scholarly journals Diminishing Returns: Lone Mothers’ Financial Work Incentives and Incomes under the Coalition

2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 569-591 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Kowalewska

Lone mothers in the UK are a key target group of tax-benefit measures designed to ‘make work pay’. This article assesses how the Conservative–Liberal Democrat Coalition's ‘make work pay’ agenda since 2010 has potentially affected single mothers. It calculates two lone mothers’ incomes and incentives for a range of working hours and wage rates under the Coalition and previous New Labour government. While the Coalition's measures substantially improve the lone mothers’ incentives to work in mini-jobs of fewer than sixteen hours, their incentives to work longer are still weak, if not weaker than under Labour. Furthermore, the financial returns to progressing in work begin to diminish once hours exceed just six at average wage and nine at minimum wage. While tougher conditionality may still push many lone parents to work longer, weak labour demand and reduced employment supports could undermine their abilities to meet increased work expectations.

2009 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHRISTINA MOKHTAR ◽  
LUCINDA PLATT

AbstractThis article investigates the ethnic patterning of exit from means-tested benefits in a UK town. Lone parents in the UK face high risks of poverty and high rates of receipt of means-tested, out-of-work benefits. There has been extensive policy concern with lone parents' poverty and with potential ‘welfare dependency’. Investigation of welfare dynamics has unpacked the notion of welfare dependency, and has stimulated policy to better understand the factors associated with longer rather than shorter durations. However, within this analysis, there has been little attention paid to ethnicity. This is despite the fact that the extensive literature on the UK's minority ethnic groups has emphasised diversity in both rates of lone parenthood and risks of poverty. To date we have little understanding of ethnic variation in lone parents' welfare dynamics. Using a data set drawn from administrative records, this article analyses the chances of leaving means-tested benefit for a set of lone mothers in a single town, exploring whether there is variation by ethnic group. We find that, controlling for basic demographic characteristics, there is little evidence to suggest that ethnicity affects the chances of benefit exit, even between groups where rates of lone parenthood are very different.


2009 ◽  
pp. 123-137
Author(s):  
Tess Ridge ◽  
Jane Millar

- Analysis of poverty dynamics based on large-scale survey data shows that there is limited mobility across the income distribution for most individuals and families. Some people may get better-off over the lifecourse, as their careers develop and wages rise, but overall most poor people do not become very rich and most rich people do not become very poor. Lone parents are at high risk of poverty in the UK, but this poverty risk is reduced for those who are in employment and who receive state financial support through Tax Credits to supplement their wages. This article reports on longitudinal qualitative research which has involved repeat interviews with lone mothers and their children over a period of three to four years. The analysis here explores the experiences of sustaining employment while living on a low, but complex, income and highlights the challenges faced in seeking financial security in this context.


2011 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 275-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANTHONY RAFFERTY ◽  
JAY WIGGAN

AbstractWelfare-to-work policy in the UK sees ‘choice’ regarding lone parents’ employment decisions increasingly defined in terms of powers of selection between options within active labour market programmes, with constraints on the option of non-market activity progressively tightened. In this paper, we examine the wider choice agenda in public services in relation to lone-parent employment, focusing on the period following the 2007 Freud Review of welfare provision. (Freud, 2007) Survey data are used to estimate the extent to which recent policies promoting compulsory job search by youngest dependent child age map onto lone parents' own stated decision-making regarding if and when to enter the labour market. The findings indicate a substantial proportion of lone parents targeted by policy reform currently do not want a job and that their main reported reason is that they are looking after their children. Economically inactive lone mothers also remain more likely to have other chronic employment barriers, which traverse dependent child age categories. Some problems, such as poor health, sickness or disability, are particularly acute among those with older dependent children who are the target of recent activation policy.


2005 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 418-430 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis R. Maki

This paper estimates the effect of different minimum wage to average wage ratios among provinces on differences in provincial unemployment rates. The effect is found to be statistically significant, but small in magnitude.


2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Skog ◽  
Susan J. Alexander ◽  
John Bergstrom ◽  
Ken Cordell ◽  
Elizabeth Hill ◽  
...  

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gilbert Cette ◽  
Valérie Chouard ◽  
Gregory Verdugo
Keyword(s):  

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
SHARON WRIGHT ◽  
PETER DWYER

Abstract Universal Credit is the UK’s globally innovative social security reform that replaces six means tested benefits with one monthly payment for working age claimants - combining social security and tax credit systems. Universal Credit expands welfare conditionality via mandatory job search conditions to enhance ‘progression’ amongst working claimants by requiring extra working hours or multiple jobs. This exposes low paid workers to tough benefit sanctions for non-compliance, which could remove essential income indefinitely or for fixed periods of up to three years. Our unique contribution is to establish how this new regime is experienced at micro level by in-work claimants over time. We present findings from Qualitative Longitudinal Research (141 interviews with 58 claimants, 2014-17), to demonstrate how UC impacts on in-work recipients and how conditionality produces a new coerced worker-claimant model of social support. We identify a series of welfare conditionality mismatches and conclude that conditionality for in-work claimants is largely counterproductive. This implies a redesign of the UK system and serves as an international warning to potential policy emulators.


1998 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 351-369 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHAEL NOBLE ◽  
SIN YI CHEUNG ◽  
GEORGE SMITH

This article briefly reviews American and British literature on welfare dynamics and examines the concepts of welfare dependency and ‘dependency culture’ with particular reference to lone parents. Using UK benefit data sets, the welfare dynamics of lone mothers are examined to explore the extent to which they inform the debates. Evidence from Housing Benefits data show that even over a relatively short time period, there is significant turnover in the benefits-dependent lone parent population with movement in and out of income support as well as movement into other family structures. Younger lone parents and owner-occupiers tend to leave the data set while older lone parents and council tenants are most likely to stay. Some owner-occupier lone parents may be relatively well off and on income support for a relatively short time between separation and a financial settlement being reached. They may also represent a more highly educated and highly skilled group with easier access to the labour market than renters. Any policy moves paralleling those in the United States to time limit benefit will disproportionately affect older lone parents.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 30
Author(s):  
Made Ngurah Partha ◽  
Noor Ellyawati ◽  
Komang Ayu Safitri

This research purposes to determine the income of Grabbike drivers in Samarinda during March 2019 and to compare the income toward the City Minimum Wage (UMK) in 2019. This research also intends to know the average and the percentage of Grabbike driver’s income in Samarinda toward the City Minimum Wage (UMK) in 2019. This is a descriptive quantitative research. The populations in this research are 1200 Samarinda Grabbike drivers in 2019 with 120 respondents. Data collection techniques in this research use questionnaires, interviews and documentation. The data analysis technique uses the net income formula; the average and percentage income. The research data and analysis of the Samarinda Grabbike driver’s income in 2019 includes several indicators; the number of working hours and working days. The research results show that the Samarinda Grabbike driver’s net income in March 2019 is Rp. 200,758,204. The percentage comparison between Samarinda Grabbike Driver’s incomes toward the City Minimum Wage (UMK) shows 24 drivers achieving high-level income or 20%, 65 drivers achieving medium-level income or 54.2% and 31 drivers achieving low-level income or 25.8%. The average income of Samarinda Grabbike drivers in March 2019 is Rp. 1,672,985.


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