Watch Iain Duncan Smith’s 2015 party conference speech. In introducing the two-child limit on benefit payments, the then Work and Pensions Secretary said it was about “bringing home to parents the reality that children cost money”. When we say “single parent” we probably mean a single mother. There are 1.8 million lone parents in the UK, a quarter of all households, and nine out of 10 of them are women. Let’s not ignore the huge, unacknowledged role sexism plays in a system designed to impoverish and subjugate, and the stigma that follows. It is assumed that single parents share the same (often negative) characteristics – young, unemployed, naughty, uneducated, overbearing – yet the data shows otherwise. 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 previously married. Single parenthood is a stage of family life and the average time spent as a single parent is five years. Almost 70% of single parents are employed and about half work full-time, a percentage that increases as their child ages. However, regardless of their industry, single parents and their children are at much greater risk of falling below the threshold. Half (49%) now live in relative poverty, double the rate (25%) for two-parent households. Employment chart In 2019, the UN’s special rapporteur on extreme poverty, Philip Alston, published a damning report on the UK government’s austerity programme. It found that it had pushed millions into poverty, that single parents were among those hardest hit by the benefit cuts and that it could appear that “women, particularly poor women, have been deliberately targeted”. These are the policies – and policy failures – that have pushed so many single-parent families into poverty:
Job search rules
Until 2008, single parents in the UK on income replacement benefits were not obliged to look for paid work until their youngest child was 16. This age limit was lowered to 12 years in 2008, 10 years in 2009, seven years in 2010, five years in 2012 and three years in 2017. Now, lone parents are expected to prepare for work when their youngest child is one or two years old and work no more than 16 hours a week (or spend 16 hours a week looking for work) when their youngest child is three or four years old. The penalty for non-compliance is the reduction or loss of benefits in the form of penalties. Unsurprisingly, imposing such strict conditions on single parents negatively affects their mental health and, when the parents’ mental health suffers, it affects the children as well.
Maximum benefits
The ‘benefit cap’ was introduced in 2013 as an absolute limit on benefit levels. The cap 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 cap is lower for people without children). This change was particularly punitive for single parents. By May 2020, 72% of families who had their benefits cut were lone parents. By August 2021, 63% (110,000) of households with their benefits cut were lone-parent families. A further exploration of who is hurt the most by this reveals that just over half of lone parent households have a younger child under the age of five.
Limit of two children
The “two-child limit” was introduced in 2017 as a limit on the number of children in a family who can receive state financial support. (Twins and triplets were not similarly penalized.) This policy is expressly worrisome, as its effects have yet to manifest and already its main impact has been to increase the depth and incidence of child poverty. Currently, 1.1 million children are affected and their families are thousands of pounds a year worse off. This chilling development creates a two-tiered system, separating those children who deserve our support and those who don’t. Limit graph of two children
Age discrimination
A further, less talked about change is that, since universal credit was phased in from 2013, younger lone parents are getting £66.13 less per month compared to earlier claims. This is because people under 25 are entitled to a lower benefit allowance than people aged 25 and over. Before universal credit was introduced, there was an exemption for single parents in recognition of the cost of looking after just one child. Now, this exception has been removed. This means a 20% reduction in income for younger parents. How does a 24-year-old parent need a fifth less income than a 25-year-old?
Child support
Around half of lone parents receive no maintenance at all, according to the Department for Work and Pensions. In 2012, under the Welfare Reform Act, the UK government changed the way it would intervene when non-resident parents – most of whom were fathers – refused to pay. It moved from directly collecting alimony to requiring parents to agree financial arrangements after separation. But such private agreements are not legally enforceable. Some countries guarantee child support by making advance payments to the resident parent and recouping the costs directly. This is why there is a very high proof of child nutrition in countries like Sweden. Children know when a non-resident parent is not complying with payments and are often caught in the middle trying to negotiate the tensions between cash and contact. Where fathers contribute financially, increased participation usually follows.
Outside of England
Devolved states are trying hard to reverse the devastating effects of benefit changes. In April 2022, the Scottish Government announced plans to fully ease the benefit cap in Scotland. It has also introduced a Scottish Child Payment, currently £20 per child per week, paid to all children in a family. In Northern Ireland, families can receive a non-refundable grant of up to £1,500 towards upfront childcare costs. In Wales there is a £51 million Household Support Fund and additional payments to children eligible for free school meals, the Pupil Development Grant. Children in England are left behind to face the most dire conditions. While the material reality of poverty varies from place to place, how it is experienced – as shame – is universal. Single parents face the unique challenge of being the sole caregiver and primary source of household income, often a challenging 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 surely we are smart enough not to be manipulated into giving tacit support to policies that make children suffer.
