maternity leave & universal credit! 😅

does this seem correct? 🤔 i’ve just done a calculation which shows i’d be entitled to £573.49 UC (including child element) & £112.88 Child Benefit whilst i am on maternity leave after baby is born, which added onto my £750 mat leave pay means i’d earn around £1400 a month. this seems like A LOT to me (it’s more than i get working lol) so i’m just not sure? i have no housing costs so not sure if that makes a difference x

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That seems a lot

@🔮Angela🔮 yes i think so too but the workings out make sense! - under 25 standard allowance; £316.98 - child element; £292.81 (deductions from mat pay is £36.30 which means £573.94 total per month of UC) - child benefit; £112.88 per month adding the £750 from mat pay.. all equals £1436 😩

Seems like a usual amount to me 🤷‍♂️

It seems about right to me, that’s why a lot of people don’t go back to work after children so they get to stay home with their families and get just as much as if you was working but it’s all up to each persons preference, me personally I decided to be a stay at home mum on uc so I get be there for all my kids firsts and be present as much as I can as well as being able to support them just as much as I would working ☺️

I lost my UC when my maternity allowance kicked in. Must be dependent on what else you have coming in from a partner etc

Are you sure you get the £573.49 with your £750 Mat Pay. With my first I didn’t get both at the same time.

It could be right, but £1400 is still not alot to live off at all. My wages from my 30hr a week job is more than that, plus my CB, so I'm better off being at work! My half of bills is like 800, that's before anything else of mine

@Ema i thought everyone is entitled to standard allowance & child element?! it can just get wiped out with income depending on how much you earn. i’d be claiming as just myself so the first £630 ish is ignored as no housing costs xx

So I was living with my mum and not yet married at the time. I was on maternity pay and tried to claim UC however they said I wasn’t entitled as I didn’t have any housing costs and they minus the Maternity pay from the UC so I was better off getting maternity pay as it was slightly more than UC. After 39weeks of MP, I then started receiving UC until I started working again. I got child benefit the whole time.

Best to call citizen’s advice

@Ema that doesn’t sound correct at all - you can still claim standard allowance, child element, work allowance (which is higher if you don’t have housing costs) x

Maternity allowance gets calculated as a pound for a pound with universal credit so it gets deducted from your UC. SMP is different and is calculated as an income like your wages from work so you can get UC on top of SMP xx

Like @Stacey has explained, it might be different if you are gona be getting SMP but I was on maternity pay at the time so unfortunately what I said earlier was my situation.

I’m have no housing costs either and I was getting £0-40 a month from UC, like there was basically no point in me claiming. But then again my partner earns a fair wage