and almost half have been married before. Single parenting is a stage of family life and the average length of time as a single parent is five years. Nearly 70% of single parents are employed and about half work full-time, a rate that increases as their child’s age increases. However, despite their industry, single parents and their children are at a much higher risk of falling below the limit. Half (49%) now live in relative poverty, double the rate (25%) of single-parent households.
Employment table
In 2019, the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty, Philip Alston, released a report on the British government’s austerity program. He found that he had pushed millions into poverty, that single parents were among those most affected by benefit cuts, and that it might seem that “women, especially poor women, have been intentionally attacked.”
These are the policies, and political failures, that have pushed so many single-parent families into poverty:
Job search rules
Until 2008, single parents in the UK with income-replacement benefits were not required to look for paid work until their young child turned 16 years old. This age limit was reduced to 12 years in 2008, 10 years in 2009, seven years in 2010, five years in 2012 and three years in 2017. Single parents are now expected to prepare for work when they are the youngest. small. the child is one or two years old and working a maximum of 16 hours per week (or devoting 16 hours per week to looking for work) when their young child is three or four years old. The sanction for non-compliance is the reduction or loss of benefits in the form of sanctions. It is not surprising that imposing such strict conditions on single parents negatively affects their mental health and, when the mental health of parents suffers from it, so does that of their children.
Benefit limit
The “profit cap” was introduced in 2013 as an absolute cap on profit levels. The limit was initially set at £ 26,000, then reduced to £ 23,000 for families in Greater London and £ 20,000 for families elsewhere, regardless of the number of children in a family. (The lid is lower for people without children). This change has been especially punitive for single parents. As of May 2020, 72% of families with limited benefits were single parents. As of August 2021, 63% (110,000) of households with limited benefits were single-parent families. A more detailed examination of who hurts the most reveals that just over half of all single-parent households with boundaries have a child under five.
Limit of two children
The “two-child limit” was introduced in 2017 as a limit to the number of children in a family who can receive financial support from the government. (Twins and twins were not penalized in the same way.) This policy is expressly worrying, as its full effects have not yet occurred and its main impact has already been to increase the depth and incidence of child poverty. Currently, 1.1 million children are affected and their families suffer thousands of pounds a year worse. This creepy development creates a two-tier system, which separates children who deserve our support from those who are not.
Two-child boundary graph
Age discrimination
Another, less discussed, change is that since the gradual introduction of universal credit from 2013 onwards, younger single parents receive £ 66.13 less per month compared to older claimants. This is because people under the age of 25 are entitled to a benefit allowance lower than people aged 25 and over. Before universal credit was introduced, there was an exemption for single parents in recognition of the cost of caring for an only child. Now, this exemption has been removed. This means a 20% reduction in income for younger parents. How does a 24-year-old father need one-fifth less income than a 25-year-old?
Child maintenance
According to the Department of Labor and Pensions, about half of single parents receive no child support. In 2012, under the Welfare Reform Act, the UK government changed the way it intervened when non-resident parents, mostly parents, refused to pay. He went from collecting child support directly to requiring parents to agree to post-separation financial agreements between them. But these private agreements are not legally enforceable. Some countries guarantee child support by making advance payments to resident parents and recovering the cost directly. That is why there is a very high child support bill in countries like Sweden. Children know when a non-resident parent is not making payments and often get stuck in the middle trying to negotiate tensions between cash and contact. When parents contribute financially, greater involvement usually occurs.
Outside England
Decentralized nations strive to reverse the harmful impacts of benefit changes. In April 2022, the Scottish government announced plans to fully mitigate the benefit limit in Scotland. It has also introduced a payment per Scottish child, currently £ 20 per child per week, to be paid to all children in a family. In Northern Ireland, families can receive a non-refundable grant of up to £ 1,500 for the initial costs of caring for children. In Wales, there is a £ 51 million home support fund and additional payments to children who can receive free school meals, the student development scholarship. Children in England are left behind to face the most serious circumstances.
While the material reality of poverty differs from place to place, the way it is experienced — as a shame — is universal. Single parents face the unique challenge of being the sole caregivers and the main source of household income, often a difficult balancing act. They have to fulfill the responsibilities of both parents, which can be a relentless, exhausting role, made worse by discrimination. Stigma and shame are useful tools of government, but we are certainly smart enough not to be manipulated to tacitly support policies that make children suffer.