Parents struggling to make ends meet

Nearly two-thirds of families with children need both parents to work just to make ends meet, research showed today.

Around 60 per cent of households with children are reliant on having two salaries in order to pay their bills, according to insurer Scottish Widows.

The figure is nearly twice the 36 per cent of families that do not have dependent children that are reliant on two salaries.

Families with children are also accruing increasing levels of debt as they struggle to make ends meet.

The average household with dependent children owes £8,653 in short-term debt, such as credit cards and loans, compared with £7,003 for households without children.

Families with children also typically have higher mortgages, with an average of £91,648 still outstanding on their home loan, £3,000 more than when the same research was carried out a year earlier.

By contrast, families without children had paid down their mortgage by around £4,000 during the previous 12 months, to leave them owing an average of £77,500.

Clive Allison, protection director at Scottish Widows, said: “The days of one parent going out to work while the other takes care of the family is just not an option for many people.

“More than half of families with dependent children now rely on two incomes to maintain a decent standard of living, and as our statistics show, this isn’t likely to ease off any time soon.

“For many families, sacrificing half their income when they have children is a luxury they just can’t afford.”

Taken from The Independent

Lone parents told to work – or face fine

Hard-hearted Welfare Reform Minister Jim Knight has steamrollered ahead with plans to fine lone parents who refuse “work-related activity.”

Despite a revolt by 22 Labour MPs, Mr Knight pushed through a harsh proposal to curb benefit payments to single parents whose youngest child is three years old or over.

Labour MP John Grogan attacked the tough new rule as “mean-spirited” as he joined rebels backing a Lords amendment to the bitterly controversial Welfare Reform Bill.

Mr Grogan urged the minister to relent “even at this late stage and in the spirit of Christmas, which is soon to be upon us.”

Wide-ranging workfare-style measures and benefit cuts proposed in the Bill are now certain to pass into law.

Tuesday night’s backbench revolt was a last stand by Labour opponents in the final stages of the Bill, but the government won the vote by 286 votes to 236.

Rebels backed an amendment to raise from three to five the age that children must reach before their parents are liable to benefit sanctions for failing to undertake work-related activity.

Labour MP Diane Abbott remarked acidly that ministers should be grateful that “nowadays the proceedings of the House of Commons are not properly reported.”

She added: “If ordinary Labour members and supporters could hear Labour ministers talking about imposing financial sanctions on women with three-year-old children to get them into notional jobs in the middle of a very real recession, they would be shocked and unhappy.”

Mr Knight insisted that parents would not be required to take up actual employment until their youngest child was aged seven.

Those with children over three years old would be required to undertake activities such as training and help with literacy and numeracy.

Taken from Morning Star